EU-27 minus one renews support for Ukraine, keeps Slovakia in line on sanctions

Brussels – Again, regarding Ukraine, the Twenty-seven become Twenty-six. It is a “strategic disagreement” with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, EU sources reiterate. The strongman from Budapest has long put his foot down on opening the negotiating clusters to bring Kyiv into the twelve-star club. That requires unanimity, so the path to membership is at a standstill.

“The problem is war,” reiterated the Hungarian Prime Minister this morning (26 June), arriving for the European Council in Brussels. “If we integrate Ukraine into the EU, we would also integrate the war,” he reasoned. And if the war ended? Orbán doesn’t even want to think about it: “There is no ceasefire,” he cuts it short, so there is no point in fantasizing about it. And he boasts the result of what he calls a “referendum” (actually a questionnaire sent out to citizens, with no legal value) on Kyiv’s entry into the European club: of the just over 2 million responses, 95 percent were against, he says.

❌ The Hungarian people have spoken: 95% said NO to dragging Ukraine into the EU! ❌

They said NO to war, NO to economic ruin, and NO to Brussels’ delusions. With over 2 million votes cast, we’re taking our people’s mandate for peace and common sense to Brussels. –  pic.twitter.com/PaD0jQqBfy –Viktor Orbán (@PM_ViktorOrban) June 26, 2025

So, the Twenty-Seven approved extremely slim conclusions, which refer to a separate document approved by 26 member states to renew their support for the aggrieved country. As usual, there is support for achieving an unconditional and immediate truce and a just and lasting peace, for continuing to provide military aid to Kyiv, and for maintaining pressure on Vladimir Putin‘s Russia.

Before the discussion, the heads of state and government had an online exchange with Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian president was supposed to attend the summit in person, but the heavy Russian bombing forced him to stay at home. The dramatic situation in Kyiv then led to a further change in the schedule before the start of the summit, causing the agenda item to shift from the morning to the afternoon.

The debate between the leaders was rather swift, but the hurdle that created some problems around the table was the sanctions against Moscow. The Commission has been working on the 18th package, which aims to hit, in particular, the Federation’s energy exports and its shadow fleet.

Some details are still being ironed out, starting with the lowering of the ceiling on Moscow’s crude oil price from the current $60 to $45 per barrel — a measure that, in reality, should have been decided at the G7, which originally set the oil price cap.

It is not entirely clear what will happen to that “detail.” Still, for now, the president of the European Council, António Costa, has managed to circumvent the potential veto of Slovak prime minister Robert Fico (concerned about the stop to Russian gas inflows) by inserting a generic mention to the inclusion, in the next round of sanctions, of “measures aimed at further hitting the energy revenues” of the Kremlin.

In the end, everyone was happy: Costa brought home the unity of the “27 minus one” (if one can speak of unity), the Bratislava premier did not allow himself to be cornered by his counterparts, and Ursula von der Leyen kept an open window to continue fine-tuning the details of sanctions on Moscow’s oil.