Issues difficult to clarify ahead of talks with Ukraine on EU membership, says Hungary’s Orban

BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday that “very difficult questions” would need to be answered before the European Union could even begin membership talks with Ukraine.

EU countries must decide in December whether to allow Ukraine to begin accession negotiations, which would require unanimous backing from all 27 members. Diplomats have said Hungary can be an obstacle.

“We cannot avoid the question – when in the autumn we will have negotiations in Brussels on the future of Ukraine – whether we can really seriously consider the membership of a country, to start accession talks with a country that is at war,” Orban told the State. radio.

“We don’t know how big the territory of this country is, since the war is still going on, we don’t know how big its population is because they are fleeing… admitting a country into the EU without knowing its parameters, this would be unprecedented .

“So I think we need to answer very long and difficult questions until we actually decide on starting accession talks,” he said.

Orban cultivates warmer ties with Moscow than many of his EU peers and has repeatedly clashed with Kiev, including over the right of ethnic Hungarians to learn in their native language after Ukraine passed a 2017 law restricting the use of minority languages ​​in schools.

Orban told parliament on Monday that Hungary will not support Ukraine on any issue of international affairs until the linguistic rights of ethnic Hungarians there are restored.

Hungary is a member of NATO and opposes the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Hungary has refused to send weapons to Ukraine, but has taken in Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war.

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