The Hungarian presidency of the Council of the European Union has been marred by controversy, which escalated after Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's unexpected visits to Russia and China. In response, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a boycott and the EU's chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, blocked a planned informal meeting of foreign and defence ministers in Budapest.
Outrage.
The current Hungarian presidency of the European Union, which began on July 1, has been controversial from the beginning.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's unannounced visit to Russian President Vladimir Putin has caused further outrage within the European Union.
The EU reacts: Despite disagreements within the bloc, the EU's chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, has announced a boycott of an informal meeting of foreign and defence ministers planned by Hungary in Budapest at the end of August. Speaking in Brussels on Monday, Borrell said he will instead invite them to a meeting in Brussels after the summer break.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also announced a boycott, ordering top EU officials to skip a series of meetings in Hungary. She announced that no commissioners, but only senior officials, would attend future informal ministerial meetings in Hungary under the current EU presidency.
Orbán's 'peace mission'.
Von der Leyen and Borrell's controversial decisions followed Orbán's visits, a few days into Hungary's EU presidency, which were not coordinated with the EU. Orbán met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev, followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, staging it as a 'peace mission' to resolve the war between the two countries. He later travelled to Beijing for talks with China's leader Xi Jinping and to the United States for a meeting with former US president and current Republican candidate Donald Trump.
The visits were met with great displeasure in the EU, mainly because the Kremlin was able to use the Moscow visit for propaganda purposes, using the visit as proof of some improvement in relations between Russia and the EU.
Additionally, Orbán did not make the EU's position on the war in Ukraine clear during the trip.
The European Commission made it clear on several occasions that Orbán was not travelling on behalf of the bloc.
EU member states not aligned in their response.
The issue of a political boycott of the Hungarian EU presidency dominated a meeting of EU Foreign Ministers in Brussels on Monday. At the meeting, a number of participants spoke out against a proposal by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, to respond by boycotting a meeting in Budapest.
Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel was the most outspoken critic of the boycott plans on Monday. He spoke of the plans being nonsense and urged politicians to travel to Budapest to make their views clear to the Hungarian government. Countries such as Spain and Slovenia have also expressed clear opposition to Borrell's initiative.
Slovenian Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon announced on Monday that Slovenian ministers intend to participate in informal meetings organised by the Hungarian EU presidency in Budapest.
Fajon added that this will be the case unless there is a different collective decision at the EU level. Regarding Orbán's "peace mission", Fajon stressed that even if it was well-intentioned, the Hungarian prime minister certainly did not have an EU mandate.
"We wish for negotiations to begin and the war to end as soon as possible, under Ukraine's terms. But we are not yet at that point today. We support and will continue to strive for any plan based on the UN Charter and international law," Fajon stressed.
Bulgarian MEP Eva Maydell said: "We have seen in recent weeks that Orbán visited Russia, but he also visited Ukraine. We have seen that in recent years [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has been trying to make sure that Europe is not united". All of these actions by Putin, which he thought would divide us, are uniting us and bringing us closer - she added.
Behind the scenes, according to diplomats, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and representatives of countries such as France and Italy expressed similar views. On the other side, however, were countries from north-eastern Europe such as Poland. Lithuania and Sweden had already announced days ago that they would temporarily not send ministers to Hungary for meetings in response to Orbán's unilateral action.
Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg is sticking to his previous position of opposing a boycott of the Hungarian EU presidency in protest against the solo actions of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a spokeswoman told the Austrian press agency APA.
Portugal's Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel rejected the idea of a political boycott of the Hungarian presidency of the Council of the EU but acknowledged the 'political significance' of Portuguese ministers' absence from meetings in Budapest.
'What I'm about to say is subject to permanent review. We [Portugal] will have political representation [at the informal meetings], but not at the ministerial level […]. It has a political meaning, but there is no political boycott here,' said Rangel on the matter.
Hungarian presidency fends off criticism.
Hungary's European Affairs Minister János Bóka hit back at the boycott decision, saying the Commission could not "cherry pick" which EU member states it wanted to work with."Are all commission decisions now based on political considerations?" he wrote on X.
"There was a hysterical and coordinated attack against Hungarian peace policies that completely ignore the facts," said Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó in response to EU reactions.
Hungarian government spokesman Zoltán Kovács said Hungary faces "aggressive, war-mongering hysteria over its 'peace mission'" and the debate over whether to oppose the informal meeting in Budapest "childish".
Kovács noted that Hungary is "prepared" to hold the meeting in its country, "but is also willing to attend if it is held in Brussels," he wrote in a message on his official X account.
The meeting of EU foreign and defence ministers' is currently scheduled for 28-29 August in Budapest. The meeting will cover a range of topics, including the war in Ukraine, the situation in the Middle East, Syria and the Cyprus issue.
(The content is based on news by agencies participating in the enr, in this case AFP, ANSA, APA, BTA, CTK, dpa, EFE, Lusa, STA).
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