Orbán in 2008: Ukraine should be admitted to NATO as soon as possible

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's visit to Kyiv this week has had a serious afterlife. On Thursday, Stoltenberg met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv and invited him to the next NATO summit in Vilnius in July. On Friday, Stoltenberg hinted that Ukraine would become a member of NATO. Reacting to this, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán shared an article on Twitter with just one word as a comment: What?!

This is not the first time, however, that Ukraine's membership of NATO has been on the agenda. It was already discussed in 2008, although the Hungarian press of the time reported on the early-April Bucharest summit in a variety of ways. There were MTI (Hungarian State News Agency) reports claiming that the idea of Ukraine's membership had been rejected, with only Albania and Croatia getting the green light.

We did, however, find an article in the printed media in which the then Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Sheffer, said about Ukraine and Georgia that NATO welcomed the reforms that had been implemented by the two countries and that Ukraine and Georgia would become members of NATO and that intensive negotiations would therefore begin with them, adding that they would only be included in the MAP plan, (which is the precursor) at a later stage.

NATO has now informed Eurologus that the closing document of the Bucharest summit also states that the two countries will become members of the organisation.

In August 2008, when Russia carried out military aggression against Georgia, Viktor Orbán also made his voice heard on the subject by sending a letter to the leaders of Georgia, Ukraine, Poland and the three Baltic countries.

Zsolt Németh held a press conference on this, and the text of the letter is still available on the KDNP website. For example, Fidesz urged the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Russian troops from the country. We quote from the report from that day:

"The head of Fidesz's foreign affairs cabinet said that in his letter, Viktor Orbán also mentioned that Georgia and Ukraine should be admitted to NATO as soon as possible."

The article also says that Fidesz is calling on Ferenc Gyurcsány (Prime Minister at the time) and his government to review their stand-alone policy on Russia, because the Hungarian government cannot continue to obstruct the united efforts of the EU and NATO.