Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán appears to be like set to derail a call on opening talks on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, which is about to happen at a European Council later this month.
“It’s clear that the proposal of the @EU_Commission on Ukraine’s EU accession is unfounded and poorly ready,” Orbán stated late Sunday on X, previously Twitter.
“There isn’t any place for it on the agenda of the December #EUCO!” the Hungarian prime minister added.
Orbán has adamantly opposed the opening of accession negotiations for Ukraine, after the European Fee gave the inexperienced mild to begin membership talks in November.
The Fee assessed that war-torn Ukraine, which remains to be combating off Russia’s full-scale invasion, had made sufficient progress to warrant the opening of negotiations.
The following step is for EU leaders to approve a plan to start talks from the EU’s govt physique throughout a summit in Brussels on December 14 and 15 — except Orbán will get his means.
In a letter despatched to European Council President Charles Michel in November, Orbán demanded a evaluate of the EU’s coverage on Ukraine, and threatened to make use of Hungary’s veto energy to dam the disbursement of a deliberate €50 billion in support for Ukraine, disrupting the bloc’s steadfast assist to Kyiv.
The transfer led Michel to make a last-minute go to to Budapest in an try to ease tensions with the Hungarian chief and rescue December’s summit.
Orbán’s opposition comes as Budapest is embroiled in a long-standing dispute with Brussels, which is holding again €13 billion in EU funds over issues that Budapest is in breach of European rule-of-law requirements.
In his assertion on X, the Hungarian prime minister argued that discussions on Ukraine’s EU membership “doesn’t coincide with the pursuits of many states, actually not with Hungary’s,” and referred to as on the Fee to “take [their plan] again, put together it correctly, and are available again when an settlement has been reached.”