BUDAPEST (REUTERS) – Hungary has no plans to leave the European Union, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Sunday, adding however that eastern and western members of the bloc must find a compromise over the bloc’s future.
Orban, in power for nearly a decade, has often been at loggerheads with Brussels, for example over his refusal to take in migrants under an EU quota scheme and his efforts to tighten control over the media, the judiciary and academic institutions.
His combative stance has prompted speculation that Hungary might at some stage follow Britain’s example and leave the EU, though it provides billions of euros worth of funding to its poorer ex-communist member states.
The EU is now seeking to make that generous assistance conditional on upholding the rule of law.
“We are a member of the Union and will remain a member,” Orban told a congress of his ruling Fidesz party, which re-elected the 55-year-old premier as its president.