Hungary on Monday said it would defy EU pressure to approve a four-year, €50bn aid package to Ukraine at a special summit scheduled for later this week, calling the bloc’s plans to penalise Budapest if it fails to toe the line “blackmail” and vowing not to give in.
The EU has laid out ways to sabotage Hungary’s economy unless it agrees on the Ukraine funding plan, in a confidential document seen by the Financial Times.
“Hungary does not give in to blackmail,” Hungary’s EU minister János Bóka wrote on X. “The document, drafted by Brussels bureaucrats, only confirms what the Hungarian Government has been saying for a long time: access to EU funds is used for political blackmailing.”
This week’s meeting became necessary after Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán had previously vetoed the aid package.