Several European states are refusing to help Ukraine financially anymore, according to a website that has published numerous anti-Ukrainian or conspiratorial materials.
Fake news defended by fake news creators
NEWS: "To cover up in the media the failure of the approval of the 50-billion-euro program for Kyiv, the leader of the European Council, Charles Miches, tried to give assurances that Ukraine remains an "EU priority". [...] However, beyond the pro-Ukrainian enthusiasm - which has also faded in the meantime - the big problem is that, regarding the aid of 50 billion euros over four years for Kyiv, the EU leaders have NOT reached an agreement. The big surprise is that not only Hungary and Slovakia opposed it, as was predictable from the beginning. According to the sources cited by the Ukrainian publication Strana - usually highly informed – the EU aid for Ukraine was also opposed by Belgium, as well as other Eastern European states. Will Romania be among them? Are we going to be that bold, now at the eleventh hour, just when we signed a "strategic partnership" with Ukraine?
NARRATIVE: An increasing number of European states refuse to agree to the continuation of the financial aid for Ukraine, reconsidering their official position towards the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
CONTEXT: Since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the European Union as a whole, but also its member states, individually, have offered Ukraine and the Ukrainian people financial aid worth over 77 billion euros, consisting of economic assistance, support for the refugees within the EU, military support and assistance through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism. At the same time, however, the EU is also planning a financial aid for the reconstruction of Ukraine after the war. It is obvious that as long as the war continues, it is impossible to know with precision what the total costs related to the reconstruction of Ukraine will be, but nevertheless it is important that the main building blocks of this international effort be conceived now. As a result, in the summer of this year, the European Commission proposed the establishment of a new mechanism to support the recovery, reconstruction and modernization of Ukraine, which will provide Kyiv with coherent and predictable support for the period 2024-2027, worth up to 50 billion euros in the form of grants and loans.
Strana, the "highly informed" source of the analyzed material, is a publication often associated with Russian propaganda and information warfare of Muscovite origin. As a rule, the articles published on the Strana website are, in fact, simple reproductions of those published on the portals of Russian press agencies and publications, such as RIA Novosti, Russia Today or TASS. According to Ukraine's media watchdog, Strana is one of the top five most untrustworthy media sites in Ukraine, often resorting to hate speech and manipulative and distorted headlines. For this reason, in August 2021, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine decided to impose sanctions against Ihor Huzhva, the editor-in-chief of Strana, also blocking access to the strana.ua website. However, after only a few days, it reappeared under a different domain, .news
PURPOSE: To promote anti-Ukrainian and, by extension, anti-Western discourse, to amplify pro-Russian sentiments and, at the same time, discourage the Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression.
The “failure” of an election that did not take place
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: From the beginning we must say that the approval of the financial assistance program for Ukraine was not a failure, for the simple reason that it has not yet been voted by the European Council. Instead, the mechanism, called “Ukraine Facility” was approved by the European Parliament two weeks ago, with an overwhelming majority, 512 votes in favor, 63 abstentions and only 45 votes against. Following this result, the final content of the mechanism will be able to be negotiated within the European Council and become subject to final approval in the December vote, for the future EU budget. Until then, debates are taking place in various meetings at EU level, in which the member states present and defend their "amendments" to the union budget. This is what the statements of the Prime Ministers of Hungary and Slovakia were also about, and the two officials didn’t by any means announce their refusal to vote positively for the program, but expressed their reservations regarding the current form of the budget and the destination of the funds included in it.
Therefore, Viktor Orbán's statement that Hungary will not support aid for Ukraine without "very well-justified arguments", is in fact a form of blackmail for unlocking the 13 billion euro worth of aid for Budapest, blocked by the European Commission due to issues related to the rule of law in Hungary. Moreover, at the end of the statement, the Hungarian Prime Minister left the door to negotiations wide open, saying that "we will see where we end up in December". At the same time, the Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico, declared himself reserved about granting new military aid to Ukraine, stressing that his country would focus on providing humanitarian aid and would no longer support Kyiv militarily.
Regarding Belgium's stand, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo confirmed full support for Ukraine, but called on the Commission for a more effective management of EU funds , unrelated to the mechanism for Ukraine: "We ask the Commission and other institutions to look at their own funds and to funds that are not fully used, instead of asking Member States for higher contributions." At the same time, Greece asked for more money to support its efforts to strengthen its external borders and reduce illegal migration from the Middle East and Africa, and Ireland asked to add to the list of budget priorities investments in increasing the competitiveness of European products, also without mentioning the financial assistance for Kyiv.
All these points of view do not show a refusal of financial aid to Ukraine, but only the desire of each member state to benefit from as many funds as possible from the EU budget and to make the expenses provided for in it more efficient, a fact also noted by the President of the Council, Charles Michel, who said that the EU countries reached a “general consensus” , expressing hope that the draft budget would be approved by the end of the year. It will be discussed again in the coming months, and an official decision is to be announced in the near future.
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