Gulyás: Country where conscripts are beaten to death is ‘not ready for EU membership’

In connection with a report the cabinet meeting heard on the Ukrainian situation, Gergely Gulyás, Head of the Prime Minister’s Office, told a regular government press briefing that a country where someone “is beaten to death during forced conscription is not ready to become a member of the European Union”.

Gulyás said so far, not all EU member states had aligned themselves with Hungary’s “firm stance”.

“We’re also taken aback since the Hungarian man who lost his life was a Ukrainian as well as a Hungarian citizen, so we’re talking about a European Union citizen,” he said.

“So Hungary has called on the EU to place those who took part in the man’s murder … on the EU sanctions list,” he said, adding that if the EU failed to do so, Hungary would take the case into its own hands, “and we will take action”.

Gulyás said the case was not an “isolated problem”, and he referred to a Council of Europe human rights report condemning Ukraine’s forced conscription practices.