Europe finds €50bn for Ukraine, and a way around Viktor Orban

IT OFTEN TAKESEUEU EU summits lasting well into the night for the ’s 27 national leaders to agree to anything. On February 1st it took just an hour or so to approve €50bn ($54bn) in aid for Ukraine, as part of an update to the bloc’s budget. The swiftly agreed deal is a welcome fillip for authorities in Kyiv that desperately need the money, though it will be spread out over the next four years. Its unexpectedly smooth approval also exposes the limits of the influence wielded by Viktor Orban, the autocratic Hungarian prime minister who had promised to block further support for Ukraine.Ukraine faces a budget shortfall of over $40bn this year, thanks to sky-high military spending and war-depressed tax revenues. Support from America would have helped, but has to partisan squabbling—making support from the all the more crucial. The bloc’s leaders, including Emmanuel Macron of France and Olaf Scholz of Germany, had hoped to secure agreement on the aid to Ukraine at a summit in December. But Mr Orban vetoed it (though he did allow Ukraine to to become an EU member one day).