EU Council President Costa: Ukraine Funding to Be Discussed at Special Summit This Month

The significance here is procedural as much as financial: by folding Ukraine support into the seven-year budget framework, the EU ties its own long-term spending architecture to consensus on aid, raising the political cost of any member-state dissent. Merz's "without exception" framing signals that unanimity, not just majority support, is being treated as the bar. That shifts the pressure onto holdouts whose positions have not yet been tested at leader level. Whether the special summit produces a concrete 2027 arrangement, or merely a mandate to keep negotiating, is the open question worth watching.