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EU leaders on Thursday put on a show of solidarity with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a summit designed as a riposte to the hostile treatment of him by the Trump administration in the US.
Five days after the Ukrainian president was kicked out of the White House following a clash with President Donald Trump that led to the US suspending military aid and intelligence support to Kyiv, Zelenskyy was promised “enduring” support by all but one of the bloc’s leaders. They also pledged to increase their own defence capabilities in the face of an uncertain transatlantic bond.
Hungary’s pro-Russian premier Viktor Orbán refused to support a joint statement of support, forcing the other 26 leaders to issue a text. The split underscores the significant geopolitical shift created by Trump’s embrace of Russia.
“Dear Volodymyr, we have been with you since day one,” said António Costa, who as European Council president chaired the leaders’ summit. “We continue to be with you now, and we will continue in the future.”
Zelenskyy, who joined the EU leaders for lunch, said afterwards: “It is very important that Ukrainians are not alone. We feel it and know it.”
The leaders, with the exception of Orbán, agreed a statement that called for Ukraine and Europe to be involved in any negotiations about the future of Ukraine. Trump has opened bilateral peace talks with Russia that do not involve Kyiv or Brussels.
On Thursday, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said that the White House was in talks to arrange a meeting with a Ukrainian delegation in Saudi Arabia to agree a framework for “a peace agreement and an initial ceasefire”.
The joint EU statement also nods to increased military support for Ukraine and the readiness of EU states to “contribute to security guarantees based on their respective competences and capabilities” to a post-conflict state.
Orbán has said that Trump’s stance on the war means the EU’s support for Ukraine needs to change.
“It doesn’t matter in what form we state our support for Ukraine, just that we do,” said one diplomat involved in the talks. “At this particular juncture, it would be disastrous not to.”
A separate statement, agreed by all 27 EU leaders, endorsed new defence funding initiatives proposed by the commission. These include changes to the bloc’s debt and deficit rules to exempt an increase in defence spending, and an instrument that would provide €150bn in loans to capitals to spend on military capabilities.
Both ideas were given broad political support, but the details of both are yet to be negotiated ahead of approval by governments.
“Europe must become more sovereign, more responsible for its own defence and better equipped to act and deal autonomously with immediate and future challenges and threats with a 360° approach,” the 27 leaders said in the statement, which did not refer to the US.
The loan instrument, targeted at specific capabilities including air defence and drone systems, would be “as flexible as possible with as few strings attached”, one EU official said, to ensure fast adoption. It would use existing Nato criteria to ensure it was being correctly spent, they added.
The structure enables the commission to get around an EU treaty ban on direct military expenditure by instead boosting the European defence industry’s output. Some of that production could be used to arm Ukraine.
Additional reporting by Alice Hancock in Trowbridge
