PM Orbán acknowleged the heroic fight of Ukraine, but refuses to support its EU membership

PM Orbán may lose euro billions next week
Photo: FB/Orbán

Ukraine’s European Union accession has been prevented thanks to the more than 2 million votes cast in the government’s Vote 2025 public survey, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told public radio in Brussels on Friday.

Orbán compares himself to Tiananmen Square Chinese rebel

Concerning Thursday’s round of talks at the European Council summit, the prime minister said it was “against enormous headwinds” that he had announced Hungary’s decision not to approve the opening of the first accession chapter with Ukraine. The accession talks are a long process and the opening of the various chapters requires unanimous approval from member states, including Hungary, Orbán said. “The chapter in question can’t be opened without unanimity,” he added. “Work can be done in the background but there can’t be any progress on the path that ends in membership.”

Orbán said EU leaders wanted Ukraine to join the bloc as soon as possible, and were looking for a way to “push the Hungarians aside”. “They haven’t been able to do that yet, even though I was the only one standing in their way like that one Chinese rebel seen standing in front of the column of tanks in Tiananmen Square,” Orbán said. “But now there’s 2.2 million of us standing in their way saying that there’s no way forward here.”

He said that Hungarians, at the same time, appreciated Ukraine’s “extremely difficult situation and their heroic struggle” and understood that “they need help”, but “we want to help them without destroying ourselves in the process.” The EU would be destroyed if Ukraine became a member, he said, adding that cooperation and partnership were possibilities, but membership itself would mean giving Ukrainians the same rights as Hungarians, including jobs in Hungary and EU farm and cohesion subsidies.

Orbán: Noone can say what Ukraine is

Orbán said Ukraine was a country at war, even if through no fault of its own since it had been “obviously attacked”, and allowing the country into the bloc would be to involve the EU in a war with Russia. EU leaders discussing Ukraine’s fast-tracked accession was, he said “a direct threat”. To integrate a country into the EU, the position of its borders, population size, and the suitability of its legal system and economy must be assessed, yet Ukraine today is “an undefined entity”, he said. “No one can say what Ukraine is,” he argued.

Orbán said a prerequisite of former Soviet bloc countries such as Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Romania becoming EU members was first joining NATO, which guaranteed their military security and the location of their borders. But in Ukraine’s case, “this isn’t possible”, he said. Admitting Ukraine to NATO would mean entering a third world war the next day, he added. By jumping over NATO and allowing Ukraine to join the EU sooner, “the war won’t be brought to NATO but into the European Union”, he said.

“This is madness,” he said. “We must talk about this honestly and seriously.” Orbán said it was “terrible news for Ukraine” that they would neither be admitted to NATO nor to the EU, adding that “a country that fights every day and sheds blood” for its own future could not be convinced of this. Unlike at the EU summit, sentiment on the issue of Ukraine joining NATO at the alliance’s summit was “a simpler story”, he said, adding that initial talk of “all sorts of nonsense” had moved on, and participants had started to “talk seriously”.

Ukraine and the NATO

“Do you seriously think that Ukraine should be in NATO? Forget about it,” he said. “Our position is now the majority one in NATO; this is now the NATO position.” Referring to European People’s Party head Manfred Weber and his comment that he was “fed up with” Orban, the prime minister said Weber was “so fed up” that they promptly “threw together a party called the Tisza Party” with the goal of installing it in Hungary. Brussels, he added, was not interested in “reaching an agreement with us” but in ensuring there was a government in Budapest “that always votes the way Brussels wants it to”.

Orbán said this was why he had taken the argument to “the bosses of the Hungarian opposition”. “I must argue with the bosses of the Tisza Party and DK here in Brussels; I must represent Hungarian interests against them.” Meanwhile, he said the plan to ban the import of Russian energy was not on the agenda in Brussels this time, but “the fight” would continue next week at a meeting of EU foreign ministers. Hungary and Slovakia, he said, rejected the EU’s demand to wean themselves off Russian oil and gas because it would lead to families having to pay twice as much for electricity and 3.5 times more for gas.

The European Commission wants to introduce the import ban in 2027-2028, he said, but such a decision would trigger an immediate increase in energy prices, and it would be impossible to sign any long-term agreement at favourable prices.

Budapest Pride

Meanwhile, Orbán noted that the European Commission president had called on the Hungarian authorities to allow the Budapest Pride parade to go ahead. He said she had done this because she considered Hungary a “subordinate country” and believed that she had the authority to tell Hungarians how to live, what they should like or dislike, what their legal system should be like and what should or should not be banned in Hungary.

Orbán said that in order for the event to go ahead, it needed to be announced ahead of time and approved by the police. If the police did not approve an event, the matter could be taken to court and settled there. “Those who violate this procedure are organising or participating in an event that’s against the law,” he added.

“I recommend that everyone decide what they want and obey the law,” Orbán said. “That’s what I do, and that’s what I recommend they do; and if they don’t, they’ll have to face the clear legal consequences.” Orbán said the police had the authority to disperse such events “but Hungary is not that kind of world”. “If someone does something like this, there will be a legal consequence, but that cannot escalate to the level of physical abuse,” he added.

  • PHOTOS: “Another Hungary is possible”: Street artist Laika takes aim at Orbán ahead of Budapest Pride

Budapest in chaos

He said the police’s job was not to use physical force, but rather to convince people to obey the law. “There are, of course, cases in which the police must use force against criminals, but this is not that case,” he said, referring to Pride. “If we take a look at the capital, all we see is chaos, traffic jams, bankruptcy and Pride,” Orbán said.

“There might be many in Budapest who like the city the way it is — and that’s their taste, their opinion — but I don’t like it,” the prime minister said. “The mayor, of course, doesn’t have to acknowledge this because I’m just one citizen of many, but while the capital is bankrupt, while there are traffic jams and it’s impossible to even move, there’s plenty of work to be done.”

“They don’t have money, even though they’re stuffed with cash but it’s wasted on things. Meanwhile, instead of managing the bankruptcy, they’re organising Pride,” Orbán said. “I don’t want to get involved because this is the city’s business, but what I can say is that the way it’s all being handled is unworthy.” “This is a great city; it’s the nation’s capital, it’s our city, we love it, but it would deserve a leadership that doesn’t let it decline and instead unlocks the fantastic potential that’s in this city,” Orbán said. “It’s possible to live well in this city, yet our lives are all about our daily annoyances.”

Everybody proud on Kapu

Concerning Hungarian astronaut Tibor Kapu’s mission to the International Space Station, Orbán said Hungarians were “all proud, and with good reason, because we have someone excellent who is physically and mentally fit to represent us — as he said, 15 million Hungarians — on an international crew up there in space.”

“Hats off to him, and we thank him for honouring Hungary and giving us a reason to be proud to be Hungarian,” Orbán said.

He said it was also worth talking about Hungary’s “serious potential” in the space industry. “We tend to think that it’s just the big countries that are involved with space, since they’re the only ones that can launch spacecrafts, but that’s not true,” Orbán said. “It takes a lot of parts, equipment, experiments and many other things for any sort of activity to be done in space.” The prime minister said there were private businesses in Hungary that provided serious scientific contributions to space missions.

“The space business isn’t out of reach for Hungary,” he said. “I won’t say that it will replace agriculture over the next few years, but it’s a sector that’s growing and offers more and more opportunities, so it’s good if Hungarian private businesses are present and demonstrate with certain symbolic things, like our astronaut, that we Hungarians have a presence in the industry of the future.”

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