Orban agreed to a meeting with Zelensky

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced that he had accepted the invitation to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
"We will have a bilateral meeting at some point in the future," Orban said at his closing press conference of the year.
If the plans go ahead, it will be the first official bilateral meeting between the two leaders since the invasion of Russia.
Orban said Zelensky proposed the meeting earlier this month and suggested the two "negotiate".
"I told him that I will be at his disposal. We only need to clarify one question: for what?", the Hungarian Prime Minister said.
Ukraine's president wants to discuss his country's bid to join the EU, a move Hungary strongly opposes.
Orban also explained why he blocked a proposed €50 billion aid package for Kyiv earlier this month.
The Hungarian leader said money for Ukraine should not come from the EU's central budget and would be a "bad decision".
"The European Commission is blackmailing Hungary by keeping billions in frozen funds over rule of law concerns. Hungary will not support an EU grant of €50 billion to Ukraine at the summit on February 1, 2024," Orbán said.
According to him, blackmail is a "fact" recognized even by the blackmailers themselves - members of the European Parliament.
"Hungary meets all the qualities of the rule of law, and when the European Commission has specific needs, we fulfill all of them, and we also cooperate," he added. "You can't blame me for doing everything possible to promote Hungary's interests in such a blackmail situation," he added.
Orbán's government is embroiled in a long-running dispute with Brussels, which has frozen billions in EU funds destined for Hungary over concerns about human rights and the rule of law in the country.
Last week, the European Commission unblocked 10.2 billion euros of frozen EU cohesion funds intended for Hungary.
The commission said the timing of the release of the funds - which came just a day before the European Council at which Orban threatened to block the start of negotiations on Ukraine's EU accession and an additional aid package for Kiev - was coincidental. However, many EU politicians have warned Brussels against succumbing to what they see as blackmail by the Hungarian leader.
In the end, Orbán made a U-turn and allowed EU leaders to approve the start of negotiations for Ukraine to join the bloc.
The stakes for Budapest are even higher, with Orbán still blocking a €50 billion aid package for Kiev that leaders are due to discuss early next year. /BGNES