BUDAPEST, July 18. /TASS/. The countries of the European Union (EU) will not accept the 2028-2034 budget proposal because the European Commission (EC) prepared it solely to facilitate Ukraine’s accession to the bloc, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said during a morning program on the Kossuth Radio station.
Brussels proposed the seven-year EU budget that "has one obvious goal: to bring Ukraine into the EU and allocate the necessary funds for this purpose," Orban believes.
"This budget will shatter the European Union," the Hungarian prime minister emphasized, adding that European countries will not support the budget plan of the Brussels officials.
Some experts estimate that at least 20% of the funds from the budget proposed by the EC could be spent on Ukraine, including on the financing of its EU accession, Orban noted. The document is drawn up "as if Ukraine already were an EU member," he said. "But no decision has been made on this issue, and allocating money for this purpose is wrong," the prime minister said.
About EU budget proposal
When the European Commission proposed a two trillion euro ($2.31 trillion) EU budget for 2028-2034 on July 16, it pitched dedicating 100 billion euros for Ukraine (5% of the overall budget). However, "the budget requires complex knowledge, and one needs to understand what is hidden between the lines," Orban warned.
According to the Hungarian prime minister, a significant amount of budget funds will be distributed under various line items to cover additional expenses that may be caused by Ukraine's accelerated accession to the EU. In addition, Brussels suggested that EU countries take a loan for this purpose, with the interest to be reimbursed at the expense of some member states.
"Hence the fuss in the European Union," Orban noted. This budget not only allocates unnecessarily large funds for Ukraine, but also "lacks a clear strategic foundation," he said. "If we do not know what it is for, it cannot be good. Therefore, we must first decide what goals we want to achieve with it."
For now, this is "the budget of hopelessness," a budget of a union that does not appear optimistic, "but rather troubled, floundering, and preparing for stagnation.".