Only the Hungarians can stop Ukraine’s accession to the European Union at a forced pace, which would pose insurmountable challenges to our country’s economy and destroy the results achieved so far, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Budapest, according to MTI. The minister, speaking at the Central European Summit on 15th April, expressed his opposition to recent proposals from Brussels on Ukraine to send more money and weapons, as well as military advisers, and to allow the country to join the European Union before it formally joins.
“Now people here think that I’ve got something mixed up, but I haven’t (…) The goal in Brussels is to fully integrate Ukraine economically into the European Union’s internal single market before Ukraine fully joins the European Union. So they want Ukraine to be fully integrated economically before it concludes the accession negotiations themselves,” he explained.
“This would mean that Ukrainian labour would flood the European labour market, including the Hungarian one. It would mean that agricultural products produced according to completely different standards, contaminated with GMOs and all kinds of other low-quality materials would flood the Central European market, and thus the Hungarian market (…) It would mean that a significant part of Hungarian companies would be ruined by low-quality services, which would therefore be cheaper than those available here,” Szijjártó said.
“Ukraine’s forced, extra-rapid accession would pose insoluble questions for the Hungarian economy, and would destroy all the achievements that we Hungarians have made together so far”, he warned.
“It is clear that Brussels has decided that for political, ideological, philosophical, geopolitical and other reasons, Ukraine must be pushed into the European Union as soon as possible,” he added.
Szijjártó said that Brussels is aware that only the Hungarians can stop all this. “On the one hand, we alone are brave enough to stand up to the liberal mainstream in Brussels, and on the other hand, we have the political stability to dare to stand up to such a very rough Brussels roller,” he said.
“Therefore, they are obviously trying to produce a result as soon as possible that would show that the Hungarians support Ukraine’s accession to the European Union”, he continued.
“And yesterday or the day before yesterday we learned that the Tisza Party does indeed support Ukraine’s accession to the European Union. However, the Tisza Party does not represent the voice of the Hungarian people, but the voice of Brussels. And what position Hungary, the Hungarian government, takes on this issue depends on the voice of the Hungarian people, their opinion, so the Hungarian people will have the opportunity to say what they think about this issue in the referendum.”
The minister also referred to the “brutal” deprivation of rights of the Transcarpathian Hungarians, and complained that the Ukrainian leadership has shown no willingness to resolve the issue for ten years.
“I have worked with four Ukrainian foreign ministers in ten years. I think we met at least 25-30 times, and 25-30 times the discussion started with the Ukrainian partners saying ‘but Peter, what’s the problem?’ And when you are younger and at the beginning of your career, you are tolerant of this situation, and then as you get older, the tolerance threshold gets lower and lower, and after a while you say that it is not appropriate to take an entire country, an entire nation for a fool.”
“For ten years it has been clear what we expect from the Ukrainians. Give back the rights that Hungarians had before 2015, period. It’s not complicated. We are not asking for anything extra,” he added.
The Hungarian government was Donald Trump long before Donald Trump, and the recipe for further success is to continue the current policy: saying no to war, illegal migration and gender madness, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Budapest on Tuesday.
According to a statement sent to MTI by the ministry, the minister pointed out at the Central European Summit that in recent years a new world order had begun to emerge as a result of the crises, but this January a complete turnaround took place with the inauguration of Donald Trump in that the United States, the world’s number one superpower now had a patriotic president.
He argued that this had given the international liberal mainstream “such a hard blow that it was still walking around in a daze”, because developments in the US had disproved its belief in its own exclusivity, that only the liberal mainstream could be good and successful.
“We are also under constant political attack because we Hungarians are the living refutation of the idea that the liberal mainstream is the only good and the only successful one. Because we are successful as patriots. This is the combination, patriotic and successful, which Brussels cannot digest,” he underlined.
He then pointed out that the old-new US president has started to deliver on his campaign promises, he wants to end the war in Ukraine, he has started direct negotiations with Russia, he has cut off the financial sources of interference in the internal affairs of other states, and a revolution of common sense has also started: the father is a man, the mother is a woman, and you are born either a man or a woman.
“No war, no migration, no gender, that sums up the revolution of common sense. And this strategy of Donald Trump is in line with the Hungarian strategy,” he said.
“And with due immodesty we can say that we were Donald Trump before Donald Trump. Because we say no to war, we say no to illegal migration, we say no to gender madness, we have an economic policy based on common sense, and we base our foreign policy strategy on mutual respect,” he added.
The minister stressed that the Hungarian government has been able to succeed for fifteen years while having to operate in the face of total headwinds.
“And if we ask the question now, what is the recipe for future success, the answer is two simple words: ‘carry on’. Let’s continue being Donald Trump!” – he said.
“Because our goal for the future continues to be to stay out of the war in our neighbourhood and to give all the support we can to bring peace. Our goal for the future continues to be to stop illegal migration and to maintain our sovereign right to decide who we want to live with. We are committed to preserving our identity. And we will continue to protect children,” he said.
“Yesterday we gave this another important constitutional backing against aggressive gender propaganda. And part of the recipe for future success is to ensure that we do not allow Brussels to decide about us over our heads in the future,” he added.
Therefore, Péter Szijjártó said it was important that the Hungarian people should have the right to decide on crucial issues such as Ukraine’s accession.
“Part of the recipe for success is that for fifteen years we have been listening to the voice of the Hungarian people, and for fifteen years we have been governing according to the will of the Hungarian people. And if you look at the real definitions, this is called democracy. We are the strongest democracy in Europe, because it is here that the government has received democratic legitimacy the most number of times,” he said.
“In Hungary, the government has not won the opportunity to govern by chance or on the lottery, but by the people’s choice. And the Hungarian people made empirical choices in 2014, 2018 and 2022. They made their decisions based on the experience of the previous four, eight and twelve years, and no one has the right to question this, either inside or outside the country’s borders. The recipe for success is therefore to continue,” he concluded.
Foreign policy expert, journalist, press officer. He was a foreign policy journalist and editor for fourteen years, mainly at Magyar Nemzet. He specializes in the Middle East and North Africa. As a journalist, he has visited several countries and conflict zones in the region. He has reported from Israel and Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, but he has also visited Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabak, and Cyprus.
