Hungary and Slovakia are against the allocation of a €50bn aid package to Ukraine from the EU fund
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – The European Union’s strategy with regards to the war in Ukraine “has failed” and the bloc should create a plan B as the Ukrainians will not win on the frontline, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told Hungarian state radio on Friday.
Orban, speaking in Brussels on the sidelines of an EU summit, said there was a “big battle” especially over support for Ukraine. Orban said he saw no reason for Hungary to send its taxpayers’ money to support Ukraine.
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The EU is due to decide in December on a revision of its 2021-27 budget worth 1.1 trillion euros ($1.2 trln), which is already strained by emergency spending during the COVID pandemic and since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The bloc’s executive proposed that member states chip in more to the shared coffers to provide 50 billion euros to Ukraine and spend another 15 billion euros on migration. Another proposal would allocate 20 billion euros in military aid for Ukraine.
“We found this proposal had not been worked out properly, and was not suitable to be a basis for serious negotiations so we had rejected it,” Orban said. “It was a big battle, especially on the Ukrainian issue.”
Orban said the biggest problem was that the Brussels strategy to send money and military aid to Ukraine to help its fight against Russia has failed.
“Today everybody knows but they do not dare to say it out loud, that this strategy has failed. Its obvious that this will not work….the Ukrainians will not win on the frontline,” he said, adding that a plan B was needed and a cost estimate for that.
“Once we know how much that costs, we can share that burden among ourselves.”
Nationalist Orban, who has constantly clashed with Brussels in the past 13 years over policies his critics say have eroded democratic values in Hungary, said a leadership change was needed in Brussels at the European elections next year.
Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Sonali Paul and Christina Fincher