Hungary has vowed to defy EU pressure to approve a four-year, €50bn aid package to Ukraine, condemning as “blackmail” a proposal to undermine its economy if it fails to back down.
Brussels has laid out ways to sabotage Hungary’s economy unless it agrees to drop its veto against the Ukraine funding plan at a special summit this week, the Financial Times wrote.
“Hungary does not give in to blackmail,” Hungary’s EU minister János Bóka wrote on X on Sunday night. “The document, drafted by Brussels bureaucrats, only confirms what the Hungarian government has been saying for a long time: access to EU funds is used for political blackmailing.”
EU leaders will gather on Thursday to discuss a plan to use the bloc’s budget to provide Ukraine with crucial financial assistance necessary to continue its war effort against Russia’s attacks.
The emergency summit was called because Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán vetoed the package at a December summit.
With U.S. aid also held up in Congress, Ukraine’s finances are in a perilous state and it urgently needs the EU infusion.
Last week the U.S. accused Orbán of pursuing a “fantasy foreign policy” on the issues, saying Hungary was acting in the interests of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Orbán has repeatedly said he will not agree to amending the bloc’s common budget to allow for more aid to Ukraine, nor will he permit any more joint borrowing to raise the necessary funds. Instead, he demanded member states finance a separate fund without new borrowing. The other 26 member states have resisted that idea.
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