We will not allow Brussels bureaucrats to make poor countries pay the for cost of the fight against climate change
12. 12. 2019.
From a Central European and Hungarian point of view, the battle that is expected to take place at the talks about the fight against climate change beginning on Thursday “will be about us not allowing Brussels bureaucrats to make poor people and poor countries pay repeatedly for the cost of the fight against climate change,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated on Thursday in Brussels, ahead of the summit of the European Union.

He said the European Council is planning to make a joint statement on behalf of EU Member States pledging to turn the entire European economy carbon-neutral by 2050.

“We are all aware that climate change is a huge problem. We are also aware that the fight against it is an enormous enterprise which costs a tremendous amount of money. Therefore, we must receive clear financial guarantees, and we will discuss the details of this here,” he stated.

The Prime Minister said Hungary, too, would like the European economy to become carbon-neutral by 2050, and it is therefore ready to sign an agreement on this.

Photo: Zoltán Fischer

He also said the future of nuclear energy will be on the agenda as well. Hungary would like Brussels to cast aside “once and for all” all its reservations about nuclear energy, as well as all criticisms and attacks launched against countries generating nuclear energy such as Hungary as without nuclear energy there is no carbon-neutral European economy, Mr Orbán underlined.

On the first day of the EU summit, according to plans, the European Council will finalise its guidelines relating to the EU’s long-term climate change strategy. Leaders of Member States will discuss how the above-mentioned climate neutrality goal could be achieved.