János Bóka, the EU affairs minister, said on Friday that Hungary’s government is not in favor of letting Ukraine join the European Union.
Bóka told public news channel M1 that it appeared that the EU had made a “political decision at the highest level” on admitting Ukraine to the bloc as soon as 2030 or even 2029. Meanwhile, those who disagreed, he said, “are under immense political pressure”, which could only be resisted through political means.
He said it was important for the Hungarian government to gather significant political support through its Vote 2025 referendum on Ukraine’s EU accession.
On the surface, Bóka said, “everyone depicts accession as a merit-based process” which depends on whether or not Ukraine meets the accession criteria. “But in Ukraine’s case, this process floundered at the very beginning … this is about a political fight, and in this political fight, we too must look to political means,” the minister said.
He said that “surprisingly”, Europeans saw the dangers and risks of Ukraine joining the EU the same way as the majority of Hungarian voters did and wanted their political leaders to poll them on the matter, too.
“This isn’t just a decision about enlargement, but something that will determine the future of Europe for decades to come,” Bóka said.
He added that due to a “misguided decision” by the European Commission, the EU had already opened up its agricultural and transport sectors to Ukraine, which had led to its markets being flooded with Ukrainian products and services that did not meet EU standards.
