On November 13, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told The European Conservative at the minister’s press conference in Brussels that “there is still a war psychosis in the minds of many of my colleagues.”
Ukraine featured again on the agenda of the Foreign Affairs Council, and notwithstanding media reports that American and European officials have begun suggesting the possibility of peace talks with Russia, Szijjártó says there was no change in the war rhetoric employed by many EU member states.
For one, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock declared that her country’s military support for Ukraine “will be massively expanded for next year,” stating that her government hopes to raise its aid for 2024 from the four billion euros originally planned to eight billion euros.
Germany has become one of Ukraine’s top military suppliers since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict last February, dispatching materiel that includes tanks and U.S.-made Patriot missile systems. Josep Borrell, high representative of the EU for foreign affairs, also highlighted that “we continue being behind Ukraine,” and that the EU’s military support has totaled 27 billion euros.
Despite the Russia-Ukraine conflict nearing the two year mark, most observers have stated that it has come to a dismal stalemate for Ukraine, with Ukrainian troops having only managed to attain small advances in a few spots on the front line since the much-hyped counteroffensive began in early June.
In light of Ukraine’s mediocre gains in its fight against Russia, Szijjártó maintained that the EU should first examine whether the billions of euros spent on Ukraine and the sanctions on Russia have yielded any gains before it spends even more money. The minister opined that the EU’s aid has led to only more deaths and more devastation, saying that “we are no closer to achieving peace.” Sanctions-wise, Szijjártó stated that the EU “has shot itself — at the very least — in the foot.”
Thus far, Hungary has been the only EU member state not to provide military assistance to Ukraine, and has for months been vetoing the disbursement of the 500 million euros worth of military aid to Ukraine under the so-called European Peace Facility until Kyiv guarantees that OTP Bank or other Hungarian companies will not be blacklisted as “international sponsors of war.”
Besides, Hungary is objecting to talks for Ukraine’s EU membership, as suggested by the European Commission recently. Szijjártó highlighted that Ukraine was far from meeting the membership criteria set by the EU, particularly in matters pertaining to the welfare of its ethnic minorities, including that of the Hungarian community.
In context, Ukraine has suppressed the use of ethnic languages in ethnic-minority schools and the media, and also cultural and public institutions in communities where minorities constitute most of the local population. Szijjártó asserted that the situation of Hungarian minorities in Ukraine was on the decline.
Regarding the conflict in Ukraine, neighboring Slovakia is on the same page as Hungary. Based on the new leftist-nationalist Slovak government’s program, announced on November 13, Slovakia will cease official military aid to Ukraine and pursue peace instead.
Also, the Slovak government will only back sanctions if these embargoes benefit the country’s citizens, unveiling a program that pledges to put “Slovakia first.” Moreover, in line with Hungary’s position, the new Slovak government reinforced its objections to an end of national veto rights of EU member states or majority voting in more aspects of European governance.
Regarding Western European policies on mass migration, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán maintained that his country will continue to reject such policies, which he contended were linked to terrorism and the formation of enclaves in European host countries.
“We made a tolerance offer to Brussels: every country can deal with #migration the way they want to, but they cannot force #Hungary to copy the failed migration policies of Western Europe,” Orbán said on X, formerly known as Twitter, and elaborated, “We don’t want terrorism, gang wars and mini Gazas in Budapest!”
Orbán was most likely alluding to the eruptions of pro-Palestinian protests that embroiled Western Europe after the October 7 massacre of more than 1,400 Israeli civilians by the terrorist group Hamas, and Israel’s declaration of war on the group.
Over the weekend, pro-Palestinian marchers swarmed London notwithstanding pleas for them to postpone their actions owing to Armistice Day and Remembrance Day also occurring on November 12.
Around 300,000 people participated in the pro-Palestine march that ended up becoming violent, with police making around 140 arrests.
Gary Mond, chairman of the National Jewish Assembly, decried the marchers, saying, “Those who March against Israel are almost always opposed to many aspects of a free society, which Remembrance Sunday is about defending.”
Orbán’s post included a video in which he stated, “I always say that we have a tolerance offer. I tell this to the Germans, the French and the Brusselians: you did it the way you did it, do it the way you do it. We don’t want to tell you whether it is good or bad. We ask one thing, that you tolerate us doing it differently because this is our country, this is our business. Leave us alone.”
He added,
Don’t try to tell us who can stay in Hungary. Don’t send migrants here whom it was a mistake to let into your country, and you want to get rid of them by sending them here. Don’t do that. Tolerate the fact that this is a different country, that we have not made a mistake, that we have a different position and that we don’t want to become like you. We don’t want mini Gazas in the districts of Budapest. And we don’t want terrorist attacks, gang wars and all the things we see in the big cities of Western Europe.
For a long time, Orbán has been wary of mass-migration policies and how they are connected to terrorist activity. As early as November of 2015, just a week after the Islamic State’s massacre at the Bataclan nightclub in Paris, Orbán revealed that he believed that all of the terrorists were migrants or from migrant backgrounds
“Of course it’s not accepted, but the factual point is that all the terrorists are basically migrants,” Orbán said, elaborating, “The question is when they migrated to the European Union.”
In 2017, Orbán posited that migration was a Trojan Horse for terrorism, saying, “The people that come to us don’t want to live according to our culture and customs but according to their own — at European standards of living.”
The Hungarian leader’s 2017 remarks have proved to be accurate on more than one occasion, given the 2020 killing of French teacher Samual Paty, the murder of another teacher in Arras this year, to the terrorist attack in Brussels in October that witnessed a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia murder of two Swedish nationals.
The past years have seen terrorist attacks in Europe directly entailing illegal immigrants and asylum seekers, refugees, or those from migrant connections.
Just days after the Brussels attack last month, Orbán remarked, “I very much hope that more and more people here in Brussels will see that there is a very clear link between terrorist acts and migration.”
“Those who support migration also support terrorism. We are against terrorism and therefore we do not support migration,” he stated.
