Hungary is ready to abolish its veto on EU assistance to Ukraine, but its block membership remains a "red line" for Budapest – Bloomberg agency quotes political advisor to Hungarian Prime Minister Balazs Orban.
Hungary is presently blocking an increase in the long-term EU budget for the period 2024-2027, which provides for EUR 50 billion of macro-financial assistance to Ukraine. Furthermore, Budapest opposes the beginning of Ukraine's accession negotiations at the EU summit on 14-15 December.
According to the adviser, Hungary is ready to abolish the veto in exchange for unlocking European funds for this purpose.
"EU funds for Hungary and funds for Ukraine are 2 separate issues. But if the EU believes that Ukraine's backing should come from the revised EU budget, these 2 issues become linked," Orban stressed.
He pointed out that Hungary is inactive opposed to the four-year support plan for Kiev and that Budapest would like to allocate funds for 1 year without changing the EU budget. Hungary would besides consider contributing to specified an aid package," added the advisor.
Orban said Budapest would consider the EU proposal to increase border protection backing and supply additional subsidies to support block economies in the negotiations on funds for Kiev.
However, the advisor pointed out that Ukraine's membership of the EU remains a "red line" for Budapest. He added that Hungary wants the EU to hold the start of negotiations on its entry into the block.
The European Commission proposed to launch a peculiar conditionality mechanics for Hungary in mid-September to guarantee the protection of the EU budget "from violations of the regulation of law in Hungary". This would mean freezing around €7.5 billion of EU funds for Budapest. This mechanism, designed to defend the Community budget from corruption, was first launched in 2 years of its existence. The EC then decided to uphold its first proposal to suspend 65% of Hungarian commitments to pay out of certain common EU funds, although Prime Minister Orban claimed that Budapest met the full list of demands from the European Commission, which included anti-corruption measures, increased transparency of public procurement and strengthened judicial independence.
In December 2022, EU countries agreed to frost funds for Hungary, but at a lower level than previously proposed. The EU initially proposed to frost backing for Hungary to EUR 7.5 billion. In December, European countries agreed to reduce the amount of frozen funds to EUR 6.3 billion in exchange for the withdrawal of Budapest from veto on a number of issues, in peculiar on the aid package for Kiev.
The Hungarian Prime Minister said that the European Commission is inactive blocking EU funds for Hungary due to the fact that it wants to influence Budapest's position on migration, sex education and sanctions, but does not intend to change its view on those issues that it considers fundamental. The Hungarian abroad Minister Péter Szijártó said that the country should be prepared for serious EU attacks, due to the fact that "Brussels and the liberal propaganda machine" are not selective in measures and are utilizing all kinds of blackmail against Budapest.
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Hungary has laid down a condition for abolishing the veto aid to Ukraine:
