Croatia’s president said that efforts by the European Union (EU) 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, AP reported.

President Zoran Milanovic made the statements during a news conference in Hungary’s capital Budapest following talks with his Hungarian counterpart Katalin Novak.

Milanovic 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.’”

Milanovic said he, like Hungary’s government, doesn’t support sanctions against Moscow, and characterized the conflict in Ukraine as a proxy war between Russia and the United States.

“The question is how much damage [sanctions] will bring upon us. It creates damage to Europe,” Milanovic said. “We managed to bring Russia and China closer together. In whose interest is this? All those questions will have to be answered to me, especially by those who are making those decisions in my name. I demand an answer.”