EU leaders to clash over long-term budget, Ukraine support

We can go now to Brussels to speak to France 24's Europe editor, Armin Georgian. Good morning, Armin. One of the people that will be there in Brussels today is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Is this a particularly tough time for him and for EU support for Ukraine? Well, absolutely. I mean, what's very much weighing on the minds of EU leaders here is the restrictions placed on Starlink for Ukrainian intelligence. So it now looks as though Ukraine has been cut off mostly from U.S. intelligence sharing that obviously had an impact overnight in terms of these missile attacks on Kiev and elsewhere. And we just heard, for example, the Danish Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, saying that the Western alliance is worse off today than it was a few days ago. And that refers not just to this sort of new low between President Zelensky and the Trump administration, but also the fact that Trump did this diesel deal with President Putin. All that, of course, is informing this EU summit. And the question really is what can the EU do in the short term, because they don't have an early warning system like Starlink. They can do certain things with their own satellites, but they're very much like their long-term defense plans, their long-term satellite plans are not going to be ready just like that to take over from the U.S. So that's a big worry. What we're going to hear, obviously, is the usual messages of support to Zelensky before he arrives. Once he actually gets here, the EU leaders will be talking about the disbursement of 5.34 billion euros from the Ukraine support loan. That's that total pot of 90 billion euros that you'll remember was agreed a few months ago. And, of course, also the 6.6 billion euros for military spending under the European peace facility. But I think the big question is, how is the EU going to help Ukraine as this very grim winter approaches with likely intensification of attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure? Now, the next long-term EU budget is a big issue, and this is what the main focus of this meeting today. Is there any chance of a deal? It doesn't seem that likely right now, Oliver. There's obviously a hope within the EU Council and the presidency of the EU Council, which is headed by Antonio Costa, to get a deal over the line by the end of this year. But that would require de facto an agreement at this summit, because obviously there's not much time left before there's maybe one informal summit and then the last EUCO of the year in December, but not a lot of time to get a deal over the line. What the EU Council is saying is that they need to have a political agreement this side of the new year in order to then be able to do all the technical work next year and to have the EU budget actually operational at the beginning of 2028. Because remember, this next EU budget is for the 2028 to 2034 period. So working backwards, you need to have a political agreement really pretty much now to get the technical work done next year. The big problem is, well, you've got two really. One is the so-called frugal states, although they don't like that word now, they call themselves the sensible six, that they want major cuts to the European Commission's proposed budget and even to cuts to what the Irish presidency of the EU is currently proposing. They really want to trim down this spending. But of course, other countries that are very mindful of how they benefit from the EU budget, particularly on things like regional development, cohesion policy and so on. They don't want to have those cuts. The big complicating factor, Oliver, is that there's a bunch of elections coming up. You've got Spain at the end of November. Who knows what the next Spanish government will say about the EU budget? Then you've got Italy and France. There's a big elections next year and other EU countries as well. So it's a very unpredictable political climate. Any political deal that might be reached this side of the new year could still, in theory, be unpicked by other governments that are in place during 2027. So it's a really difficult one to handle for the EU Council presidency. But right now, it doesn't look as though they're heading closer to an agreement tonight when I think the main budget discussion is happening later on today. Thank you very much for that. Our Europe editor, Armin Georgian in Brussels.