A senior Hungarian cabinet member has questioned who would end up paying for Ukraine’s EU membership and at what cost. “This is a serious question, and we haven’t yet got an answer,” Csaba Dömötör, a parliamentary cabinet state secretary, said in a video posted on Facebook on Saturday.
Top EU officials who were in Kiev in the past few days said that almost all conditions for accession talks to begin had been met, he said, adding that “this may be all very well, but how much is this going to cost?”
Noting that Ukraine “is a huge country” whose development was well below that of the EU average, the country would require “massive amounts of support”. Yet, he added, no one had attached a price to the policy.
Referring to a Financial Times article, he said a document leaked from Brussels indicated that all EU member states would have to pay more into the EU budget and receive less from it.
Ukraine would receive 61 billion euros from the cohesion fund with the consequence that under the mechanism for distributing funds “at least 9 member states” would no longer be entitled to cohesion subsidies, Dömötör said.
Neither would Ukraine’s accession have an insignificant impact on agricultural subsidies, he said. With its 41 million hectares, the country would be the EU’s largest recipient of farm payments.
So countries like Hungary would find subsidies per hectare falling by 20 percent. Also, Ukrainian grain would push down prices and lead the way to genetically modified imports.
“Besides, how can we be expected to give extra money when we haven’t received funding owed to us for years?” he said.
Dobrev calls for ‘strong, honest army’
Klára Dobrev, the shadow prime minister of the opposition Democratic Coalition (DK), said at a forum in the northern town of Gyöngyös that Hungary needed a “strong, well-trained and honest” military, and for that a “strong and honest homeland” was required.
Referring to mass sackings and changes to the pension system of soldiers, Dobrev insisted that the government had put the army in an “impossible situation” and had “humiliated soldiers”. Hungary, she added, had “ceased to be a predictable and secure European democracy”.
The security of Hungarians “should not be considered an ideological issue,” Dobrev said, outlining her party’s defence agenda late on Friday. “What we need is a patriotic security policy built on a national consensus rather than [policies] pretending to be Christian and right wing.”
Dobrev said Hungary’s membership of NATO and the EU provided a “security umbrella”, while the strength of the Hungarian army and patriotism were the pillars of Hungary’s security. The weakening of this alliance, she said, was the greatest challenge, adding that the greatest danger of all was Prime Minister Viktor Orban government’s “treasonous pro-Putin policy”.
Ágnes Vadai, DK’s shadow defence minister, said a priority would be to desegregate Hungary from its “international isolation generated by Orban’s security policy”. A new national security strategy was needed, she said, adding that DK was working out a comprehensive national defence strategy, and a key policy would be providing soldiers deprived of their service pension and those over 45 who were “sacked indiscriminately” after 25 years of service with “financial and moral compensation”.
Responding to DK on Saturday, the ruling Fidesz party said in a statement that it was “the dollar left” that would imperil Hungary’s security, and in obedience to their “foreign clients, the Gyurcsánys would plunge the country into war”, cut back the armed forces and “give away our weapons”.
The statement said the party of Ferenc Gyurcsány had already shown in government what defending the homeland meant to them, adding that his administration had “wasted our military assets and reduced the military staff to an all-time low”.
Even now, it added, defence would be headed by someone “whose goal is to make cutbacks to the army”.
Read also:
- Truck drivers flooded Hungary, border crossing fell: queue lasts 48h – Read more HERE
- PM Orbán: Hungary does not want Ukraine’s EU accession
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3 Comments
Dobrev’s statement that Orban’s collusion with Putin is “treasonous” is absolutely correct. Unfortunately Hungarians have been immersed in Fidesz pro-Russian and anti-American propaganda for years through its’ thorough control of virtually all media in Hungary. The slur “dollar-left” is something concocted by the fascist “ruble-right” strategists in the Kremlin. It’s purposely vague associating America with “leftism” and “liberalism” which Fidesz will say undermines family values and Christianity. It’s very deceptive and is a mirror image of the narrative put out in Russia. If anyone thinks the murderous Russian regime represents “family values” and the good of humanity they are seriously delusional. Hungary is sliding into fascism but Fidesz is quite diabolical in its’ incrementalism that leaves Hungarians like a lobster in a pot of warm water oblivious to the fact that that water will eventually kill them. The next step in Hungary is prison time for political opponents based on vaguely worded yet broadly applied “sovereignty” laws. The final step is violent oppression. Hungarians are losing their freedom.
This is indeed a very important question. Ukraine was even before the war a poor country, which would be a net recipient of E.U.’s taxpayers’ money for decades to come. Following the devastation of the war, however, it would be a gigantic drain on the European resources, which are, basically, your and my money. But there is another, just as important, point. Ukraine is riddled with corruption; breathtakingly so. Europe was jerking Croatia around for many years, making one petty demand after another after another. Yet, now they want to fast-track a much bigger and hopelessly corrupt country that doesn’t meet any of the E.U.’s precious little requirements for membership, all out of naked political motives. These people are devoid of all credibility, just as the E.U. itself.
Hungarian knows a thing or two when it comes to large influxes of money from the EU – and the, uh. Temptations. Or “opportunities” if you are in the vaunted circle of friends and toadies!
Seriously though a) extensive overhaul of the EU framework will be required to accommodate as a Member a country the size, economic features and needs of Ukraine, and b) however poorly the candidate, adherence to the Copenhagen criteria should be key. As should be the continued adherence to those criteria of any EU Member!
Despite all the big talk, at the end of the day, we are a (major) net beneficiary of EU funds. And all of a sudden, our Politicians are making the point our net “takings” would be less with new Members joining. One moment we do not really need the funds (Mr. Orbán recently stated), next a reduction of 20 percent is awful – which is it?.
Re reduction in EU funding due to new Members – have not seen the impact assessment of the Balkan accession they keep aggressively pushing?