EU summit in Brussels: budget dispute, NATO meeting on the Black Sea, while the EU court condemns Hungary

The European Council's two-day summit began in Brussels on Thursday, with its agenda including competitiveness, Ukraine, the next long-term EU budget, the Middle East, European defense and security, migration, as well as enlargement and institutional reforms. The summit officially started at 10 a.m. local time, and António Costa, President of the European Council, will close it with a working lunch on Friday.

Addressing the leaders of the member states, Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, warned that the Irish presidency's amended proposal for the 2028–2034 multiannual financial framework jeopardizes the balance that Parliament has struck between traditional policies and new priorities. According to Metsola, it is not possible to agree on ambitious goals while cutting the resources needed to achieve them. On Saturday, the Irish presidency proposed cuts of 140 billion euros compared to the European Commission's original proposal, affecting mainly competitiveness and development funding. By contrast, in the position adopted in April, the European Parliament called for an increase of around ten percent and proposed new own resources, including a digital services tax, an online gambling tax, and a tax on cryptocurrency capital gains. The President of Parliament reaffirmed support for Ukraine ahead of another difficult winter, and welcomed the opening of two new negotiating clusters with Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova.

The summit has been overshadowed by attacks in the Black Sea. Romanian President Nicușor Dan announced in Brussels that the North Atlantic Council, NATO's highest decision-making body, will hold a separate meeting on the situation in the Black Sea. The president held talks with Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, and wrote on X that together with the allies they had committed to defending every inch of their territory—including waters and airspace. He said the situation was serious, with commercial ships being attacked and sunk, and sailors dying, being injured or going missing in the immediate vicinity of the coasts of Romania and Bulgaria, and that this must stop. Dan also stated in Brussels that Russia is clearly seeking to destabilize European societies and weaken support for Ukraine, and that the answer is to continue supporting Ukraine.

On the same day, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Hungary had breached EU law by automatically converting the custodial prison sentences of people smugglers into so-called "special reintegration custody," which in practice meant releasing and deporting them. The Orbán government adopted the regulation in 2023, under which those convicted of people smuggling or attempted people smuggling were released but had to leave the country within 72 hours and were barred from returning for the duration of their sentence. The regulation was repealed on 19 August 2025, but by then 2,525 convicts had already been released. According to the European Commission, the rules created a systemic risk by fostering impunity for illegal immigration and jeopardized the effectiveness of the EU's migration and border control policies. The Luxembourg court found that the measure could not be regarded as an effective penalty, since the prison sentence was not actually served but was followed only by deportation and a temporary entry ban, and that it had no deterrent effect, as people smugglers knew that, at worst, they would simply be expelled. The court also considered it disproportionate, since release was automatic, without any individual assessment of the circumstances of the offense or the offender, even in serious cases for which EU law prescribes a prison sentence of at least eight years. Péter Magyar's government inherited this regulation from Viktor Orbán's regime.

Ugar