Orbán still unconvinced: ‘Unthinkable that Ukraine could join EU’
It is “unthinkable” that Ukraine could join the EU, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview to public radio on Friday.
Speaking ahead of next week’s EU summit in Brussels, the prime minister said he could not “give a single argument” from the point of view of Hungarian interests to justify Ukraine joining the bloc, “and I can provide lots of arguments against Ukraine’s accession”, which he said would “ruin us” in terms of domestic agriculture and the Hungarian economy as a whole. Also, Orbán said it was unclear “how we could staunch crime” that would “flow into Hungary” as a result.
Orbán: We achieved policy measures ‘deemed impossible’ over past 15 years
Hungary’s government has achieved policy goals over the past 15 years that others have “deemed impossible”, Orbán said. He pointed to the large scale of family tax allowances and the number of taxpayers impacted.
He said that a recently announced personal tax exemption for mothers of two under 40, affecting 120,000 taxpayers, would come into force from January 1. A PIT exemption for mothers of three will affect 230,000-240,000 taxpayers, and an exemption for mothers of two between the ages of 40 and 50 will impact 230,000 taxpayers when it comes into force in 2027, he added.
He said critics of the measures were right on one point, that the government had taken on an “enormous commitment”, but added that it had successfully implemented other measures “deemed impossible” in the past 15 years. He said those measures included the PIT system, the fostered workers programme and minimum wage increases. He warned that if the left wing were to return to government, the PIT rate for the middle class would again reach 35pc.
Orbán said money generated from the strong performance of the economy would go to families “as long as it’s up to us”, not to multinationals.
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