Hungary will not support Ukraine NATO membership until Hungary minority rights restored

Tamas Menczer said that the Hungarian minorities’ rights to use their mother tongue in Ukraine had been steadily reduced since 2015. Hungary will continue to block the country’s integration to the EU and NATO until those acquired rights have been restored, he added.

Meanwhile, conflict between NATO and Russia, a nuclear power, should be avoided at any cost “as that would be tantamount to the third world war”, Menczer said.

By the end of 2023, Hungary will have become one of the nine NATO member states to raise defence spending to 2 percent of GDP a year ahead of the NATO’s deadline, proving to be a reliable ally, he said.

Regarding Finland’s decision to join an EU lawsuit against Hungary’s child protection law, Menczer said Hungary had intended to build bilateral relations based on mutual respect. Hungary supported Finland’s NATO accession, he noted. Finland’s move to join the lawsuit against the law amendments, which the EU sees as discriminatory against the LGBTQ community, shows that “our Finnish friends have much to learn in matters of honour,” he said. “Begging until we reach our goal and then turning our backs is not how honourable people behave…”, Menczer said.

The government will protect Hungarian children, regardless of the number of states joining the lawsuit, he said.

Regarding the Swedish application to NATO, “the discussion is still ongoing,” he said. “We are still waiting for a few reassuring statements and gestures from [Sweden] on mutual respect as the baseline of the cooperation within the alliance.”