Hungary may ‘slam brakes’ on Ukraine

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Friday his country will have plenty of opportunities in the future to interrupt Ukraine’s process of joining the European Union, a day after the right-wing leader’s stunning turnaround allowed an EU summit to move forward on bringing the wartorn country into the bloc.

Orbán had spent weeks vigorously declaring that his country would not consent to the EU beginning talks with Ukraine on its eventual membership, arguing such a decision would be catastrophic and that Kyiv was unprepared to begin the process.

But in a dramatic reversal in Brussels on Thursday, Orbán left the room where the leaders of the EU’S 27 member nations were debating the measure and allowed a unanimous vote of 26 to approve the start of accession talks for Kyiv.

In an interview Friday with Hungarian state radio, Orbán said that EU leaders told him he would “lose nothing” by dropping his veto since he’d have chances in the future to block Ukraine’s accession if he chose to.

“Their decisive argument was that Hungary loses nothing, given that the final word on Ukraine’s membership has to be given by the national parliaments, 27 parliaments, including the Hungarian one,” Orbán said.

“I made it clear that we will not hesitate for a moment if the financial and economic consequences of this bad decision will be paid by the Hungarians. Those who made this decision should be the ones who pay,” he said. “If necessary, we will slam the brakes.”

The decision by EU leaders to move forward on Ukraine’s membership — a process that could take many years — was met with jubilation in Kyiv, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcoming the agreement as “a victory for Ukraine. A victory for all of Europe.”