“After he sent the letter saying that we shouldn’t discuss the issue at all I don’t see a sudden backtracking,” said Ágoston Mraz, director of Nézőpont, a thinktank close to Orbán’s Fidesz party.
The European Commission recommended in November that formal EU membership negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova should begin, which its president, Ursula von der Leyen, described as a response to “the call of history”.
Orbán has long been at loggerheads with Brussels over various issues, including democratic backsliding and the erosion of judicial independence in Hungary, which led to the freezing of tens of billions of euros of funding for Budapest.
Orbán has often pursued a rogue foreign policy at odds with Hungary’s status as a Nato member, frequently criticising Ukraine while maintaining economic ties with Russia.
There is hope that even if Orbán blocks accession in December, he will acquiesce later on, but another senior official said if the decision does not come now, it might be harder to push it through next year as attention turns to the election campaign for the European parliament.
“You have people at the table who were not there when Zelenskiy was beamed into the European Council [just after the Russian invasion last February] and said: ‘This may be the last time you will see me alive.’ This had a big psychological impact and these memories are now fading,” said the official.
The original article contains 989 words, the summary contains 231 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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“After he sent the letter saying that we shouldn’t discuss the issue at all I don’t see a sudden backtracking,” said Ágoston Mraz, director of Nézőpont, a thinktank close to Orbán’s Fidesz party.
The European Commission recommended in November that formal EU membership negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova should begin, which its president, Ursula von der Leyen, described as a response to “the call of history”.
Orbán has long been at loggerheads with Brussels over various issues, including democratic backsliding and the erosion of judicial independence in Hungary, which led to the freezing of tens of billions of euros of funding for Budapest.
Orbán has often pursued a rogue foreign policy at odds with Hungary’s status as a Nato member, frequently criticising Ukraine while maintaining economic ties with Russia.
There is hope that even if Orbán blocks accession in December, he will acquiesce later on, but another senior official said if the decision does not come now, it might be harder to push it through next year as attention turns to the election campaign for the European parliament.
“You have people at the table who were not there when Zelenskiy was beamed into the European Council [just after the Russian invasion last February] and said: ‘This may be the last time you will see me alive.’ This had a big psychological impact and these memories are now fading,” said the official.
The original article contains 989 words, the summary contains 231 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!