Hungary seeks to join forces with the Czech Republic and Slovakia to form an alliance of Ukraine-skeptics in the EU, Balázs Orbán, chief political advisor to the Hungarian Prime Minister, told Politico, UNN reports.
Details
Orbán hopes to team up with Andrej Babiš, whose right-wing populist party won recent parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic, and with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico to coordinate positions ahead of EU leaders' meetings, including holding pre-summit meetings, the aide said.
Although a strong political alliance has not yet been achieved, its formation could significantly complicate EU efforts to provide financial and military support to Ukraine, the publication writes.
"I think it will happen - and become more and more visible," said Balázs Orbán, the Prime Minister's political director, when asked about the possibility of forming a bloc of Ukraine-skeptics in the European Council.
"It worked very well during the migration crisis. That's how we were able to resist," he said of the so-called Visegrad Four group, which consists of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland, when, as the publication writes, the Eurosceptic Law and Justice party was in power in Warsaw after 2015.
As the publication notes, the new Visegrad Four alliance would consist of three, not four, members. Poland's current center-right Prime Minister Donald Tusk is firmly pro-Ukrainian and is unlikely to join any alliance with Orbán, the publication writes.
Addition
The Hungarian Prime Minister, who has been in power for the past 15 years, faces a re-election battle next year. According to the publication's opinion poll, opposition leader Péter Magyar's Tisza party is currently more popular than Orbán's Fidesz party.