Baltics, Nordics, Poland to boycott Hungarian presidency

4 months ago 21

Northern and Eastern EU countries will not send any minister to Hungary during the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU in protest with Viktor Orban’s rogue trip to Moscow.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been widely criticised by EU member states and institution heads for his recent “peace trips” to Moscow and Beijing, and his case was on the agenda at the Conference of Presidents on Thursday (11 July).

The feeling in Brussels and in the EU capitals is that the Hungarian Prime minister is hijacking the rotating EU presidency of the Council of Ministers and using it for his own gain, not to represent the EU.

Euractiv has learnt that several EU countries—including Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland—will only send officials to the minister meetings organised in Budapest this July.

Discussions are ongoing in other countries.

“The Hungarian behaviour during the presidency is damaging and must have consequences. Sweden will, therefore, not participate at the political level during the informal ministerial meetings in July”, Swedish EU minister and EU Commissioner-hopeful Jessica Roswall told the Swedish press agency TT.

Meanwhile, within liberal Renew Europe, there were calls to strip Hungary of its presidency altogether.

“Honestly, the possibility of boycotting the Hungarian presidency was discussed from his (Orbán’s) first trip, the one to Kyiv,” an official from the liberal Renew group told Euractiv.

Euractiv has learnt that various measures could be considered, including the possibility of prematurely ending the Hungarian presidency, appealing to previous Belgian or Spanish presidencies, or even speeding up the Polish presidency.

Hungary will chair both formal Council meetings in Brussels and informal meetings in Budapest from 1 July until the end of the year.

(Charles Szumski | Euractiv.com)