Hungarian minister calls for ‘strategic debate’ on EU policy on Ukraine

 The European Union’s Ukraine policy needs to be shaped through “a period of considering options and holding a strategic debate”, Hungary’s minister for EU affairs said in Brussels on Wednesday.

Janos Bóka said ahead of a meeting of EU affairs ministers that “without a strategic debate, we are not in a position to make decisions on further steps in Ukraine’s accession or the review of the multiannual financial framework.”

He said the debate would need to show the results the EU’s strategy of supporting Ukraine had yielded so far, including the resources provided, how those resources had been used and results achieved, and strategies of overcoming difficulties.

The sustainability of the EU’s strategy should also be up for debate, he said. The EU had built its course of action on the assumption that Ukraine would win the war and prompt a political reshuffle in Moscow, he said. Should that presumption become untenable, the EU should outline an alternative strategy with the aim of creating a functional security system in Europe, he said.

At the same time, the country report of the European Commission has also said that Ukraine hadn’t fulfilled all requirements to acquire the EU membership candidate status, let alone to start accession talks, he said. The European Council has said earlier that the accession process may advance only if those requirements had been fully met, he added.

Bóka welcomed the EC decision to offer a candidate status to Georgia, and said the Georgian government had done much to fulfil all requirements.

The EU’s enlargement is now taking place in the Western Balkans and in the east, Bóka said, calling for speeding up the former and for “careful consideration on the eastern front”.

Source: MTI