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PM Orbán: Ukraine will not win on the battlefield, EU needs plan B
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The global developments of recent times have been tumultuous, and European politics is facing serious challenges, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told the 10th summit of the Organisation of Turkic States in Astana on Friday. Europe’s answers to those challenges will heavily impact its relations with the Turkic world, Orbán said.
Orbán said that from a European standpoint, world security was now at its worst since the end of the cold war. “The situation has never been as difficult or complicated in the past 30 years as it is now,” he said.
A war has been raging for over 18 months in Ukraine, armed conflict has just broken out in the Middle East, terror threat is growing in the EU, and the bloc has failed to stem the “waves of migration” at its borders everywhere except in Hungary, he said.
Meanwhile, growing energy prices are harming the EU’s competitiveness, he said.
“Europe’s dilemma is whether it has an interest in creating blocs in world economy or in developing global networks and connectivity,” he said.
Orbán said one trend was trying to push Europe towards the former, by severing “the economic ties with Russia which are at the foundation of European economy”, and debating curbing European-Chinese relations. The other trend, of which Hungary is a proponent, wants to strengthen cooperation, and sees interdependence as an opportunity for progress and growing competitiveness, Orbán said, praising the OTS as a “champion of competitiveness” which had been on the “right track” in recent years.
Ukraine money caused huge tension in the EU
Regarding the war between Ukraine and Russia, Orbán said the conflict was putting the entire continent in immediate danger. “I must say, the European strategy has clearly failed over the past 18 months,” he said.
Orbán said the original plan was that Ukraine would be fighting while the West is providing the money and weapons, then Ukraine wins, Russia is defeated in the battlefield, changes follow in leadership in Moscow and an agreement can be signed with the new leaders. That ambitious and logical plan has not worked, he said. The question in European politics now is whether to face reality and prepare a plan B, he added.