Europe should walk with the United States and seek peace, the prime minister told a press conference on Ukraine after an emergency EU summit in Brussels on Thursday evening. He said he therefore did not support the document signed by 26 member states on supporting Ukraine and the continuation of the war.
Viktor Orbán recalled that at the extraordinary summit 26 out of 27 member states voted in favour of Ukraine continuing the war. "We have said that we must support the President of the United States of America with the utmost strength and energy to ensure the success of his peace negotiations. So we should go along with the Americans and work for peace, not for the continuation of the war."
He added that 26 member states had adopted a document on the continuation of the war and the need to strengthen Ukraine so that it can continue to fight. Hungary did not support this because it was "completely contrary to our position in favour of peace", Orbán stressed.
In a video Orbán posted earlier on his social network during a break of the one-day EU emergency summit on Ukraine, he said that the leaders of the member states listened to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and then tried to understand him with questions, "what is the situation on the front line, what the Ukrainian president has in mind and what he thinks about the future". "I can tell you that the situation on the front line has not changed, the fighting is still going on," He said. He also recalled that the Americans have indicated that they are significantly reducing the level of aid and in some areas have even stopped it.
Speaking to reporters after the EU summit, Orbán said he would demand a vote on the issue of Ukraine's EU membership. He stressed that the question of Ukraine's EU membership should be seriously examined, as it is not possible to make a responsible decision on the issue now.
He explained that it would be run in the same way as the national consultation, quickly and simply. He pointed out that Ukraine's EU membership would transform the whole system of EU governance. "We're not ready for this, so I think we need to slow down and we definitely need to know people's opinions on this issue," he stressed.
The Prime Minister said that the money the EU wants to send to Ukraine and the burden of Ukraine's membership in the European Union together represent an amount that the EU economy, including Hungary's, cannot bear. However, he added that there was a consensus among leaders that the EU would have to spend a lot of money on itself to "strengthen our own armies".
Dániel Deák, a senior analyst at the Institute of the 21st Century, pointed out that Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico finally succumbed to pressure and signed the EU Memorandum, even though he had promised the opposite just a day earlier. He was offered help in negotiating the resumption of Ukrainian gas transit, "which is unlikely anyway", Deák believes. He added that the Slovak prime minister's retreat was understandable. "If he is leading a three-party coalition government with a narrow majority, a gentler breeze from Brussels could overwhelm him. This is the situation in most European countries: leaders without charisma and with weak power, easily blackmailed by the Brussels elite." he stated.
Fico: EU states have acknowledged that the cancellation of transit through Ukraine threatens the EU
EU member states have acknowledged that the cancellation of gas transit through Ukraine "is a problem that threatens the entire EU", Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Facebook on Thursday after an emergency summit of EU member states in Brussels, writes TASR.
Ahead of the summit on further support for Ukraine and the future of European defence, Fico said he would demand that the conclusions of Thursday's summit include wording calling for a solution to the resumption of gas transit through Ukraine to Slovakia; otherwise he would block the summit's conclusions.
"The European Council calls on the Commission, Slovakia and Ukraine to step up efforts to find a viable solution to the gas transit issue, taking into account Slovakia's concerns," states the adopted text. The European Council will discuss the gas issue at its next meeting.
"I think that the mention of the need to find a solution for the resumption of gas transit in cooperation between the European Commission, Ukraine and Slovakia is acceptable," Fico said on Thursday morning at a meeting of the Slovak Parliament's European Affairs Committee before flying to Brussels. "If the conclusions contain such wording, we have no reason not to support them," He added.
hungarytoday.hu/ TASR/ gnews.cz - RoZ
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