(16 Jan 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Budapest, Hungary - 16 January 2024
1. Pan of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico arriving for joint news conference
2. Wide of journalists
3. SOUNDBITE (Slovakian) Robert Fico, Slovakian Prime Minister:
“We have listened very carefully to the proposals that the Prime Minister wants to put forward, or has already put forward, in relation to the review of the budget and aid to Ukraine. And I will repeat that we consider them to be rational and sensible.”
4. Wide of news conference
5. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Viktor Orban, Hungarian Prime Minister:
“We want financial assistance to Ukraine to be provided outside the EU budget. That's why we want to discuss the budget amendment separately and the assistance to Ukraine separately. Those who want to give the money to Ukraine within the budget obviously want to link the two issues, but we do not want to do that. Our position is this: If we want to help Ukraine, which I think we need to do, and I agree with the Prime Minister on this, we must do so without damaging the EU budget. And to give 50 billion euros from the EU budget four years in advance is a violation of budgetary management and of the national interests involved. We do not even know what will happen in three months' time, let alone four years. And this is an amount that is so large that it is stretching the limits of budgetary management. And it could end up that the financial resources that are due to individual nations end up in Ukraine.”
6. Wide of news conference
7. Wide of journalists
8. SOUNDBITE (Hungarian) Viktor Orban, Hungarian Prime Minister:
“The Ukrainian issue and the budget are two different things in the Hungarian mind.”
9. SOUNDBITE (Slovakian) Robert Fico, Slovakian Prime Minister:
“I wish all the best to Hungary. I wish you personally all the best and I look forward to seeing you soon on Feb. 1 in Brussels where we will watch with full understanding your legitimate fight for what you started at the last European Council. Ladies and gentlemen, they cannot expect a country, from which funds are withdrawn, to give money to another country. That is simply not possible. It is not fair, it is not just.”
10. Pan of the two prime ministers shaking hands and leaving
STORYLINE:
The leaders of Hungary and Slovakia on Tuesday said they are in agreement on the need to rework a European Union plan to provide financial assistance to Ukraine.
It's a potential boon to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban who last month derailed EU efforts to approve the funding for the war-ravaged country.
Following bilateral talks in Budapest, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said he agrees with Orban's position that the EU should not finance a planned 50-billion euro ($54 billion) aid package to Kyiv from the bloc's common budget, and echoed Orban's assertions that the war in Ukraine cannot be resolved through military means.
“We have listened very carefully to the proposals that the Prime Minister wants to put forward, or has already put forward, in relation to the review of the budget and aid to Ukraine. And I will re-peat that we consider them to be rational and sensible,” Fico said.
Fico's comments come as the EU scrambles to salvage the funding package for Ukraine that Orban blocked in December, a move that angered many of the bloc's leaders who were aiming to provide Kyiv with consistent cash flow for the next four years.
Unanimity is required for decisions affecting the EU budget, and Orban was the only of the bloc's 27 leaders to vote against the funding.
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