Invitation for Orban to visit Ukraine remains open, - Kuleba
The invitation of the President of Ukraine to the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban remains open, while the Ukrainian side continues to maintain contacts with the Hungarian government, including during interstate visits, to resolve problematic issues.
This was stated by Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba during a meeting with the press following the results of the first day of his visit to Brussels, answering journalists' questions, Censor.NET reports with reference to Ukrinform.
"The President of Ukraine invited the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, to visit Ukraine, and this invitation remains open. As for the Hungarian invitation to the Ukrainian delegation, this phrase is heard not for the first time, it has slightly evolved from a technical dialogue to some kind of political issue. We recently had a Ukrainian delegation in Hungary, at the level of the Deputy Minister of Education of Ukraine and other representatives of the authorities. There, they and their Hungarian colleagues discussed the state of affairs in international relations," Kuleba said.
Answering a question about Hungary's possible attempts to block the start of negotiations between the EU and Ukraine, the head of the Foreign Ministry noted that Hungary persistently promotes its own vision in matters of the rights of national minorities, which is no secret to anyone, but the problems, according to the minister, should be solved in as they are received.
"I emphasize once again that we see the European Council's decision to open negotiations on Ukraine's membership in the European Union in December.
"Titanic work has been done, a political balance has been formed in the EU itself, although some of the countries will try to play out this situation, in one way or another, in their own interests," Kuleba noted.
He reminded that the report of the European Commission on the enlargement of the EU, which will be published tomorrow, concerns not only Ukraine, although Ukraine remains a driving force in this process.
"Today at the meeting, I frankly said that Ukraine brought the European Union out of the "enlargement coma" - for more than 10 years, the EU was in this coma and refused to expand. Now the philosophy and mood have completely changed. Thanks to us, the countries of the Western Balkans, as well as Moldova, got a chance to move towards EU membership. So for the European Union, if it makes a strategic mistake on enlargement now, it will mean falling back into a coma. But they (Europeans - ed.) can no longer afford it," Kuleba emphasized.
To a clarifying question, how it is possible to convince the authorities of Hungary or other countries not to block the EU's decision to start membership negotiations with Ukraine, the Ukrainian minister answered: "The European Union cannot afford to lose this historic moment to expand its borders and common market, increase its influence on the continent, to present our principles and values there. So let's leave some space for diplomacy."
