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BUDAPEST, Jan. 20 (AP) – Croatia’s president said Friday that European Union efforts to uphold democratic standards in member states risk splitting the bloc and condemned efforts to impose economic penalties on Hungary for allegedly violating rule of law standards.
Hungarian President Zoran Milanovic made the statement at a news conference in the Hungarian capital Budapest following talks with his Hungarian counterpart Katalin Novak.
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Milanovic echoed frequent Hungarian criticism of the EU, which it says overextends its powers over its member states, an overreach that drove Brexit and drove Britain out of the bloc.
The EU should not become the “United States of Europe,” he said, adding that the bloc’s process against Hungary – which froze billions of euros in funding to Budapest over corruption and rule of law concerns – threatened to destroy the 27-member state. group of countries.
“This approach (between the EU and Hungary) is very irritating,” he said, warning that “Hungary today and tomorrow will be some larger country that needs to learn its lesson.”
Milanovic won Croatia’s late 2019 presidential election as a liberal and left-leaning candidate, in contrast to the conservative government currently ruling in the newest EU member state. But he has since turned to populist nationalism and criticized Western policy toward the Balkans and Russia.
Milanovic has thus earned a reputation as pro-Russian, which he denies. In recent months, however, he has spoken out against the admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO during the Ukraine war, and against training Ukrainian troops in Croatia as part of EU aid to the struggling country.
While the heads of state said they all condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and support its territorial integrity, Milanovic said he, like the Hungarian government, does not support sanctions against Moscow and characterized the conflict in Ukraine as between Russia and the United States proxy wars. state.
“The question is how much damage (sanctions) will do to us. It will do harm to Europe,” Milanovic said. “We managed to bring Russia and China closer. Whose interest is that in? All these questions must be answered by me, especially by those who make these decisions in my name. I demand an answer.”
Novak told a news conference on Friday that she welcomed Croatia’s entry into the 27-nation Schengen area, Europe’s border-free travel zone, on Jan. 1.
The border fence separating Hungary and Croatia was subsequently dismantled as Croatia moved into the region, a change Novak said would boost tourism and simplify travel between neighboring countries, as well as linking the EU’s external borders. Move further south.
Novak also called on Ukrainian authorities to respect the rights of the Hungarian minority in western Ukraine’s Transcarpathian region, saying the Hungarian flag had recently been removed from public institutions in what she called a restriction on minority rights. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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