Hungary on Monday said it would not bow to pressure from other EU states to give the green light to membership talks with Ukraine, setting the stage for a standoff at this week's EU summit. This comes as Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said it would be "devastating" for his country and the EU if the December 14-15 summit does not give the go-ahead for membership talks and increased aid to Ukraine, Reuters reports, according to UNN.
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who boasts of his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has threatened to veto the talks on aid and enlargement.
Other EU states, including Germany, the richest member, have said they support starting talks with Ukraine on the long process of joining the bloc, but Budapest has been resistant.
"The majority of European politicians want to make such important decisions that are completely unprepared and lack strategic agreement on the future of Europe," Foreign Minister Peter Sijjarto wrote on Facebook before a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels to help prepare for the summit.
"We will not give in to any pressure... no matter where it comes from, no matter who it comes from, no matter what kind of blackmail or promise it is," he said.
"I want to believe that Europeans will be united... and today we will send a clear signal to our Hungarian counterpart to make sure that this is the case," French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis called it "a clash of ideologies between those who want Europe to be strong and those who do not want the EU at all."
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who attended the meeting of EU foreign ministers, said that failure to agree at this week's summit to open accession talks would show that the EU is unable to fulfill its historic commitments.
"I cannot imagine, I don't even want to talk about the devastating consequences that will occur shall the (European) Council fail to make this decision," he said, calling it "the mother of all decisions."
"As the EU tries again to secure Orban's support for Ukraine, the European Commission's executive is expected to unlock up to 10 billion euros for Budapest this week," the newspaper writes.
Diplomats said that Georgia and Bosnia's respective attempts to realize their EU accession hopes, both backed by Orban, would fail if Hungary vetoed talks with Ukraine, but some also said a compromise was still possible.
"Those who expect Orban to give in described a possible compromise by postponing the start of talks with Ukraine until March. (...) Others say Orban may not be persuaded," the newspaper notes.