A week after stalling an aid deal worth $54 billion to Ukraine, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has asserted that the money should not come out of the European Union (EU) budget, stating it remains a ‘bad decision’.
Orban justified his decision of vetoing the previous proposal saying Hungary’s money was involved in the budget and therefore it had a say in the matter.
“I am convinced that to give Ukraine 50 billion euros ($54.70 billion) from the EU budget for five years, in which there is no money for this, and by taking out a loan, that’s a bad decision. Instead let’s make a good decision, which is the Hungarian proposal,” Orban was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Quizzed about the possibility that the bloc’s 26 other members might broker a deal between themselves and Kyiv, Orban said he would reserve his comments.
“They have the possibility – if we don’t agree on this – to resolve this outside the budget, but don’t have the option of resolving this from the EU budget without Hungarian approval. They have the possibility, 26 members, to resolve this with a joint loan outside the budget. If this comes up, we will consider what we say.”
“We are not asking for anything, only that the budget should be implemented, but if they start amending the budget then the Hungarian interests will surface and we will negotiate accordingly,” he added.
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Orban puts his foot down
Last Friday, Orban put his foot down and delayed the deal until January next year, saying the European Council needed to come back to the proposal with proper preparation.
EU chief Charles Michel refrained from divulging the details of the meeting.
“I don’t want to go too much into the details because I want to work with colleagues in the days to come, in the weeks to come to prepare a summit that will take place next year, early next year,” Michel said.
Orban tanking the deal came after the bloc opened membership talks for Ukraine. The war-ravaged nation has been desperate to join the EU, to consolidate the member nations in the war against Russia.
Ukraine applied for EU membership in February last year, just four days after Russia launched an offensive on Kyiv. Initially, Orban had threatened to veto the plan as well but ducked out of it as other members called his bluff.
(With inputs from agencies)
