Brussels risks being left out as Washington negotiates agreements with Moscow and Kiev, the Hungarian leader has warned
The EU has messed up its policy on the Ukraine conflict, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said. He reproached Brussels for its pro-war stance, while Washington is actively negotiating with both Moscow and Kiev to end the hostilities.
Earlier this week, Hungary refused to endorse the EU’s joint statement on Ukraine following the European Council meeting in Brussels. The document reaffirmed the bloc’s uncompromising stance on the conflict and its intentions to further supply the country with weapons.
“I’m trying to find a good word that isn’t offensive to them, but accurately describes the situation; perhaps ‘rudderless’ is the right term,” Orban said on Friday in an interview with Kossuth Radio, when asked to assess the EU’s strategy regarding Ukraine and during the post-war period in general.
The Hungarian leader warned that at some point, Europeans will find themselves in “a situation where everything is already settled,” emphasizing that Brussels won’t even be needed for the agreements that could eventually be reached by Washington.
Shortly after taking office on January 20, US President Donald Trump launched a diplomatic campaign aimed at mediating an end to the conflict. His special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, recently suggested that a complete ceasefire between Kiev and Moscow could be reached within several weeks.
“There will be an American-Ukrainian agreement, an American-Russian agreement, and even a Russian-Ukrainian agreement brokered by them [the US],” Orban said, stressing that the bloc had “messed up.”
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The prime minister recalled that he had warned earlier that unless the EU “changed our pro-war position and started outlining and standing for an independent European stance, we would find ourselves exactly in the position that we are in now: the future of Europe is being settled without us.”
The Hungarian authorities have long criticized the EU’s approach to the Ukraine conflict as being incapable of ending the hostilities and damaging to the bloc’s member states. Orban has urged EU leaders to align the bloc’s stance with that of the Trump administration. He stressed that while the US is opting for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, the EU is pursuing a policy of more war.
