Ukraine’s European Union membership and the start of accession talks “currently do not coincide with Hungary’s national interests”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday.
Orbán told public radio that a lack of consensus on the issue could be expected, “and then we break the European unity”. Unity can be preserved if the issues on which these is no consensus would not be included on the agenda, he added. Orbán said he had therefore proposed that talks on Ukraine’s EU membership are not started at the upcoming meeting of EU leaders in two weeks.
Ukraine’s EU accession not well-prepared
Orbán on Friday said it was a mistake for the European Commission to be pushing for EU leaders to put Ukraine’s European Union accession on the agenda, adding that the bloc should first sign a five to ten-year strategic partnership agreement with the country.
Orbán told public radio that these preparations did not mean “putting something to paper that everyone will read”, but rather that the EU should talk to everyone and align their interests.
“Once we see that we can cooperate, then we can bring up the question of membership,” he said, adding that this would only be possible “many, many years from now”.
The prime minister said that the legal and political systems of a country at war functioned differently, and it was therefore impossible to tell whether Ukraine met the rule-of-law conditions of EU membership. He said it also could not be determined how big Ukraine’s territory was, arguing that parts of it were under Russian occupation, or how big the population was given that people were constantly fleeing the country. It was also unclear, he said, what effect the integration of Ukraine’s agriculture would have on the common market.
Support for Ukraine should be provided outside EU budget
Hungary’s position is that support for Ukraine should be provided outside the European Union budget, in a transparent way, the prime minister said on Friday.
Orbán told public radio that a separate fund should be set up with intergovernmental agreement for supporting Ukraine, with every country making payments to it.
“We have granted very much money, over 100 billion euros to Ukraine, partly in the form of weapons and partly in cash,” he said. “If this money had been spent on Europe’s development, the European economy would be in much better shape,” he added.
“Europe suffers from economic problems and at the same time, it is throwing money away, sending train-loads of weapons and money to Ukraine,” he said.
He added that instead of the war, a ceasefire was needed. “Instead of the war, a ceasefire should be financed, and then peace,” he said.
2024 to be ‘hopeful year’
Next year is set to be a “hopeful” one, Orbán said on Friday, adding that Hungarians in 2024 would be working “so that things get better, not so that they don’t get worse”
In a radio interview, Orbán said inflation, sanctions and the energy crisis had made 2023 “the most dangerous year in a long time”.
Hungarians this year “have been working so that things don’t get worse, so that they could protect their prior achievements”, Orbán said.
But he said 2024 would be a “hopeful year”, emphasising that “this time we’ll be working so that things get better”.
He said this was “not just wishful thinking”, but something that could be achieved. He vowed that the government would “definitely raise pensions by 6 percent even if it turns out that inflation is only at 5 percent”. The increased 13th-month pension will be paid out in February, and economic players have decided to raise the minimum wage for skilled labourers and unskilled workers and by 10-15 percent, he noted.
Only Hungarians can decide their own fate
Only Hungarians can decide their own fate, Orbán said on Friday, adding, however, that attempts were always being made to interfere in Hungary’s affairs.
Every political debate, at its core, is about sovereignty, Orbán told public radio. He said the government needed the support of everyone who valued Hungary’s independence and sovereignty, asking the public to fill out the National Consultation survey.
The prime minister said foreigners were trying to influence the decisions of countries of Hungary’s size, insisting that “the Americans, for example, are trying to press us into the Ukrainian war right now”. Economic lobby interests, he said, also tended to come up.
“Let’s not allow a repeat of a situation in which . the Hungarian people find out after the election that attempts were made to influence their decision through the left-wing parties,” Orbán said.
He said parliament needed to make some decisions in the interest of protecting Hungary’s sovereignty, and efforts to block attempts to interfere in the country’s affairs had to be taken more seriously in the coming years.
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