More comments on last week’s EU summit
December 19th, 2023A left-wing pundit welcomes the Prime Minister’s decision to recoil from vetoing the EU resolution to start accession negotiations with Ukraine. A pro-government commentator believes the Prime Minister vetoed what he could when he opposed the giant aid package which other EU countries wanted to deliver to Hungary’s beleaguered eastern neighbour.
In Népszava Ildikó Lendvai, who served as chairman of the Socialist Party in 2009/2010, describes Prime Minister Orbán’s gesture not to take part in the European Council vote on accession talks as ‘corridor Huxit’. She is convinced that the remaining 26 member countries will find a way to provide financial help to Ukraine even in the face of Hungary’s opposition, while the decision to launch accession negotiations was indispensable for Ukrainian morale. In fact, Russia launched the war because Ukraine decided to join the Western world, she writes, so had the EU kept the accession door shut, it would have sent a devastating message to Ukrainians.
On the Mandiner website, Mátyás Kohán describes Mr Orbán’s gesture to leave the European Council meeting while all the other leaders were voting to mean that Hungary wanted to disassociate herself as much as possible ‘from a decision that should never have been taken’. Hungary’s empty chair was a strong symbolic message that will be remembered by all parties, he predicts, when member countries run into huge hurdles and problems during what he calls ‘the hell of the accession process’.