The European Commission is preparing today to formally present a recommendation to open EU accession negotiations with Ukraine. The proposal has sparked opposition in several member states, with right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) leader Herbert Kickl calling on Austria's coalition government made up of the People's Party and the Greens to veto Ukraine's accession.
Seriously wanting to admit to the EU a country at war with another country is political insanity. Now that the Brussels elites have dragged the EU and Austria into an economic war that is incompatible with our eternal neutrality and destroys our economy and prosperity, inviting the Ukrainians to join would be tantamount to plunging ourselves straight into that war.
The FPO will submit a motion to this effect in the National Council next time – although so far all similar proposals were swept off the table by the governing parties in one fell swoop.
Moreover, Ukraine does not meet the Copenhagen criteria for accession in the slightest and struggles with massive corruption, as evidenced by the scandals that come to light almost from week to week. In addition, President Volodymyr Zelensky recently took a stand against holding presidential elections, arguing that it is not the right time for politically divisive things. In this regard, the FPO holds the position that
No one can deny that holding elections in times of war is certainly difficult. But this is one of the core elements of democracy and therefore a state that cannot hold elections can never become a member of the EU.
Instead of trying to sneak Ukraine into the European Union by trickery and force, Austria's right wing believes that the elites in Brussels should work to bring the war to an end as soon as possible and work towards peace.
However, EU elites are doing the exact opposite. They are creating a self-destructive spiral of sanctions and making European and Austrian taxpayers pay billions for arms purchases, which only fuels the war and increases the death toll and untold suffering. These payments must therefore be stopped immediately,
said Herbert Kickl.
As Magyar Nemzet reported in a previous piece, the latest survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) revealed that besides the war, Ukrainians are the most concerned about low income and corruption, The New Voice of Ukraine news portal highlighted.
About 63 percent of the respondents named corruption as the country's main problem, with 46 percent naming low income.
In recent weeks, Volodymyr Zelensky's popularity rate has been steadily falling, partly due to the Ukrainian president's failure so far to effectively fight the corruption pervading the country, despite his election campaign pledge.
