There are many points of conflict that EU heads of state and government must find a solution to at the summit on Thursday. Accession of Ukraine, Moldova and the Balkans, increase in the multi-annual budget with funds for Kiev and migration. President Giorgia Meloni and EU leaders arrived in Brussels to attend the summit with the six Balkan countries. The focus is entirely on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his veto against the start of EU negotiations and economic and military support for Kiev. The European Commission, at a suspicious moment, released 10.2 billion of cohesion funds for Hungary for the reforms carried out in the justice sector, but decided to maintain the budget conditionality mechanism for the rule of law and freeze the other 21 billion from the Pnrr and 6.3 billion from other cohesion programs. Although the leaders of the majority parties in the European Parliament have called on the Commission President not to concede anything to the Hungarian leader, an initial signal has been sent. “It will be a complex and difficult summit and we will work day and night to preserve European unity,” said European Council President Charles Michel, who is also preparing the negotiating drafts for the budget review. In the latest text, the funding for migration would increase from 12.5 to 8.2, but the measure would definitely be satisfactory for Italy.
The Commission's initial proposal to increase the 2021-2027 budget by 66 billion would have resulted in an increase in Italy's contribution of about two billion more per year compared to what the country already pays. Given the findings of the General Accounting Office, Italy also initially expected an interest in reducing the numbers on the eve of the return of the Stability Pact rules. On the other hand, in the area of migration, the government uses the results of the European Commission, which, as with every European Council, reports to the heads of state and government on the measures taken. President von der Leyen's letter even contains an “endorsement” of the Italy-Albania agreement, which is seen as an example of lateral thinking. However, a few hours later, the Albanian Constitutional Court suspended the ratification process in parliament, accepted two appeals from 30 opposition parliamentarians and set the hearing for January 18. With accession, the front of lukewarm countries could expand beyond Hungary and Austria. Some want to enforce the principle that if there are no funds for national needs, there should be none for Ukraine either. Italy, on the other hand, is aiming to start accession negotiations with Bosnia-Herzegovina. “The European Council is ready to start accession negotiations with Bosnia-Herzegovina as soon as the necessary level of compliance with the accession criteria has been achieved,” says the latest draft conclusions, which also talk about accelerating the entire process in the Balkans. At the summit, Donald Tusk made his grand return as the new Polish Prime Minister, who chaired the meeting of EU heads of state and government as President of the European Council from 2014 to 2019. “Poland is back in Europe, this is the most important moment of.” “My political life has not been easy,” he said upon his arrival for the EU-Western Balkans summit. “My task,” he added, “is to strengthen Europe's resolve and convince the Allies that the most important thing for Europe is to effectively support Ukraine.” Another battlefield could be the Middle East. This morning, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza in a speech to the plenary session of Parliament. Here too the positions are very different. This is shown by the votes of the EU states in the UN General Assembly on the resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire: Austria and the Czech Republic spoke out against it, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Romania and Slovakia spoke out against it. They abstained and the others voted in favor.