Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán intends to prevent the decision to open negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU, which is due to take place at a European Council meeting later this month.
Viktor Orbán wrote late Sunday on X, formerly Twitter.
It is clear that the proposal of the EU Commission on Ukraine’s EU accession is unfounded and poorly prepared. There is no place for it on the agenda of the December #EUCO!
After the European Commission gave the green light to start membership talks with Ukraine in November, Orbán is strongly opposed to opening accession talks with Kyiv. The Commission felt that war-torn Ukraine, already reached a certain level to start accession talks with the bloc.
The next stage is for EU leaders to approve a plan to start talks from the EU executive during a summit in Brussels on 14 and 15 December – if Orban does not get his way.
In November, Orbán sent a letter to European Council President Charles Michel demanding a review of EU policy towards Ukraine. Orbán also threatened to use Hungary’s veto power to block the release of a planned 50 billion euros in aid to Ukraine, which would break the bloc’s continued support for Kyiv. As a result, Michel made a last-minute visit to Budapest in an attempt to defuse tensions with the Hungarian leader and salvage the December summit.
Orbán’s opposition comes amid Budapest’s long-running dispute with Brussels, which withholds 13 billion euros in EU funds over concerns that Budapest is violating European law and order standards.
In a statement on X, the Hungarian prime minister argued that the discussion on Ukraine’s EU membership “does not coincide with the interests of many states, and certainly not Hungary” and called on the Commission to “take [its plan] back, prepare it properly and come back when an agreement is reached”.
