Yuri Kobzar19:01, 16.12.23

Budapest threatens to block the extension of the Schengen zone to Bulgaria.

Hungary will veto Bulgaria‘s entry into Europe’s Schengen zone if it does not cancel the decision to increase fees for the transit of Russian gas through its territory. This was announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of HungaryPeter Szijjártó.

“We have made it clear to the Bulgarians that if they continue this for a long time, if they threaten the security of Hungary’s energy supply for a long time, then we will veto their entry into Schengen,” Szijjártó said.

According to Szijjártó, Bulgaria’s actions contradict European norms and threaten the security of gas supplies not only to Hungary, but also to Serbia and North Macedonia.

Peter Szijjártó noted that next week the decision on Bulgaria’s membership in Schengen will be considered, “so they suddenly started trying in every possible way to repeal this law.” “If it is canceled, we will also withdraw our veto decision,” the minister said.

Hungary uses EU veto power

As UNIAN wrote, Hungary does not hesitate to use the right of veto when voting on key decisions of the European Union in order to achieve what it needs. 

This week, Budapestblocked two key EU decisions at once – on allocating 50 billion euros of financial assistance to Ukraine over the next four years, as well as revision of the EU budget. With such actions, Hungary is seeking to unfreeze subsidies from the EU budget, which it stopped receiving due to suspicions of corruption and anti-dimecratic behavior of the Hungarian government.

(C)UNIAN 2023