Negotiations stalled in early hours of Friday morning as Orbán vetoed €50bn in EU aid for Ukraine defence against Russian invasion
Speaking on Hungarian state radio this morning, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said he tried for hours to convince European leaders not to sign off on launching accession negotiations with Kyiv.
The Hungarian prime minister said the leaders had several arguments he had to take into account:
“They are 26, and I’m alone.”
“They want to give Ukraine through this decision the encouragement needed to continue the war, and they asked that I don’t obstruct them in this.”
“But their decisive argument was that Hungary doesn’t lose anything with this … If we don’t want Ukraine to be a member of the European Union, then the Hungarian parliament votes it down. And until the issue gets to the parliaments, it’s a very, very long process, and as they counted and I did, there are about 75 occasions when the Hungarian government can stop this process. And they said that if during the negotiations there is something which hurts Hungary’s interests, I stop it.”
It means that we will revert to this matter early next year and we will try to get unanimity.
Continue reading…Negotiations stalled in early hours of Friday morning as Orbán vetoed €50bn in EU aid for Ukraine defence against Russian invasionSpeaking on Hungarian state radio this morning, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said he tried for hours to convince European leaders not to sign off on launching accession negotiations with Kyiv.The Hungarian prime minister said the leaders had several arguments he had to take into account:“They are 26, and I’m alone.”“They want to give Ukraine through this decision the encouragement needed to continue the war, and they asked that I don’t obstruct them in this.”“But their decisive argument was that Hungary doesn’t lose anything with this … If we don’t want Ukraine to be a member of the European Union, then the Hungarian parliament votes it down. And until the issue gets to the parliaments, it’s a very, very long process, and as they counted and I did, there are about 75 occasions when the Hungarian government can stop this process. And they said that if during the negotiations there is something which hurts Hungary’s interests, I stop it.”It means that we will revert to this matter early next year and we will try to get unanimity. Continue reading…