Brussels prepares for a politically explosive month of December

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Before they begin their coveted winter break, European leaders and policymakers face a busy month of politically explosive decisions that are expected to lay bare the divisions of old age and open new scars.

Next week the Schengen applications of Romania and Bulgaria will begin, two countries that have been waiting for more than a decade at the gates of the passport-free area. For both countries, the question of Schengen membership is deeply emotional, as continued exclusion creates the impression of a discriminatory two-tier Europe. The European Commission, the European Parliamentand an almost unanimous majority of Member States gave their strong support to their joint candidacy.

But Austria’s notoriously inflexible opposition remains an obstacle. The country has clung to the idea that Schengen, due to the continued arrival of irregular migrants into the bloc and the reimposition of border controls, has ceased to function. Any expansion at present is therefore undesirable in the eyes of Vienna.

The original plan was to hold a vote on the applications on Tuesday (December 5), but stagnant progress has significantly reduced ambition. Instead, interior ministers will simply take note of the “state of affairs”. The absence of a formal vote, however, risks fanning the flames. Romania has already threatened legal action against Austria over its blockade, while Bulgaria compared the impasse to be taken “hostage”.

“There is no easy solution. Unanimity is unanimity. And it is not there yet,” a senior diplomat said before the occasion.

Days later, economy and finance ministers will meet for a new attempt to conclude the hotly contested reform of the EU’s budgetary rules. The decisive meeting was supposed to be preceded by a Franco-German compromise to pave the way for a decisive agreement. But Germany’s three-party coalition is currently struggling to contain a crisis that continues to worsen after the ruling by the country’s Constitutional Court. struck a special fund of 60 billion euros for climate projects. A worrying preview for financial negotiations.

Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Councilor Charles Michel are due to travel to Beijing for their long-awaited EU-China summit. Both parties wish to restore their bilateral relations and ease latent tensions dating back to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bridging the chasm, however, will be a daunting task. Von der Leyen warned that China would become “more repressive at home and more assertive abroad” and promoted the strategy of “risk reduction” to reduce unwanted dependencies. In turn, Beijing slammed “Harm reduction” is seen as poorly disguised protectionism designed to meet America’s radical interests.

Back in Brussels, European leaders will be summoned for a two-day summit where the stakes could not be higher. Heads of state and government will be asked to decide whether they wish to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, following the positive evaluation published by the European Commission in October. Both countries are eager to begin this process, which is extremely complex and may take years to complete – if it ever does.

The agenda will also include Balance sheet at 100 billion euros of the EU budget, which includes €50 billion in grants and loans to create the Ukraine Facility and provide the war-torn country with predictable, long-term support. This objective becomes increasingly urgent as the country faces a budget deficit of almost 40 billion euros for next year, a huge deficit which can only be filled by liquidity injections from the Western allies. The bloc has so far provided Ukraine with regular tranches of financial aid, but the current 18 billion euro package is expected to dry up between January and February, with no replacement in sight.

Agreeing on accession negotiations and a budget supplement at the same summit was never going to be an easy task. But the latest developments suggest this may prove insurmountable.

In a recent letter to Charles Michel, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán threatened to derail the EU’s entire policy towards Ukraine, including macro-financial assistance and sanctions against Russia, unless leaders agree to have a “strategic discussion” on the issue. (It is important to note that EU leaders have been discussing Ukraine intensively since at least February 2022.)

Yet Orbán’s decision was threatening enough to force Michel to fly to Budapest earlier this week and having in-person talks with the prime minister, which lasted more than two hours and included a “substantial” conversation about the letter, according to a senior EU official. While Orbán has been accused in the past of demagoguery and then backtracking, the language used in the letter, coupled with a new eurosceptic campaign aimed directly at Ursula von der Leyen, signals an increasingly emboldened strongman determined to exercise his veto until all her demands are met.

It is by pure coincidence that the European Commission prepares to adopt a decision in mid-December to release up to €10 billion in cohesion funds for Hungary, which the country was refused due to ongoing rule of law concerns . The move will be welcomed by Orbán, who has repeatedly attacked Brussels for what he calls “financial blackmail”. However, Hungary will still have €11.7 billion in frozen cohesion funds, as well as its crippled €10.4 billion post-Covid recovery plan.

“Of course, the few euros they owe us will be recovered,” Orbán said in November.

More is coming: December will also see a new round of negotiations on the artificial intelligence law and the new pact on migration and asylum, two key pieces of legislation that the bloc has committed to concluding before the 2024 elections. Also coming: a summit with the Western Balkans, the possible return of Donald Tusk as Polish Prime Minister and, possibly, the highly anticipated proposal tax Russian assets tied up to finance the reconstruction of Ukraine.

A shorter version of this article was originally published in The Briefing, Euronews’ weekly newsletter on European politics. Subscribe here.