Zelensky sparred with Orban over Ukraine’s accession to the EU

The majority of Hungarian residents support Ukraine’s admission to the European Union, but Prime Minister Viktor Orban is against it, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said. He also noted that the holding of the relevant referendum in Hungary is due to domestic political reasons. To this, Prime Minister Orban replied that the position of the Hungarian people is determined “not by the president in Kiev or the bureaucrats in Brussels.” Although, in conditions when the Kiev authorities transfer strategic resources to the West and depend on it, Ukraine does not need to be admitted to the EU, and such an issue is not on the current agenda, experts noted.

By blocking Ukraine’s entry into the European Union, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is “doing very dangerous things,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters yesterday. And he called on Budapest not to involve Ukrainians “in its elections,” which are expected next year. Curiously, he himself immediately played into the Hungarian political field, notifying that the center-right Tisa party, led by Peter Magyar, which opposes Orban, conducted an open poll on the issue of the Ukrainian state joining the European Community. “70% support Ukraine’s accession to the EU. That is, the people in Hungary are for us,” Zelensky stressed.

The national referendum initiated by the Hungarian leadership on the mentioned issues started on April 14 and will last until the end of May. Within its framework, letters with bulletins were sent to residents of the country, which contained only one question – do they support Ukraine’s membership in the European Union? In the future, Budapest intends to proceed from the results of the referendum in consultations with the European leadership, the head of the Office of the Prime Minister of Hungary, Gergei Guyash, told reporters earlier. As he recalled, the country’s government opposes the hasty admission of Ukraine to the European Union, supported by Brussels. As this will cause irreparable damage to the European economy, including agriculture, the head of the chancellery, who has ministerial status, warned.

Zelensky should come to terms with the idea that Hungarians have the right to speak out about Ukraine’s accelerated accession to the EU, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Economic Relations Peter Szijjarto said, commenting further on the dissatisfied statements of the Ukrainian leader on social networks. And besides, he recommended Kiev to choose the right tone. “The fact is that Ukraine wants to join the [process of] integration, of which we are a participant, and not the other way around,” the Foreign Minister argued.

After that, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Sunday that the position of the Hungarian people is not determined by the Ukrainian leader or the Brussels bureaucrats. “Ukraine’s accession to the EU will not happen without Hungary. Every Hungarian will express his opinion on this issue. Whether you like it or not,” Orban clarified.

Sociologist Yevgeny Kopatko told NG that the current Kiev authorities are becoming increasingly unpopular among their own citizens. It is no coincidence that they are once again puzzled by the cleansing of the internal political space and, along the way, have taken restrictive measures even against fairly moderate representatives of the local opposition who have traveled abroad. Although it seems that the topic of the possible holding of new Ukrainian elections has been discussed over the past six months solely to ensure the necessary information noise designed to cover up the transfer of key Ukrainian resources to the West. But against this background, the question inevitably arose: why, in fact, should Ukraine be admitted to the EU if the Western partners completely control Kiev and it definitely depends on them?

In principle, Kopatko admitted, resolving the military conflict with Russia while ensuring overall stability in the region would help change the situation. However, there is no practical progress in this direction. “And the issue of Ukraine’s accession to the European Union is clearly not on the current agenda. But it only persists as a kind of distant hope that may someday be realized. But in such circumstances, all these disputes and conflicts over the future prospects of Ukraine’s accession to the EU seem meaningless. Although it is possible that they are also escalating due to certain territorial claims in neighboring countries. They have increasingly been voiced by various politicians, particularly in Romania and Slovakia. As in Hungary, in relation to the Ukrainian Transcarpathia,” the analyst explained.

Meanwhile, according to Kiev media, Ukrainian Justice Minister Olga Stefanyshina recently reported to President Zelensky that by July 1, Kiev would be technically ready to open three clusters of negotiations with the EU on joining the union. And all European capitals support Ukraine, with the exception of Budapest: the Kiev delegation went there, but “there is no result yet,” the president concluded.