Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán looks on while attending the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, Belgium on October 27, 2023. REUTERS/Johanna Geron/File photo Obtaining licensing rights
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – The European Union should not start membership talks with Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio on Friday, stressing that this was Hungary’s “clear position” on the issue.
EU leaders are due to decide in mid-December on whether to accept the Commission’s recommendation to invite Kiev to begin membership talks once the final conditions are met.
Any such decision would require consensus by the bloc’s 27 members, with Hungary seen as the main potential obstacle.
The nationalist Orban, who has been in power since 2010, said the dispute between Brussels over billions of euros in EU funds outstanding to Hungary over a rule of law issue could not be linked in any way to Hungary’s support for Ukraine’s EU accession talks.
“Membership talks should not start, that is the clear Hungarian position,” Orban said, adding that Brussels “owes money to Hungary.”
“I would like to make it absolutely clear that the Hungarian refusal to start talks with Ukraine on EU membership is not subject to a trade deal… and cannot be linked to the issue of money to which Hungary is entitled.”
Orban faces an economic recession this year and a growing budget deficit as the country emerges from Europe’s highest inflation rates, which peaked above 25% in the first quarter. Investors are closely watching Budapest’s talks with Brussels over EU funds.
Orban has been embroiled in several bitter disputes with the European Union and its executive arm, the European Commission, over Budapest’s tightening of state controls on NGOs, academics, the media and the courts, as well as a law seen as harming LGBT rights.
Christina Thani reports; Edited by Jason Neely and Christina Fincher
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