Prime Minister, you went to the EU summit in Brussels with a strong view that you would not let negotiations on the accession of Ukraine to begin. Eventually, he gave up. Why?
– After failing to convince the another EU associate States in an eight-hour debate that this was a bad decision, the question yet remains whether twenty-six associate States can impose their will on me and Hungary. The only answer we could give was not to take part in making decisions. There might be more. I so keep the Hungarian position, Hungary has not taken part in this bad decision and this does not burden our conscience. We know that this decision will origin quite a few problems, but from now on we have the legal basis to prevent these problems if they scope Hungary.
If twenty-six people had convinced me for 8 hours about something, at any point I'd think I was wrong. Didn't you think of that?
- Yes, you are. By education, I am a lawyer, while studying for 5 years we practiced constantly analyzing our own position. The Hungarian policy now has the chance to continuously measure its position. I've been doing this for 8 hours, yes, I was wondering if I was going against the current. I had to make certain it was. Any single argument that Hungary made and presented was correct. This is not a fresh situation, that is what happened to migration. Everyone sees what it's done and where we've come from.
The decision to negociate accession with Ukraine is alternatively a directional decision, which can later be stopped countless times. Is that right?
– I do not consider negotiations to be a theoretical issue, due to the fact that they have not even begun yet, but we have already faced serious economical problems in 2 areas. We have a problem with Ukrainian grain, which causes serious losses among Hungarian farmers, and Ukrainian trucks must already be stopped at the borders of Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, due to the fact that they destruct carriers of these countries. The beginning of accession negotiations is simply a declaration that we want Ukraine to become a associate of the Union. Our problem is that this decision has not been preceded by any analyses. What does this mean for French, German and Hungarian farmers, tiny businesses, traders, carriers, and could I mention almost the full economical sector?
It is surely actual that the fight for membership is simply a longer process and that all associate State has many ways to slow down or halt this process, but the decision itself means that twenty-six countries want Ukraine to become a associate of the European Union and want to negotiate. All this time, it is not clear where the borders of Ukraine are going, not its authoritative borders, but its actual geographical boundaries and how many people live in it. Will the population in the territory presently occupied by the Russian army be in the Union? Should we number them too? There is no answer to fundamental questions, due to the fact that many people thought it was just a political gesture, a geopolitical decision.
However, on 2 current and pressing issues, namely financial support for Ukraine and an increase in the EU budget, you have not allowed a single position to be reached.
– If we give Kiev EUR 50 billion from the EU budget, it may besides mean that we are giving money to the Hungarian people. Since there is not much money in the EU budget today, it must be obtained from somewhere. It can be done in 2 ways, 1 of which is shared borrowing. We have bad experiences with the joint borrowing of the Covid Reconstruction Fund and we will not go into it again. On the another hand, if we do not take credit, the funds will should be transferred from the existing budget chapters, and this can besides affect Hungarian money. And we do not accept that Hungarian money should be transferred to Ukraine.
A fragment of Viktor Orban's interview for the paper “Magyar Nemzet”
