Hungarian premier urges EU to revise budget rules to meet NATO defense spending target
'If we keep the regulation as it is, nobody in the European Union is able to fulfill 5%,' Viktor Orban says
THE HAGUE, Netherlands
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Wednesday called for a revision of the EU's budget regulation framework, warning that no member state would be able to meet NATO’s 5% of GDP defense spending target under the current rules.
Speaking ahead of NATO leaders meeting in The Hague, Orban said the 5% target is reachable though it would not be easy.
"It's not easy, but the whole calculation of budget regulation of European Union must be changed," he told reporters. "If we keep the regulation as it is, nobody in the European Union is able to fulfill 5%. So we have to recalculate everything in a different method."
Orban said the biggest threat Europe faces today is not military, but economic. "The real threat is not security wise, it's economic and losing our competitiveness on the global trade."
"I think Russia is not strong enough to represent a real threat to us. We are far stronger," he added.
On Ukraine, he said: "NATO has no business in Ukraine. Ukraine is not member of NATO, neither Russia. My job is to keep it as it is."
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