Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for a meeting of European Union EU leaders in Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 14, 2023.
Zhao Dingzhe | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images
Hungary has been stripped of the right to host a forthcoming gathering of European Union ministers due to its stance on the war in Ukraine.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, on Monday said that the next meeting of EU foreign and defense ministers would now take place in Brussels rather than in Hungary, where it would be expected to take place as Budapest currently holds the rotating six-month EU presidency.
“We have to send a signal, even if it is a symbolic signal, that being against the foreign policy of the European Union … has to have some consequences,” Borrell told reporters in Brussels on Monday.
Borrell said he had made the decision to hold the next gathering in Brussels after almost every EU foreign minister meeting on Monday was critical of Hungary’s stated position on Kyiv, Russia and the war in Ukraine.
Tensions between the EU and Budapest have grown after Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban undertook a self-styled “peace mission” to Ukraine, Russia and China earlier in July without the EU’s backing. Orban, who’s seen as an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has since provoked fury in Brussels by describing EU policy on Ukraine as “pro-war.”
The EU’s top diplomat Borrell said Monday that a number of EU foreign ministers had expressed their unwillingness to go to Budapest for their next gathering of foreign and defense ministers, which is set to take place in late August.
Borrell said “all member states — with one single exception — are very much critical about this behaviour” from Hungary, adding that he believed it was “appropriate to show this feeling and to call for the next foreign and defence council meetings in Brussels.”
He nevertheless told reporters that the move was not a “boycotting” of Hungary and that the country would be present at the next gathering. “The meeting will work with the full participation of all member states,” Borrell insisted.
Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó described the decision to strip Hungary of its hosting duties as “childish,” telling reporters, “I really don’t want to offend anyone, but it’s probably a kindergarten-level debate,” according to Reuters.
Unease grows
The EU and member state Hungary have clashed repeatedly over Ukraine and Budapest’s continuing diplomatic relations and energy ties to Russia.
The decision to strip Hungary of the right to host the next informal meeting of EU foreign ministers is the latest downgrade in relations between the bloc and Hungary. The European Commission had already barred EU Commissioners from attending meetings held in Hungary during its tenure of the EU presidency, which began at the start of July.
Sat on the EU’s eastern flank, Hungary favors a cease-fire and negotiations to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, rather than what it sees as continued EU assistance that is enabling Kyiv to continue fighting a war of attrition. Budapest says Russia’s superiority in terms of manpower and resources make the war unwinnable.
Kyiv strongly rejects that position and its allies, including the EU and NATO, say they are helping Ukraine to defend its territorial integrity and sovereignty after Russia’s unprovoked invasion. The EU slammed Orban’s recent meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, saying that “appeasement” would not stop the Russian leader.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia July 5, 2024.
Valeriy Sharifulin | Via Reuters
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban told CNBC last week that “there is no solution of this conflict on the battlefield” and that he saw his task as changing EU policy on Ukraine.
“My job is to convince them to shift from the pro-war policy to a pro peace policy,” Orban said.
“They believe that they can destroy the military [of the] Russians … but I don’t believe this at all, because I know the Russians, I know the Soviet Union, I know the Ukrainians. I’m belonging to a neighboring country. I know the whole context. It’s impossible to find a solution on the battlefield, we will lose every day thousands of innocent people,” Orban told CNBC as he attended the European Political Community at Blenheim Palace in England last Thursday.
“Human life is the most precious thing we can lose, and we do it every day, 1000s and 1000s. We have to stop it. That’s as a neighboring country. This is my opinion … [The] solution is on negotiation table, ceasefire negotiation table, that’s what I try to convince them. But it takes time,” he added.