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The European Union consists of 27 states, each of which has its own history, traditions and culture, and this diversity must be respected. But this does not mean that EU decisions on Ukraine should be blocked because Hungary has an opinion on this that is different from the beliefs of the 26 countries.
This was stated on Thursday evening in Brussels, during a press conference following the results of the one-day European Council, its President António Costa, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.
“As you know, Hungary has a different position from the other 26 countries when it comes to how to support Ukraine to achieve peace. We have to respect differences, however we cannot be blocked because Hungary thinks differently from all the others. We have to go on, acting, and that is what we are doing,” the President of the European Council stressed.
He noted that there is nothing unusual in the diversity among the countries that make up the European Union. At the same time, the valuable thing is that, despite all the differences, the EU member states a the end of the day reach common decisions.
At the dawn of the EU’s history, these were agreements between six countries, today the number of member states has increased to 27, and new challenges will arise with each wave of EU enlargement. But this is how this structure works, and the EU’s ability to continue to act in the face of such diversity is of much value, Costa explained.
“I’ve been in European Council for several years now, I’ve experienced a number of situations where we’ve been blocked in a number of occasions, but we’ve always found a way to overcome difficulties,” said Costa. “Sometimes you have situations where one or two states have different positions, but it’s more difficult when you have 14 vs 13. If you have 26 nations with one position and one state with another, you have to respect that. They are isolated but that remains the case,” the Council president said.
As reported earlier, on Thursday in Brussels, the European Council discussed competitiveness of the European economy. During the meeting, European leaders held a virtual meeting with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, and continued the discussion on strengthening support for Ukraine, which they started on March 6 during the Special European Council.
