Less than two weeks into Hungary’s EU Council presidency, the Federal Foreign Office reported significant damage. Other EU countries are also angry – Sweden and Lithuania no longer want to send ministers to Council meetings in Budapest.
According to a spokesman for the Foreign Office, the new Hungarian EU Council Presidency has already done considerable damage. “We are now on the twelfth day and it has already caused massive damage to the land,” the spokesperson said. The spokesperson pointed out that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s controversial trips, for example to Moscow and Beijing, have seen the Hungarian government issue official videos with the logo of the Hungarian EU Council Presidency. This contrasts with the fact that Orbán has no mandate to speak for the EU.
Bundestag SPD member Axel Schäfer called for the council presidency to be withdrawn from Hungary. A spokesman for the Foreign Office said there were no such plans.
Other EU countries make their own decisions. According to a media report, Lithuania also temporarily refused to send ministers to meetings in Hungary in response to Orban’s activities. Sweden took the measure on Thursday. “For now, we have decided to limit our participation at the political level in Hungary,” the chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Lithuanian parliament, Zigimantas Pavlianis, told the BNS news agency.
EU summit on the brink?
“We join those who are dissatisfied with this position,” Pavlianis said, according to the report. BNS reported that Estonia and Latvia also wanted to act similarly to the Hungarian measures – without naming details or sources.
According to the report, Lithuania plans to send deputy cabinet members. A spokesman for the Presidential Palace was quoted as saying that it has not yet been decided whether President Kitanas Nauseta will attend the EU summit in Budapest. The Lithuanian position on this will be coordinated with the EU partners.
Jessica Rosewall, Sweden’s current EU minister and EU commissioner-designate, said Hungary’s actions were harmful and should have consequences. Sweden will therefore only participate in informal meetings in Hungary at an official level in July. According to Roswall, Finland, Lithuania and Poland wanted to react similarly to the Hungarian actions, in addition to Estonia and Latvia, which were declared by the Lithuanian side. There were discussions about this in other countries as well.
Orbans meets Trump
Shortly after it became known, Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristerson criticized Orban’s trip to Moscow as “irresponsible and disloyal”. Now he’s followed through: Orbán is abusing the EU Council presidency and hijacking it for his own purposes, Christensen said on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Washington.
There was also criticism from German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. The EU foreign representative speaks for foreign policy, the Green politician responds to a question about the meeting between Orbán and Trump. “And if you act differently, it’s clear that not only is everyone else annoyed – but it makes it clear that this is not the position of the EU.”
Hungary’s foreign ministry justified the cancellation of Monday’s planned visit to Beyrbach, citing an “unexpected change in the calendar” of his counterpart, Peter Szyjardo.
Regular change every six months
President Olaf Scholz pointed out on Thursday that Orban was only traveling as Hungarian prime minister and not speaking for the EU. Everyone you talk to should know this.
Hungary has held the EU Council presidency since early July, which rotates between the 27 EU member states every six months. It also means that Hungary will hold informal ministerial meetings in Budapest. As a rule, heads of respective departments from individual countries come together.
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