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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen emphasized Ukraine as a priority for the EU, contrasting sharply with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who barely mentioned Ukraine in his speech on Hungary’s priorities during its presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Speaking in the European Parliament right after Orbán, von der Leyen dedicated the start of her address to Ukraine, unlike the Hungarian leader, who only briefly referred to the war in Ukraine among other “crises.”
Von der Leyen highlighted Russia’s attempts to make the upcoming winter the harshest in the three years of war. “Over the summer, hundreds of missiles rained down on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, countless Ukrainians have been killed or wounded, families torn apart, cities destroyed,” she recounted.
She added that the world has witnessed the atrocities of Russia’s war firsthand. “Yet there are still those who blame not the invader, but the invaded. Not Putin’s thirst for power, but Ukraine’s thirst for freedom,” von der Leyen said, pointedly looking at Orbán.
“I would ask them if they would have blamed Hungarians for the Soviet invasion in 1956? Would they have blamed Czechs and Slovaks in 1968? Or would they have blamed Lithuanians for the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991?” she questioned.
Von der Leyen asserted that while Europeans speak different languages, none of them equate peace with surrender, or sovereignty with occupation. She compared Ukrainians resisting Russian invasion to the people of Central Europe who resisted Soviet influence.
“There is only one way to achieve peace—by continuing to provide Ukraine with political, financial, and military support,” von der Leyen concluded.
Meanwhile, Orbán, in his speech, named EU enlargement as one of Hungary’s priorities during its EU Council presidency but did not mention Ukraine in this context. On September 30, Orbán told a pro-Russian journalist that he intends to organize a “peace summit” between Ukraine and Russia, based on China’s and Brazil’s “peace initiative.”
