PM Orbán said that when calculating the costs of Ukraine's EU accession and maintaining the Ukrainian army, it turned out that the repayment of the loan taken out during the pandemic was coming due in 2027-28. The calculations showed that this would take up 20 percent of the EU’s budget, he said.
With this big of a burden, PM Orbán argued, it was "not right" for the EU to think about taking out more loans. "Sooner or later it’ll be time to sober up, at least financially, and everyone will admit that Ukraine’s admission to the European Union at this point in time would be tantamount to an economic collapse," he added.
PM Orbán said Hungarians will get the chance to vote in a referendum on Ukraine’s EU accession from April to June, and the country will have settled on a common national position by the middle of the year. He urged the public to "consider all sorts of risks".