The German Chancellor is dissatisfied with his Hungarian counterpart.Image: keystone
03/20/2026, 07:5703/20/2026, 07:57
Chancellor Friedrich Merz has criticized the ongoing blockade of billions in aid to Ukraine by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as an “act of gross disloyalty”. “We agree that we do not accept what happened today in the European Council,” said the CDU leader after the deliberations of the heads of state and government of the 27 member states of the European Union in Brussels. “And that will also have consequences that extend far beyond this single event.”
Orban’s actions will “leave deep traces”. The behavior also “deeply annoyed” those who had been attending EU summits for much longer than he had. In the course of the EU’s upcoming budget preparation, this will now have to be discussed “in principle” again.
The right-wing populist Orban, who is fighting for re-election in his homeland, continues to insist that he will only withdraw his veto when Hungary receives Russian oil deliveries via the Druzhba pipeline again. Orban claims that without cheap Russian oil, Hungarian households and companies would go bankrupt. (sda/dpa/nil)