Brussels looks set to bypass Hungary’s block on the €90 million “aid” package via accounting shenanigans
By Rachel Marsden, a columnist, political strategist, and host of independently produced talk-shows in French and English.
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/authors/rachel-marsden/rachelmarsden.com
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky © Sean Gallup / Getty Images
[RT] Hungarian
Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky have
a little something for the ladies for Women’s History Month. They’re
apparently going to spend the entire time beaking each other off on the
global stage. Get your wads of bills ready to toss, girls! Especially
you, Queen Ursula.
Let’s peek in, shall we?
Orban says he’s
already on the verge of pulling out his tool. Guess we missed the part
where they play footsie under the table first. “We have no military force for this, I can reassure everyone that this is not part of our plans. But we have political and financial tools,” the Hungarian PM said,
in demanding that Zelensky open the tap on the Druzhba pipeline of
Russian oil to Hungary that represents the landlocked country’s critical
supply.
Orban has said he has no interest in taking his foot off
the firehose of cash that the EU has been blasting out on itself and
whatever else it has going on in the land of golden toilets amid the fog
of war – all under the pretext of helping Ukraine, of course.
“We hope that one person in the European Union will not block 90 billion or the first tranche of 90 billion, and that Ukrainian soldiers will have weapons” Zelensky said.“Otherwise, we will give the address of this person to our Armed Forces, to our lads. Let them call him and talk to him in their own language.”
Who could that “one person” possibly be? In any case, guess he’ll either be getting an email, or maybe a visit, depending on what the word “address”
actually means here. Or maybe just a phone call with a bunch of guys
breathing heavily down the line in a foreign language. Hard to tell.
Zelensky, an actor, could probably use a better scriptwriter for his
Godfather-style lines. Or maybe just drop a dead rat in the mail next
time and skip the public speculation.
The EU brass has told these two lovebirds to pipe down. But it really
isn’t in Zelensky’s interest to do that. And Brussels seems to be
making sure of it. If only because emerging info suggests that Zelensky
is on the verge of ensuring that he gets rewarded for playing hard to
get.
There are two possibilities shaping up. Either Orban feels
enough pressure to drop his veto of the EU’s latest €90 million spending
package in order to get the gas flowing during this heated Hungarian
election period. An unlikely scenario given that his more pro-EU
opponent in the April 12 national vote has left very little daylight
between him and Orban on the issue of the need for Zelensky to restart
the pipeline.
Or, alternatively, Orban can double down and
maintain his insistence, leaving Brussels with a new convenient pretext,
since it’s being reported by Bloomberg that Brussels is considering the
possibility of basically bribing Zelensky with EU money to “fix” the pipeline.
What’s
that repair going to cost? Oh, let me guess – €90 billion, perhaps? And
are European defense contractors also going to be involved in these “repairs”?
Will they require golden toilets in the outhouses on-site? In which
case, it’s not hard to see that it could end up serving as the ultimate
workaround for much of same spending that’s being blocked by Orban –
just rebranded as something that he couldn’t possibly pass up. What’s he
going to do – block funding to Ukraine earmarked as “aid” meant to ensure that his Druzhba demands to get the oil flowing to Hungary are met?
No
one seems to care too much anymore about whether the repair issue
itself is even legitimate. Orban had proposed a fact-finding mission.
Zelensky was like, bro, you don’t hear me asking to go peek into your
closet to see if you have any weapons for me when you say that you
don’t. Not the best analogy.
A better one would be to compare Ukraine to the local charity that
asks whether you have old clothes to donate – and then insists on
rummaging through your drawers to make sure that you’re not holding out.
And Hungary’s request of Kiev is like ordering a pizza (from Russia, in
this case), paying for it, watching the delivery guy arrive – and then
the building’s security guard, let’s call him Vladimir Z., stands in the
lobby eating slices and saying, “Sorry man, delivery seems to be delayed. Nothing I can do.” Or paying for express shipping and the mailman just keeps your package in his truck while telling you, “Yeah the postal system is slow these days. Really unfortunate.”
Slovak
Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose equally landlocked country also
relies on the pipeline, has appeared in public with a handful of
receipts, arguing that Zelensky is full of it, and brandishing what he
says are satellite images of the intact pipeline proving his point. Of
course, there’s also the possibility that the damage is invisible to the
naked eye. Not all disabilities are visible, bigots.
Which leaves Brussels in an awkward spot. If the pipeline really does need “repairs,”
then someone will have to fund them. And if that funding just happens
to look suspiciously like the same €90 billion that Orban is blocking,
well — that’s simply the miracle of European accounting.
In
Brussels, problems have a funny way of turning into budgets. And when
keeping a pipeline closed starts looking like it might trigger a bidding
war to reopen it, suddenly turning the valve free of charge becomes the
least attractive option.
Which may explain why Zelensky recently admitted at a press conference: “To be honest, I wouldn’t restore it.”