“If we approved Ukraine’s accession, war would also enter the European Union, which was created as an alliance for peace,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told Kossuth Rádió in his weekly interview on April 25. “Let’s not do that, let’s say no to Ukraine’s EU entry,” he said. He added that allowing Ukraine a fast-track accession would “destroy the Hungarian economy” and “bankrupt” the country.
Highlighting the importance of the government’s ongoing national consultation on Ukraine’s EU accession, which he said “will determine your next 20 years,” the PM encouraged participants to vote if they wanted a “migrant-free Hungary in the future” at the Szakma Sztár event on April 28.
At the annual festival celebrating the accomplishments of young Hungarians in vocational programs, he warned young workers that “millions of Ukrainian laborers” could flood the country, “taking your jobs and depressing your salaries,” calling on them not to let anybody “make decisions over your head.”
Minister of EU Affairs János Bóka argued that admitting Ukraine to the European Union would pose a threat not just to Hungarian agriculture but the whole of Europe. Compared to the EU’s total of 157 million hectares of farmland, Ukraine’s 41 million hectares would make it the largest beneficiary of EU agricultural subsidies, Bóka underscored.
As an EU member, he said that Ukraine would account for 15% of the bloc’s wheat production, 49% of its corn production, and 20% of its overall grain production. While it exported only one-third of its grain to the EU in 2021, by 2023, it was exporting more than half.
Bóka warned that despite not yet being an EU member, Ukraine’s “inferior quality grain products” are increasingly being “dumped” on the EU market and emphasized that Ukraine would retain the right to cultivate GMO seeds even if it joined the bloc.
Yet, Péter Magyar, leader of the opposition Tisza Party, asserted in a statement issued on April 16 that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government was “the biggest supporter of Ukraine’s European Union accession.” He argued that Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó had actively pushed for Ukraine’s admission to the bloc and that Orbán did not veto the decision at the Brussels summit in December 2023. “Just as with the EU funds, the government is accusing others of what it is doing,” Magyar said.
Szijjártó retorted that while the Hungarian government “has always supported peace,” it has never backed Ukraine’s membership in the EU. He argued that Brussels is pushing to expedite Ukraine’s accession in an effort to prolong the war, which he warned would “destroy Hungary,” so the government could not support it.
“But the Tisza Party does,” he said, adding that Magyar, “the European People’s Party chief Manfred Weber’s man, is struggling to explain himself […] but in vain.”
Meanwhile, opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) board member Sándor Rónai said it had become evident that politicians from the ruling Fidesz party and supporters of the opposition Tisza Party supported Ukraine’s EU membership. He cited a statement from March 2022, in which Szijjártó expressed Hungary’s support for an initiative by eight EU member states aimed at promoting Ukraine’s integration into the bloc.
“Szijjártó admitted that they support Ukraine’s EU membership,” Rónai said. He also pointed out that 58% of respondents to Tisza’s “Voice of the Nation” survey favored Ukraine’s accession, “which Péter Magyar, the party’s leader, conceded.”
“While the right-wing parties accuse each other of being pro-Ukraine, it is only the left, meaning the Democratic Coalition, that is open and honest about this subject,” Rónai said. He concluded that DK supports Ukraine joining the EU if it meets the accession criteria and believes Hungarian voters should ultimately be allowed to make the decision in a full national referendum, not a “national consultation.”
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of May 5, 2025.
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