Debate on the EU’s Ukraine Policy Needed, Says Minister Bóka

Member States should have a strategic debate on the European Union’s policy regarding Ukraine, the EU Affairs Minister wrote on his Facebook page.

János Bóka wrote in the post that Hungary’s upcoming EU presidency next year and the future of V4 cooperation came up in an interview with the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita. In the interview, he pointed out that Ukraine has more arable land than Italy’s total area and that the average Ukrainian farm is more than 1,000 hectares in size, while the EU average is 2.5 hectares. “This is why an imbalance arose when Ukrainian products flooded the Central European markets,” he added.

This country would be the biggest beneficiary of the common agricultural policy and recipient of cohesion funds, noted the minister, wondering whether the European market could keep pace with Ukraine’s integration.

In the interview, Bóka also named the priorities of the upcoming Hungarian presidency:

European competitiveness, demographic challenges in the EU and the future of cohesion policy, as well as migration, European security and defense policy, and EU enlargement.

He made it clear that the only institutional actor with political reservations about the Hungarian Council Presidency was the European Parliament. The Council of the EU, whose internal issue is the Council Presidency, does not share these reservations, he said. Problems with the European Commission only arise if it goes beyond the competences enshrined in the treaties when acting as a political committee, explained Bóka.

Then, however, the Commission also has to accept that it will get into a political confrontation with those Member States that do not share its political agenda,”

he added.

Via Ungarn Heute, Featured image: Pixabay