Hungary Plans on Blocking an Additional $19 Billion in European Union Aid to Ukraine
Jose Nino
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is firmly opposed to the European Union’s plans to send an additional $19 billion in foreign aid to Ukraine.
As Petter Caddle of Breitbart News noted, this latest development in Hungary’s feud with the EU over its stance on the Russo-Ukrainian War “comes as relations between Brussels and Budapest continue to sour, with the European Commission earlier this week recommending that billions of euros in EU funding for Hungary should remain frozen over a long-running row to do with the bloc supposedly having concerns over rule of the law under Orbán’s national conservative, anti-mass migration government.”
The Hungarian leader is opposed to this latest aid plan on the grounds that EU members would be compelled to borrow money in order to send such an alarming amount of aid to Ukraine.
Orbán recognized that Ukraine will need financial help as it fends off Russia’s brutal invasion. However, he stressed that all aid should be agreed upon on a bilateral basis between Ukraine and individual EU member states. Orbán does not want this aid to be set up through a single transnational aid package that would massively in-debt EU member states.
“The question is how to help Ukraine,” AP reported the Hungarian Prime Minister as saying. “One proposal says that we should use the budgets of the EU member-states to take out new loans together and use that money to give to Ukraine. We are not in favor of this because we do not want the European Union to become a community of indebted states instead of a community of co-operating member states.”
We will not accept [this] plan, we will not consent to it, without us it will not come into being,” Orbán continued.
Orbán has reportedly pledged $180 million in Hungarian aid to Ukraine. The Hungarian leader is confident that this figure will not put Hungary in a precarious financial state.
Orbán is one of the most prominent realists on the world stage. Not only is Orbán a committed nationalist, he also understands the limits of foreign policy and is not willing to engage in ideological crusades that the Anglo-American axis is pursuing.
Many leaders in the Collective West should follow in Orbán’s footsteps.
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