János Bóka gave an interview touching on Polish-Hungarian relations and EU funds.Continue reading
Europe should go with the United States and aim for peace, the Prime Minister said at a press conference on Ukraine after the extraordinary EU summit in Brussels on Thursday night. He said that was why he did not support the document signed by 26 Member States on support for Ukraine and the continuation of the war.
Viktor Orbán recalled that at the extraordinary summit, 26 of the 27 Member States argued that Ukraine should continue the war. “We said that we must support the President of the United States of America with the greatest possible strength and energy to ensure the success of his peace negotiations. So we should go along with the Americans and aim for peace, not the continuation of war.”
He added that the 26 Member States had adopted a document on the continuation of the war and the need to strengthen Ukraine so that it could fight even further. Hungary did not support this because it was “completely contrary to our position in favor of peace,” Mr. Orbán emphasized.
Very unwise and inconsistent.
Yesterday @GiorgiaMeloni stated she won’t send Italian soldiers to fight for Ukraine; but now says this. She could and should have sided fully with Trump – not with @vonderleyen.
Looks like @PM_ViktorOrban is the only European leader with a spine. https://t.co/xnctTquAK7
— Eva Vlaardingerbroek (@EvaVlaar) March 6, 2025
In a video posted earlier on his social networking site during the break of the one-day extraordinary EU summit on Ukraine, Mr. Orbán said that the leaders of the Member States had listened to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and then tried to understand “what the situation is on the front line, what is on the Ukrainian President’s mind, and what he thinks about the future,” by asking questions. “I can tell you that the situation on the front line is unchanged, the fighting is still going on,” he said. He also noted that the Americans have made it clear that they are significantly reducing the level of support and have even stopped it in some areas.
Speaking to journalists after the EU summit, Mr. Orbán said he would call for an opinion vote on Ukraine’s EU membership. He stressed that
the question of Ukraine’s EU membership should be seriously revisited, because it is not possible to make a responsible decision on the issue now.
He emphasized that he did not want a decision to be made over the heads of the people.
He explained that it would be conducted in the same way as national consultations, quickly and simply. He pointed out that Ukraine’s membership of the EU would transform the whole management system of the European Union. “We are not prepared for this, so I think we need to slow down and we definitely need to get people’s views on this issue,” he stressed.
Today’s EUCO revolved around President @realDonaldTrump’s peace plan. Many European leaders – Brussels bureaucrats and heads of member states – oppose the US administration’s endeavours. They would rather continue the war as long as it takes.
Hungary’s position remained the… pic.twitter.com/fbWr44awbj
— Orbán Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) March 6, 2025
The Prime Minister said that the money the EU wants to send to Ukraine and the burden of Ukraine’s membership of the European Union together is an amount that the EU economy, including Hungary’s, cannot bear. However, he added,
there was agreement among the leaders that the EU would have to spend a lot of money on itself to “strengthen our own armies.”
Dániel Deák, a senior analyst at the XXI Century Institute, pointed out that in the end, even Slovak PM Robert Fico gave in to the pressure, and signed the EU memorandum, despite promising the opposite only a day earlier. He was offered help with negotiating the restart of Ukrainian gas transit, “which is unlikely to happen anyway,” thinks Deák. He added that the Slovak Prime Minister’s backtracking is understandable: “leading a three-party coalition government with a narrow majority, a softer breeze from Brussels could blow him over. This is the situation in most European countries, by the way: leaders without charisma and with weak power, easily blackmailed by the Brussels elite.”
Via MTI, Featured photo via MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Benko Vivien Cher