17
Jan
2024
Watch
Conclusions of the European Council meeting of 14-15 December 2023 and preparation of the Special European Council meeting of 1 February 2024 - Situation in Hungary and frozen EU funds (joint debate - European Council meetings)
Mr President, Mr Vice-President, Madam Minister, ladies and gentlemen, once again, despite significant progress on Ukraine's accession to the Union, we have seen a Council, unfortunately, hostage to the illiberal government of Orbán which systematically, we must remember, uses the weapon of blackmail on the skin of the Ukrainian people, betraying the values of our Union. For too long we have allowed Orbán to beat the fist on freedoms and rights and to use the European institutions as the megaphone of his propaganda, to use them only as ATMs to draw on. We have allowed it to condition and divide the Union because of its positions that are frankly closer to Moscow's interests than to those of Brussels. And we have a duty to stop this drift, not to give in to Hungarian budgetary threats. And as a warning, colleagues: in the next parliamentary term, no major pro-European force can escape the urgency of a great season of reforms, starting with the right of veto.