Hungary's Orban Ramps Up Anti-EU Rhetoric Amid Row Over Frozen Funds

EU chief Charles Michel met Prime Minister Viktor Orban Monday in a bid to ease rising tensions, with the increasingly belligerent Hungarian leader threatening to block key decisions on Ukraine

Budapest, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Nov, 2023) EU chief Charles Michel met Prime Minister Viktor Orban Monday in a bid to ease rising tensions, with the increasingly belligerent Hungarian leader threatening to block key decisions on Ukraine.

The talks, which Orban described as "useful" without elaborating further, lasted "over 2 hours" an EU official said.

Orban -- the only EU leader who has maintained close ties to the Kremlin -- is threatening to use his veto at an EU summit in December to block aid to his war-torn neighbour and stop Ukraine's bid to join the bloc.

Michel and Orban had "substantial discussions" on the Hungarian Prime Minister's letter last week calling for an "urgent" rethink of the bloc's strategy on Ukraine, the official added.

Budapest is at loggerheads with Brussels on a whole array of issues, ranging from migration, judicial reform and LGBTQ rights to Ukraine.

Orban's latest salvo is an aggressive eurosceptic advertising campaign featuring posters targeting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

- 'Symbolic battles' -

While some analysts describe Orban's Ukraine move as blackmail to unlock billions of Euros in frozen EU funds, others argue that he is trying to mobilise voters against "Brussels bureaucrats" ahead of EU Parliament elections in June -- a tactic he has used before other polls.

Last week Brussels authorised a 900-million-euro ($980-million) advance to Hungary from its Covid pandemic recovery fund.

But the bulk of the money that Budapest was due to get has been suspended until it meets several rule-of-law conditions which the EU says it has been flouting.

Brussels has also frozen 22 billion euros in separate cohesion funds.

Orban told his supporters earlier this month that Hungary was resisting EU policies "with all its might", claiming they would lead Europe "to its ruin".

"As the election campaign approaches, the government wants to showcase issues it intends to change in Brussels," political scientist Daniel Deak of the pro-Orban 21st Century Institute told AFP.

But Bulcsu Hunyadi, of the Political Capital think-tank, said Orban needs these "symbolic battles against external enemies" to "keep his base constantly mobilised".

In a similar vein, the nationalist has also recently toughened his stance against the LGBTQ community under pressure from the far-right Our Homeland party.