Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has scaled up his opposition to Ukraine’s joining the European Union, claiming that the bloc wants to give Kyiv access to its budget from 2028.
Orban made the remarks in a video clip shared by his spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs in X platform on January 30. “They want to admit Ukraine in 2027. This is because they want to give Ukraine money from the budget, the seven-year European budget starting in 2028. This means it will be taken away from us, central Europeans,” Orban said. “So there is a limited time to bring Ukraine into the EU before the start of the next seven-year budget,” he added.
The Hungarian leader argued that the money to be given to Ukraine must be used for developing the armies and military equipment of European countries. “Our line of defence against Russia is not the Ukrainian-Russian border, but where the NATO border ends,” he stressed. Furthermore, Orban argued that Ukraine’s accession could drag the EU into the war with Russia, adding that "Ukraine cannot protect Europe from Russia”. Furthermore, he claimed that 95% percent of Hungarians rejected Ukraine’s fast-tracked EU membership “as they want to protect our farmers, the safety of our families, and peace in Hungary,”
Victor Orban has repeatedly opposed Ukraine’s EU membership, arguing that Kyiv’s accession to the bloc would drag the union to the war with Russia and funnel Hungarian money to Ukraine. Orban’s anti-Ukraine rhetoric has become a central point of his political campaign ahead of the April parliamentary election that could end his 16 years of rule. Ukraine formally applied for membership in the European Union on 28 February 2022, just days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
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