BUDAPEST, April 15. /TASS/. Fast-tracking Ukraine’s accession into the European Union could tear the alliance apart before Kiev is even admitted, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said.
Addressing an international conference on cooperation between Central European countries, he recalled that the EU ministerial meeting in Luxembourg on Monday "set the task of integrating Ukraine into the EU common market before it is actually admitted into the community." "That means that they want Ukraine’s full economic integration before admission talks are over," he said.
In essence, the top Hungarian diplomat said, Brussels is calling on EU members "to destroy the European economy together with Ukraine before Ukraine even joins the European Union."
Ukraine’s hasty admission will trigger an influx of low-quality Ukrainian goods and services into Europe, will wreck the European labor market and will do irreparable harm to many European companies, Szijjarto argued.
In his words, the ideas put forth by the current European leaders only expose their incompetence, as they have already driven the European Union into a situation where it has lost its competitive advantage over other global economic centers, first of all the United States and China. "European security is lost, competitive edges are gone, and the European Union’s political standing in the world has dropped dramatically," he stressed.
The top Hungarian diplomat noted that Brussels’ attempt to drag Ukraine into the EU will only worsen the situation. Hungary can prevent this if its citizens say no to Ukraine’s admission to the community, he added. A nationwide referendum on this matter kicked off in Hungary on April 14. It will run through late May.
