Kachka on Orbán’s statement: hopes Kyiv can convince Budapest to change position on Ukraine
Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Taras Kachka said that Ukraine is actively communicating with Hungary on the issue of national minorities with positive results and expressed hope that Kyiv will be able to convince Budapest to change its position on Ukraine's European integration.
The Ukrainian deputy prime minister said this in an interview with Ukrinform, responding to a question about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's sharp reaction to the corruption scandal in Ukraine.
"It should be noted here that no one else but Viktor Orbán has made such statements. The position of the Hungarian prime minister has been known for a long time. At the same time, we are working to explain to the Hungarian government that it is not necessary to view everything in a negative light. And we see signs that they are entering into communication. We recently received their comments on our proposals for resolving issues related to national minorities, but that is a separate topic," Kachka said.
When asked whether Budapest's comments were positive, the Ukrainian official said that “in general, yes.”
“There are no big issues, just a lot of details. It is a discussion about the nuances on both our side and theirs,” he clarified.
Kachka said that the Ukrainian side is “working with the Hungarian government on a daily basis” to get it to stop blocking Ukraine's European integration process.
“And I think we will convince them to change their minds sooner than anyone imagines,” the Ukrainian deputy prime minister emphasized.
As reported by Ukrinform, in response to Orbán's sharp statement on the corruption scandal in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry noted that he “cannot reproach Ukraine for corruption because he himself is involved in corruption scandals.”
On November 10, NABU announced a special operation to expose corruption in the energy sector. According to the investigation, members of the criminal organization had developed a large-scale scheme to influence strategic state-owned enterprises, in particular Energoatom.
The High Anti-Corruption Court has imposed preventive measures on five individuals involved in the case: Energoatom's executive director for security Dmytro Basov, former advisor to the Minister of Energy Ihor Myroniuk, back office employee involved in money laundering Lesya Ustymenko, Energoatom's executive director of security Igor Fursenko, and another back office employee, private entrepreneur Lyudmila Zorin.
On November 11, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted the first decisions to restart NAEK Energoatom and prematurely terminated the powers of the company's Supervisory Board.
On November 12, the government continued its series of decisions to restart the management of NAEK Energoatom, adopting a decision to remove a number of company officials.
On November 13, President Volodymyr Zelensky enacted the NSDC's decision to impose personal sanctions against Timur Mindich and Alexander Zuckerman.
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