Ukrainian membership of EU would destroy bloc’s economy – Orban

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has warned that Ukrainian membership of the EU would destroy both the bloc’s and his country’s economy.

Ukraine was granted EU candidate status in 2022, but Orban has argued that allowing the country to join the bloc would draw all members into a direct conflict with Russia. The stance has increasingly put Kiev at odds with Budapest.

“Ukrainians are increasingly attacking Hungary because we stopped Ukraine’s EU accession in Brussels,” Orban wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday.

Hungary could not support Ukraine’s bid for “fundamental and strategic reasons,” he explained.

“We do not want war and we do not want the European [EU], including the Hungarian, economy to be destroyed,” he said.

Last week, Orban said he vetoed an EU Foreign Affairs Council statement on Ukraine, effectively blocking Kiev’s accession talks, arguing that the decision was backed by popular sentiment in Hungary.

More than two million Hungarians, or an overwhelming 95% of voters in an unofficial Voks 2025 referendum, voiced opposition to Ukraine’s EU bid.

The vote has worsened already elevated tensions with Kiev, the Magyar Nemzet newspaper wrote on Wednesday. Hungarian-Ukrainian relations have been on the downturn in recent months, rocked by Kiev’s decision to block the transit of Russian gas into Hungary, as well as a spy scandal.

An EU and NATO member, Hungary has long opposed both bloc’s policies on supplying Kiev with weapons, and called for a diplomatic solution to the hostilities.

Ukrainian accession into NATO “would mean war with Russia, and World War 3 the very next day,” Orban said last week.

Moscow has strongly opposed Ukraine’s ambition to join NATO, but had taken a more neutral stance on Ukraine’s EU bid. However, recently Russia has pointed out that militarization efforts are turning the EU into more of a military than an economic bloc.

According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the EU has undergone a “radical transformation” and become an “aggressive military-political bloc.” In its current state, the EU is effectively “an appendage of NATO,” the top diplomat said last week.