FM Szijjártó: Defending Europe doesn’t start in Ukraine

Europe’s strategy of bolstering its defence capabilities must not mean a covert increase in financial and military support for Ukraine, Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, said in Brussels on Friday, warning that such an approach would prolong the ongoing war in the country.

There is no doubt that Europe must strengthen its defence capabilities, Szijjártó told a press conference after a meeting with his NATO counterparts, according to a ministry statement, adding that Hungary was “doing particularly well in this area”. Defence spending has exceeded 2 percent of GDP for the third year now, he said, adding that more than 40 percent of the defence budget went towards the procurement and upgrade of military equipment.

Szijjártó noted that only two-thirds of NATO’s 32 member states exceed the 2 percent target, seven spend less and four spend exactly 2 percent of their GDP on defence. “So there’s a lot of work left to do if we consider bolstering European defence capabilities an important goal, and we do,” the minister said. Szijjártó said it was “unacceptable” that most allies “interpret the EU’s militarisation within the context of the ongoing war and see it as being part of the strategy of prolonging the war”.

Defending Europe does not mean defending Ukraine

“We also don’t accept the position that defending Europe means defending Ukraine,” he said. “Boosting the European Union’s defence capabilities means just that, not investment in the defence capabilities of a non-NATO and non-EU country.”

Szijjártó said Ukraine was not defending Europe but rather itself. “Ukraine is the one at war; there’s not a single EU or NATO member state under attack.” “Portraying Ukraine as the first European line of defence is simply falsehood,” he said. “Ukraine is defending itself, and it is doing so heroically … but that’s not a basis for us to try to portray the Ukrainian defence as if it’s defending Europe.”