PM Orbán: Hungary not to yield to any pressure on Ukraine accession

Hungary will not yield to any pressure and has a very firm position on enlargement, “no matter what the offer is,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said ahead of a European Union summit in Brussels on Thursday.

Orbán said Hungary’s position was very clear. “If we talk about enlargement, that is a merit-based, sophisticated, legal procedure,” he said.

Fielding a question on Ukraine’s EU accession, Orbán said enlargement had conditions and these had not been fulfilled. He said the European Council was not in a position to decide, adding that “we will have to return to this later, when the conditions have been met.”

“We will not budge on this no matter what the offer is”, Viktor Orbán said.

Answering a question, the prime minister said enlargement of the community was “not a theoretical issue but a legally defined process including preconditions”.

According to the European Commission, Ukraine has so far met four out of a total seven preconditions, therefore “the time has not come to talk about Ukraine’s membership”, Orbán said.

“Hungarians genetically cannot be pressurised,” he said, adding that “we cannot be influenced.” Hungary has its “firm position” on the enlargement process and will continue to stand by it, Orbán added.

Concerning a planned, 50 billion euro fund for Ukraine, Orbán said the EU had already approved to grant that country a short-term aid from its budget. “A bigger, longer term aid must come from outside the EU budet . which Hungary could support,” he said.

Since the short-term aid has been approved, the EU is “not being pressed for time”, Orbán said, adding that “Hungary does not link a single Hungarian cause to Ukraine or to other current issues.”

Read also:

• PM Orbán: Not in EU’s interest for Ukraine to join quickly

Source: MTI