Hungary will oppose EU membership for Ukraine, says prime minister Viktor Orbán. He claims the country is “light years” away from joining the union.
There are plans to formally invite Ukraine to start membership negotiations at an EU summit in December. Orbán was re-elected leader of Fidesz on Saturday, a position he has held since 2003, and addressed a meeting of the party. There he promised that his government would make it a priority to prevent Ukraine from joining the EU.
– Our task will be to correct the mistaken promise to start negotiations with Ukraine, since Ukraine is now light years away from the European Union, he says, according to the news agency AP News.
Orbán stresses that it is not appropriate to start negotiations with a country in a state of war. He also expresses concern that Ukrainian EU membership would upset the current balance of resource allocation among the union’s 27 member countries.
The unanimous consent of all current member states is required to open negotiations on Ukraine’s EU membership.
