Hungary’s populist right-wing government has tried to undermine Europe’s support for Ukraine and allowed its country to become a “back door for foreign interference”, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said.
In a speech confronting Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, Dr von der Leyen criticised his government for breaking ranks with the rest of the European Union on a host of important issues.
“The world has witnessed the atrocities of Russia’s war and yet there are still some who blame this war not on the invader but on the invaded,” the commission president said. Ukraine was facing its third winter since Russia invaded the country in early 2022, Dr von der Leyen said.
The German politician, who earlier this year secured a second five-year term at the top of the EU’s executive arm, criticised Mr Orban for his Kremlin-friendly position on the Ukraine war, without naming him directly.
“There are still some who blame this war not on Putin’s lust for power, but on Ukraine’s thirst for freedom. I want to ask them, would they ever blame the Hungarians for the Soviet invasion in 1956? ... We Europeans may have different histories and different languages, but there is no European language in which peace is synonymous with surrender,” she said.
Mr Orban has been outspoken in opposing military aid to Ukraine and has instead called for peace in the conflict, which critics have said would mean Ukraine giving up large parts of its territory to Russia.
Dr von der Leyen was addressing a sitting of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where Mr Orban was setting out his country’s plans for the six months it holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU.
In a speech aimed at Hungary, the commission president criticised how it had failed to reduce its dependence on Russian fuel, improved its relations with China and penalised companies from other EU countries who tried to operate in Hungary.
A controversial Hungarian visa scheme for Russian nationals poses a security risk to all member states, she said. A policy of allowing Chinese police to operate within Hungarian territory was also opening “a back door for foreign interference”, the commission president said.
Dr von der Leyen criticised Mr Orban’s hardline stance on migration and asylum seekers as amounting to “throwing problems over your neighbour’s fence”.
When other EU countries were weaning themselves off Russian energy after the invasion of Ukraine, “one member state just looked for alternative ways to buy fossil fuels from Russia”, she said.
“One government in our union is heading in the exact opposite direction, drifting away from the single market. How can a government attract more European investments if at the same time it discriminates against European companies by taxing them more than others?”
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