Orban concerned that Ukraine will receive funds from EU budget, while Budapest won't
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán believes that the European Union should not provide Ukraine with funding from the EU budget, and that any funding for Ukraine should be subject to "reasonable" deadlines, but he suggests that the EU could use another mechanism to provide Ukraine with €50 billion in financial aid without Budapest's consent, Reuters quotes him.
According to the Hungarian prime minister, European leaders have the opportunity to allocate funds to Ukraine without Hungary's consent through a "joint loan outside the EU budget."
He believes that "they want to give money to Ukraine from inside the EU budget", but Hungary "wants to give it outside the EU budget".
"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," Orbán said.
In addition, he also called the allocation of money to Ukraine from the EU budget a "bad decision".
"I am convinced that to give Ukraine 50 billion euros ($54.70 billion) from the EU budget for five years... That's a bad decision," said the Hungarian Prime Minister.
He noted that Hungary would not want to link the suspension of the allocation of EU funds to Budapest with the financing of Ukraine, because, in his opinion, "this would violate the principle of loyal cooperation of the EU."
"We do not want to link financial assistance to be given to Ukraine with any Hungarian financial issues ... this would also violate the EU principle of loyal cooperation," Orbán said.
Orbán has repeatedly stated that official Budapest opposes the start of negotiations regarding Ukraine's accession to the bloc. According to the EU statute, this decision can only be taken by a full consensus of all member states, so European and Ukrainian officials tried to convince Orbán not to vote against it.
On the morning of December 14, Orbán promised that Hungary would block the negotiations, but in the evening, despite Hungary's position, the European Council gave the "green light" to negotiations on the accession of Ukraine and Moldova to the EU.
On December 15, the political adviser to the Prime Minister of Hungary, Baláš Orbán, threatened the European Union with further blackmail from Budapest in the context of Ukraine's accession to the EU.
On December 15, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the decision to create the Ukraine Facility in the amount of 50 billion euros for 2024-2027 and the opening of negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the European Union.
French President Macron also said that the Prime Minister of Hungary can be persuaded to support Ukraine's financing in the amount of 50 billion euros.
The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, said that the leaders of the EU countries will hold a summit in early 2024, at which they will discuss the provision of 50 billion euros to Ukraine.
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