Croatian president blasts EU penalties against Hungary

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Croatia's president said Friday that efforts by the European Union to uphold democratic standards in member countries threatened to tear the bloc apart, and condemned EU efforts to financially penalize Hungary for its alleged breaches of rule of law standards.

President Zoran Milanović made the statements during a news conference in Hungary's capital Budapest following talks with his Hungarian counterpart Katalin Novák. Milanović echoed frequent Hungarian criticism of the EU, saying the bloc was overreaching in its powers over member states and that this excessive control had precipitated Brexit and driven the United Kingdom out.

The EU shouldn't become, he said, a “United States of Europe,” adding that EU procedures against Hungary — which have frozen billions of euros in funding to Budapest over corruption and rule of law concerns — threatened to destroy the 27-member bloc.

"This sort of approach (between the EU and Hungary) is deeply irritating,” he said, warning that “today it is Hungary, tomorrow it will be some bigger country that will need to be ‘taught a lesson.’”

Milanović won the presidential election in Croatia in late 2019 as a liberal and left-leaning candidate, a counterpoint to the conservative government currently in power in the newest EU member state. But he has since made a turn to populist nationalism, and criticized Western policies both toward the Balkans and Russia.

Milanović has thus developed a reputation as pro-Russia, which he has denied. Yet in recent months, he has openly opposed the admission of Finland and Sweden into NATO amid the war in Ukraine, and the training of Ukrainian troops in Croatia as part of EU aid to the embattled country.

While the heads of state said they both condemn Russian aggression in...