EU funds 4 December 2023, 10:46am

Senior EU officials, diplomats agape over Orbán's Ukraine comments

Portfolio

EU officials were shocked by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's messages late last week about his outright rejection of Ukraine's EU accession talks, as senior officials and diplomats believed until last week that the Hungarian leader's threats would not seriously jeopardise the success of the mid-December EU summit and were only about unblocking EU funds for his country, Politico reported in its Monday morning news bulletin.

Orban Viktor EU csucs Ukrajna csatlakozasi targyalas

It is clear that the proposal of the @EU_Commission on Ukraine’s EU accession is unfounded and poorly prepared. There is no place for it on the agenda of the December #EUCO!,

Orbán said in a post on X on Sunday.

The Hungarian PM argued “Ukraine’s membership […] does not coincide with Hungary’s national interests today,” and accused Ursula von der Leyen of wanting to “shove Ukraine’s EU accession down our throats, without assessing the consequences for European taxpayers and farmers.”

In conversations with Playbook, senior EU officials and diplomats had argued Orbán’s opposition to Ukraine’s membership was merely political theatre designed to force the EU to release funds for Hungary that are blocked over corruption and rule-of-law concerns. But with Orbán’s latest escalation, it’s difficult to see him climbing down again, officials now conceded.

The road to this realisation has led through a turbulent few days since Orbán's warning letter led to a visit to Budapest last Monday by Charles Michel, President of the European Council, who is officially responsible for setting the agenda for EU summits.

Then, in his usual radio interview on Friday morning, Orbán said about Ukraine's potential EU membership that:

Negotiations with Ukraine on its accession to the EU should not even begin. [...] We need strategic cooperation to bring us closer together. Ukraine's accession should be prepared.

The European Union already has an association agreement with Ukraine, Michel said on Friday when asked to comment about Orbán's call to sign a "strategic partnership" with Kyiv before starting membership talks.

We have an association agreement with Ukraine, which offers a lot of possibilities for close cooperation with Ukraine. In December, we'll have an in-depth debate with the 27 colleagues to assess what decision we'll make,

Charles Michel told Reuters on the sidelines of the COP28 summit in Dubai.