EP Proposes To Abolish EU Veto Rights For EU Enlargement

To detter Viktor Orban.

Pedro Marques, the Vice-president of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats in the European Parliament, believes that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán cannot be allowed to “blackmail” the rest of the EU by threatening to block Ukraine membership talks.

The Guardian and European Pravda quote the MEP’s words.

Pedro Marques said the EU also needs to abandon its rule that decisions on enlargement should be unanimous.

“When you join the EU it means you are a democratic country. I guess we did not foresee that democracy could be corrupted from the inside,” he said.

Marques warned against the EU's failure to agree on support for Ukraine and its movement into the European Union.

“At a moment in which the US Congress has just outvoted a proposal by Joe Biden to continue to support Ukraine, we cannot put ourselves in a situation where the Ukrainians see that we are also not capable of continuing to assist them.

It is also not acceptable, from my point of view, that anyone gets the perception that at the end of next week, Orbán got his way and got his €30bn in exchange for allowing the EU to continue to assist Ukraine,” the MEP said.

He stressed that the EU “cannot trade money for values.”

His warning ahead of a scheduled meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron with Orbán in Paris over Thursday dinner.

The French leader is expected to tell Orbán that blocking the opening of talks with Ukraine will undermine the EU’s strategy to fight Vladimir Putin.

Orban is threatening to disrupt the EU summit on December 14-15, making clear in two letters to President of the European Council Charles Michel that he opposes accession talks with Kyiv and instead wants a strategic discussion on EU support for Ukraine.