New European Parliament affirms support for Ukraine

This article was originally published in Italian

The non-legislative resolution was adopted by a large majority: 495 votes in favour, 137 against and 47 abstentions. It reaffirms the European commitment to support Ukraine politically, economically and militarily,as long as necessary to ensure victory against the Russian invasion“.

So far, the EU and its Member States have provided Ukraine with a total amount of approximately 95 billion eurosa third of which will be in the form of military aid. They also support lifting restrictions on the use of Western weapons supplied to Ukraine for strike military targets on Russian territory.

“Orbán, Putin’s agent”

The resolution also condemns the recent visit to Moscow of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbánwho holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in what he called a “peace mission“.

However, the European Parliament sees it rather as a “flagrant violation of EU treaties and common foreign policy“, which, among other things, did not produce any appreciable results.

“Such behaviour is a clear violation of the treaties“, explain Andrius Kubilius, Lithuanian MEP from the European People’s Partyto Euronews.But, of course, from a political point of view, I think this is a big mistake on Orbán’s part. It shows not only that he does not follow the EU’s goals and rules, but also that he behaves like an agent of Putin.“

According to the resolution, the violation of the rules should lead to repercussions for Hungary, accused by the hemicycle, among others, of having “abused its veto power to prevent essential aid from being provided to Ukraine“.

Radical right and left opposed

Support for Ukraine divides radical right groups. European Conservatives and Reformists promoted the resolution, voting overwhelmingly in favour of it, with the exception of a few defections. The Group of Patriots for Europe (including the League) and theEurope of sovereign nationson the other hand, voted against.

The Belgian MEP Tom Vandendriessche, of the Flemish sovereignist party Vlaams Belangexplained his delegation’s position in these terms: “We want the killings to stop, and for that, I think one of the elements is dialogue and diplomacy. We need to start a dialogue with all the actors involved: Orbán is not only talking to Zelensky, but also to Putin, Xi Jinping and, in the United States, to Biden and Trump… I think it is necessary to have a dialogue to try to achieve the desired result, which is to stop the killings and bring peace to this country.”

Other opponents include many non-attached MPs, part of the left-wing group (including MPs from the 5 Star Movement), and three MPs from the Alliance of Greens and the Left, dissidents from the Greens/EFA group.