PM Orbán threatens with veto before EU summit, awards Salvini, talks about cleaning in Brussels

Hungary’s parliament has declared that the country continues to support that Europe should be able to defend itself independently, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said ahead of a meeting of the Patriots for Europe party group in Brussels on Wednesday.

Speaking at the House of Hungarians in Brussels ahead of the meeting preparing for an EU summit, Orbán said Hungary supported armament aiming to ensure European security. “The question is where the money will come from. We propose that everyone puts in money from their own coffers. Funds should not come from a joint European loan. We do not want to be burdened with joint debts with anyone,” he said. Money should be held in a joint European security fund, Orbán said. “Hungary is ready and able” to do that, he added.

Orbán and Fico at the EU summit: friends.

Orbán cabinet opposes Ukraine’s EU membership

Thursday’s summit will, in part, focus on Ukraine’s EU membership, “which some will try to rush, but Hungary definitively opposes that”, he said. Orbán said that “so far, if we break it down to families and households, the war has cost 2.5 million forints [EUR 6,280] each. The costs of [Ukraine’s] EU accession would immediately come to 500,000 forints per household. We don’t want to shoulder that, so we will stick to our stance,” he added.

Regarding migration, Orbán said that “rebelling prime ministers who disagree with the migration policy and want to change it” would gather ahead of the summit on Thursday. The summit would see “an open conspiracy headed by the Italians aiming to curb the flow of illegal migrants,” he said.

The EU should support peace efforts

Fielding questions in English, Orbán said Hungary did not support EU monies being disbursed to Ukraine, adding that “in our understanding, there is one simple mission [for] the European Union, to support … President Donald Trump’s efforts to make peace.”

He said he was representing Hungarians’ opinions who believed strongly that all efforts should go towards brokering peace. “We are losing lives [by the] thousands which is totally against our values.” The war is also very expensive, Orbán said, “creating higher energy price, the bonds’ interest rates went up, and we lost export possibilities in Russia.”

Salvini awarded by Orbán

The liberal elite in Brussels must be replaced with a new, patriotic European leadership which will strengthen a Europe of nations rather than building its own power, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in Brussels on Wednesday, at a ceremony of the Hunyadi János Award of the Foundation for a Civic Hungary.

This year, the Hunyadi János Award was awarded to Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. Orbán told the event: “It is our shared task to restore a Europe of nations.” He said that the “rights unlawfully confiscated from nations” should be returned. Regulations must be enforced equally on all member states, he said. “The agents of the Soros network must be excluded from the European Commission, and corrupt lobbyists must be removed from the European Parliament. The European Union cannot be a financial network aiming to weaken national governments,” he said.