EU ministers plan to boycott Hungary's foreign affairs summit
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The European Union plans to host a foreign affairs summit of its own rather than attending Hungary's in August.
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Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, attends the final match between England and Spain at the Euro 2024 soccer tournament in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, July 14, 2024. (AP)
European Union foreign affairs ministers plan to snub a Hungarian-led foreign affairs summit by organizing their own, Politico revealed, citing informed sources.
Hungary, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, is set to host a foreign affairs summit in Budapest on August 28-29, most probably aimed at shaping the union's foreign policy and placing Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó in the public eye.
However, following Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's decision to block aid to Ukraine, paired with his recent visit to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, several foreign ministers have opted to avoid Orban and steer clear of what Politico relayed was his "propaganda show".
In this context, EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has been planning to host another foreign affairs summit scheduled during the same period as Orban's, according to three diplomats directly informed of the plot.
"If there’s a formal foreign affairs council, organized by the high representative [Borrell] the same day, the ministers won’t be able to go to Budapest," one diplomat said.
Another diplomat said that foreign ministers boycotting the Hungarian summit would "send a clear signal that Hungary does not speak for the EU."
According to Politico, the plan has been discussed with several Union states, including Germany and France. Borrell's team intends to present it to the EU’s 27 permanent representatives on Wednesday.
EU pushing for war against Russia: Orban
The EU and Hungary have been at odds for years, but more so since Russia and Ukraine declared war, with the latter routinely criticizing EU directives and vetoing major bloc laws.
In late June, Orban declared that the EU leadership was pushing the bloc towards war with Russia while neglecting the interests of their own people.
His op-ed in the Magyar Nemzet newspaper stated, “To make matters worse, the Brussels bureaucracy that lives in a bubble has made a number of bad political decisions in recent years... “Europe is increasingly being dragged into a war, in which it has nothing to gain and everything to lose.”
“The bureaucrats in Brussels want this war", he said, stressing that their aim is to defeat Russia and to do so, "They keep sending the money of the European people to Ukraine. They have shot European companies in their feet with sanctions. They have driven up inflation and they have made making a living difficult for millions of European citizens."
Orban also said that rather than "looking after the interests of the people," the EU leadership was "imposing their own ideologies" on the citizens of member states.
