Viktor Orbán takes a tough stand against Ukraine’s accession to the EU

Orbán said neither Hungarians living in Ukraine or those in Hungary wanted more than for Ukraine’s minorities to regain the rights they had enjoyed before 2015. “We’re not asking for a new law, new solutions or complex procedures; all we ask is the restoration of the law that guaranteed Hungarians’ rights … to community life,” the prime minister said.

Talks with Ukraine on possible EU membership “right now are absurd, ridiculous and unserious”, and the government will not support them, Orbán said.

Right now no one knows what Ukraine’s accession would entail or how much territory or population would be integrated into the bloc, he said.

He noted that the bloc opening accession talks with a country at war was unprecedented.

Orbán said that when the EU partially opened up its market, member states had been forced on the defensive in the areas of agriculture and transport. “Tens or even hundreds of thousands of Hungarians could go bankrupt because of this,” he said.

The country’s accession would mean handing over 17 percent of the current EU budget, he added.

Citing estimates by German analysts, Orbán said Ukraine’s EU membership would cost the bloc an additional EUR 190 billion.

Ukraine would be entitled to 93 billion euros of agricultural funding from the seven-year budget, Orbán said, noting this was more than what France, the largest CAP money recipient, receives now and ten times as much as what Hungary gets.

“A large chunk of this money would make its way into the pockets of Americans, given the way the Americans have bought their way in to Ukraine’s farm sector up to their jugulars,” Orbán said. The start of accession talks would therefore mean that every member state, besides Ukraine, would become a net contributor or would lose 20 percent of their agricultural funding, he added.

Ukraine would also be entitled to EUR 87 billion in cohesion funds, “three times the amount Hungary is entitled to on paper”, Orbán said.

Read also:

• Government: Ukraine’s new law far from restoring 2015 minority rights
• VIDEO: Ukrainian President Zelensky persuaded PM Orbán in Buenos Aires?

He appealed to both the opposition left wing and the “national side” to consider Ukraine’s EU membership not as a party political issue, but as a national one.

Ukraine’s EU membership in its current form would be starkly against Hungary’s interests, Orbán said. “Ukraine can and should be helped, but no one could possibly want Hungary to be ruined in the process,” he said.

“Hungary is under pressure, but we mustn’t be diverted away from being the voice of reason in Europe,” the prime minister said.

“Our interest lies in a peaceful and prosperous Ukraine, but this requires achieving peace as quickly as possible and a carefully considered deepening of the strategic partnership,” he said.

This, he said, could lead to Ukraine’s EU membership “several years from now when the time for it is actually right”. “There is a time for everything, but the time for Ukraine’s European Union membership isn’t here yet,” Orbán said.

Source: MTI