Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban needs to be reprimanded for his uncoordinated measures, but there is no need to boycott Hungary’s EU Council presidency, the foreign minister shared his opinion on the social network X (blocked in the Russian Federation).
Ministers from Austria’s ruling People’s Party are ready to continue taking part in the body’s meetings as there are “enough” issues on the agenda, Nehammer added.
It has previously been reported that members of the European Parliament have appealed to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen demanding that Hungary be stripped of its EU voting rights following Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s trip to Russia and China on a “peace mission.” According to the MPs, Orban allegedly “deliberately distorted his powers” during his visits to Moscow and Beijing, and to stop this, “real action is needed.”
On July 1, the presidency of the European Council, the EU’s highest political body, passed to Hungary, which has its own views on pan-European issues and is at odds with the European Union.
The next day, Orban arrived in kyiv for a visit. There he met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and invited him to agree to a ceasefire to speed up the start of negotiations with Russia. However, Kyiv rejected him.
Orban then visited Moscow, where he held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. One of the topics of the negotiations was the situation in Ukraine. At the same time, Orban described the tour itself as a “peace mission.”
After Moscow, the Hungarian prime minister travelled to Beijing and then to Washington. All these visits were not announced in advance, but agreed with NATO.
The European Commission has complained about this, saying that the very fact of Orban’s visits “undermines the unity and determination” of the EU on the issue of the Ukrainian conflict. The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, simply pointed out that the Hungarian prime minister had not received a mandate from the EU Council to visit Moscow.
Orban himself stressed that he speaks exclusively on his own behalf, and not on behalf of Brussels, and that his mission is dictated by the interests of the world and Budapest.
