European leaders have agreed: Hungary will receive a large sum of money for military development, and the Hungarian military industry will receive many orders, They also mumbled something about Ukraine – this was the part of the council conclusions that Viktor Orbán vetoed, writes Matthias Kohan for Mandiner. 

The two European leaders who have been calling for a common European army, the strengthening of the European defense industry, and the continent’s strategic autonomy for the longest time and most loudly, spectacularly achieved this goal at an extraordinary summit in Brussels on Thursday evening.

The defense package adopted on Thursday is the best thing the European Union has done since bringing Apple to its knees and introducing mandatory uniform USB-C: The continent is finally standing on its heels, taking responsibility for its military self-defense, acting as a sovereign power, and laying out a realistic plan for how it intends to raise the massive sums of money needed for armaments.

Very simply: By removing the military spending of the member states from the scope of the 3 percent maximum budget deficit target, i.e. while maintaining their solvency, the EU member states will spend as much on military development as they do not borrow. Within the foreseeable future, no one – including Hungary – will have to fear an excessive deficit procedure, and the pressure on the member states from Brussels will ease. At the same time, a credit line of 150 billion euros – important: not a joint loan! – will also be opened for the member states for the purpose of military development, and they will also ensure that Europe does not spend the colossal sums spent on defense on our economic competitors, but rather uses it to build its own defense industry.

This is a triple victory for Hungary: We will be freed from the horror of the excessive deficit procedure, fresh EU money will be available for a good cause – and guess what impact the hyperspace leap in the scale of European defense investments will have on the industry of the country to which the German military industry has systematically evacuated its production capacities in recent years.

27 countries, including Hungary, committed to the defense package, which even includes the work of the Hungarian presidency’s specialist diplomats. European unity came forward – not for its own sake, not for the sake of virtue signaling, but for an important and good cause.

Oh, and I almost forgot: European leaders also mumbled something about Ukraine.

This was the part of the Council conclusions that Viktor Orbán vetoed (Robert Fico did not, Slovakia was essentially bought off with a handkerchief calling on Ukraine to resolve the gas dispute). Not because it was terrible as a whole, it was the first EU statement that took a cautiously optimistic view of Trump’s peace efforts – but because it simply could not omit the few fist-shaking sentences, completely incomprehensible in the current geopolitical situation, that Europe would indeed provide “increased political, financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support” to Ukraine, “increase pressure on Russia”, and “weaken Russia’s ability to maintain the war through further sanctions and stricter enforcement of current measures.”

Hungary has no business being among the signatories of such an anachronism.

Let him who has failed, weep for his failure – this was not Hungary’s policy. And it is no longer the West’s; no wonder that no one but the unity fetishists and true believers in the EU are really interested in EU statements on Ukraine anymore.

And it seems that this also applies to the wavering EU membership: Only the Hungarian leadership asks the people (via a planned referendum).

In any case, unity has been established behind the great steps taken in a good cause, and now we can hear irrelevant political “noises” about Ukraine. Ad multos annos, many more like this – a grateful thank you on behalf of the domestic military industry!