BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday that his government would not support the next multi -year budget of the European Union as long as Brussels will not unlock all of the European Galled Funds.
“The approval of the new seven -year budget requires unanimity and as long as we have not recovered the remaining funds, there will be no new European budget,” said Viktor Orban during a speech at the summer university of Baile Tusnad, in Romanian Transylvania, where a major Magyare community resides.
For fifteen years, the nationalist leader has been in conflict with Brussels on his migration policies, the restriction of LGBTQ rights and what his detractors qualify as erosion of democracy in Hungary. The European Union has suspended several billion euros in funds intended for Budapest within the framework of a dispute on the rule of law.
Viktor Orban also accused the EU of wanting to install a “pro-Ukraine and Pro-Brussels government” in Hungary in the national elections next year.
According to him, the current management of the Union leads the block towards a trade war that Europe “cannot win”. “The current EU management will always be the last to sign agreements with the United States, and always the worst agreements,” he added, calling for a change in leadership.
The president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen must meet the American president Donald Trump on Sunday in Scotland, while European officials hope to conclude a commercial framework agreement this weekend.
In early July, the European Commission proposed a budget of 2,000 billion euros for the period 2028-2034, with an emphasis on economic competitiveness and the defense.
Viktor Orban accuses the “globalist bureaucrats” of wanting to “suck the money from Europe to Ukraine”, while “our farmers get up to defend their future”.
Budget negotiations are among the most sensitive within the EU, revealing political and economic cleavages between Member States.
Winner of the last four elections, Orban faces a new weight opponent in 2026. The Tisza party, led by its main rival, is ahead of Fidesz in most polls, against the backdrop of economic stagnation.
Viktor Orban was however confident this Sunday, saying that according to internal data from his party, Fidesz would prevail in 80 of the 106 constituencies if the elections took place on Sunday.
(Krisztina Than ;: Nicolas Delame)
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