Orban: Over 95% of Hungarian survey respondents oppose Ukraine’s EU bid

More than 95 per cent of Hungarians who participated in a government-led consultation rejected Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on June 26, citing the result as a mandate to oppose Kyiv’s accession at an EU summit in Brussels.

Orban, the EU’s closest ally of Moscow, has been a vocal opponent of Ukraine’s integration into the 27-member bloc, raising a series of objections that have stalled the process, which requires unanimous approval from all member states.

“After all, it is on behalf of more than two million Hungarians that I will say today at the negotiations that Hungary does not support Ukraine's accession to the European Union,” Orban told reporters, Caliber.Az reports via foreign media.

The non-binding consultation, carried out by mail and online over 67 days, drew responses from around 2.3 million people, representing less than a third of Hungary’s electorate. The government has frequently used similar surveys, supported by state-funded media campaigns, to justify opposition to various EU policies.

Kyiv dismissed the results, accusing the Hungarian government of manipulating public opinion and fuelling anti-Ukrainian sentiment to deflect from domestic issues.

“The Hungarian government made every possible effort to secure the outcome it desired,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement earlier this week. “The consultations were accompanied by aggressive incitement of groundless hatred toward everything related to Ukraine.”

Leaflets distributed alongside the mail-in ballots outlined only the risks of Ukraine’s potential membership, without mentioning any possible advantages.

Orban initially supported Ukraine’s membership aspirations following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 but later reversed his position. 

By Sabina Mammadli