71% of Hungarians oppose Ukraine’s accession to the European Union

Ukraine’s EU membership has been a central topic of public discourse in both Hungary and Europe, with many political actors expressing their views, arguing against or for it. At the EU summit on 20 March, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán vetoed a joint declaration on Ukraine, which, in addition to continuing the policy of war sanctions and arms transfers and providing further financial support to Ukraine, called for an acceleration of Ukraine’s EU accession. In its latest opinion poll, Századvég asked what the Hungarian public thinks about Ukraine’s EU membership.

Ukraine’s EU membership would impose a heavy burden on the Hungarian population

As a starting point, it is important to emphasise that Hungary incurred costs of some HUF 9,100 billion in the first three years of the Russia-Ukraine war as a consequence of the armed conflict, as highlighted by Századvég’s earlier analysis. Any accelerated accession of Ukraine to the European Union would entail additional financial burdens (estimated by Századvég at almost half a million forints per household per year) and other risks, such as to public security and public health.

Cross-party “NO” to Ukraine’s EU accession

The survey results show that Hungarian public opinion clearly perceives these risks and is clearly opposed to supporting Ukraine’s accelerated EU membership under the current EU rules and framework. According to the survey, a significant majority of Hungarians, 71%, believe that the current economic and political circumstances do not justify Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, while only 25% of those polled said they would support it. The proportion of respondents who did not wish to answer the question is estimated at 4%.

It is worth looking at the issue within the voter base of each political party. It can be seen that this high level of rejection spans across most voter bases, be it Fidesz-KDNP (93%), the Our Homeland Movement (95%), TISZA (52%) or even MKKP (59%). Only DK voters showed majority support for Ukraine’s EU membership, with 29% of Democratic Coalition voters rejecting the EU membership, and 68% supporting it.