Minister Szijjártó: Brussels sticking to ‘pro-war’ approach to Ukraine
The approach to the situation in Ukraine remains a “pro-war” stance in Brussels, with the European Commission’s 20 billion euro package containing “everything about war, but nothing about how to achieve peace”, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Luxembourg on Monday.
Addressing a press conference after a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, Szijjártó said the bloc’s foreign ministers had discussed the proposal on security guarantees for Ukraine which also contains a 20 billion euro weapons delivery package for the next four years as well as a plan to send a military training mission to the country.
The proposal also touches on the development of Europe’s defence industry, with some advocating for military-industrial investments in Ukraine, too, Szijjártó said. Other key components concern Ukraine’s reconstruction and further sanctions against Russia, he added.
“So it includes everything that concerns war, but unfortunately it still makes no mention in any way of how peace may be achieved,” the minister said. “It’s clear that the European approach, Brussels’s approach to the developments in Ukraine remains pro-war.”
Brussels expects the war in Ukraine to continue over the next four years, as evidenced by the allocation of an annual 5 billion euros for more weapons deliveries, Szijjártó said.
“If we don’t expect the war to continue over the next four years, then why would we need to spend this much on delivering weapons to Ukraine over the next four years?”
“So this proposal is about everything connected to war, but there is still no one in Brussels, Luxembourg and western Europe willing to talk about how there will be peace,” the minister said.
Europe, he insisted, continued to suffer from “war psychosis” and was unwilling to even discuss the possibility of peace.
The view in Brussels, he said, was that the solution to the war lay in the battlefield, but the past year and a half indicated that this was not true. “There are only casualties and destruction on the battlefield,” Szijjártó said. “And the more casualties and the greater the destruction, the worse the conditions for peace become.”
He said Hungary opposed the idea of setting up arms factories and a training mission in Ukraine, arguing that such a move would immediately drag the EU into the war.
Szijjártó also protested against what he called attempts to use security reasons to put pressure on Hungary to accelerate Ukraine’s EU accession.
“The European Union isn’t a security organisation but a political and economic bloc, so justifying a country’s future membership exclusively with regard to security is completely unacceptable to us,” he said.
The minister said several of his EU counterparts had talked about “a certain Ukraine fatigue”, meaning that it was hard to keep the European public invested in the war. “This is especially true now when the events there are also taking a back seat to the conflict in Israel,” he added.
“If this is true, then it underlines more emphatically the urgent need to make peace,” Szijjártó said. “Because it is only with peace that we can save lives and prevent destruction.”
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4 Comments
The elephant in the room is russia (oddly not mentioned by their servant Szijjarto)
russia could achieve peace by leaving Ukraine…. any other suggestion (negotiations) is appeasement and will simply lead to larger conflicts in the future.
why doe Szijjarto never directly call for russia to stop their invasion?
Reality is Ukraine is partially destroyed. Millions of Ukrainians left the country and will never return. What is the condition of infrastructure in the Ukraine?
How many people should be sacrificed and killed. What is the point of “enough” and use of diplomacy instead of use of weapons should be applied?
Who is making money from this melee, only the armament manufacturers. Where are these companies located?
It is time to apply logical thinking. How much is a land with destroyed structures are worth in human life?
Russia does not want peace. Szijjarto on your next trip to Moscow go and negotiate it. In the meantime Europe and Western partners will assist Ukraine to keep the Russian invaders out. The Fidesz government is an ally of Russia working to undermine European security.
Dear misguided Larry, how do you figure that Russia is undermining EU security? First, if the EU is worried about its security, then the EU countries should spend the required amount of their GDP to support NATO. Secondly, what is Russian’s interest in attacking continental EU, if Russia wants to expend its territory it will start with the old Russian Republics that left the so-called Soviet Union. It is obvious that the EU’s support of Ukraine only weakens NATO. Russia, mistakenly, went after territory that belonged to Russia since 1744. Crimea was needed for exit into the world at large. Lastly, wars are expansive. All European taxpayers are already paying the price. Although Russia has all natural resources the country needs, after the lengthy Ukrainian engagement, Russia is not ready for another war for a long time.