Commissioners to boycott attendance at Hungary meetings over Orbán’s Ukraine diplomacy

The European Commission has asked its Commissioners not to attend informal ministerial meetings during the Hungarian EU presidency in protest at Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s diplomatic solo efforts over Ukraine, a spokesperson for the EU executive confirmed on Monday (15 July).

“In light of recent developments marking the start of the Hungarian Presidency, the President has decided that @EU_Commission will be represented at the senior civil servant level only during informal meetings of the Council,” European Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer said.

Hungary took over the rotating EU Council presidency on 1 July.

Formal meetings, which take normally place in Brussels and Luxembourg, will not be affected as their organisation does not depend on the rotating presidency.

However, the traditional European Commission College visit to the country would be cancelled, Mamer said.

EU member states last week rebuked Hungary and its prime minister for the self-declared “peace missions” to Ukraine, Russia, China, and Florida, which Budapest did not explicitly explain whether they had been conducted in the national or EU presidency capacity.

The Council’s legal service told EU envoys last week Budapest’s actions would potentially constitute breaches of the bloc’s treaties.

The step also follows a decision by Sweden, Finland, Poland, and three Baltic states –  Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – to skip the informal meetings during Hungary’s presidency.

However, so far, EU countries have not come up with tangible options for how to reign in Budapest’s actions beyond public display of anger.

The only response so far has been EU member states downgrading their ministerial representation at some of the informal ministerials that have taken place over the course of the past week.

An industrial policy meeting hosted in Budapest saw only seven ministers from EU countries showing up and no Commissioner responsible for the file attended.

While the informal EU foreign affairs minister meeting, chaired by the EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell, is the only constellation not helmed by Hungary, there have been considerations to downgrade the meeting as well, according to several EU diplomats.

Set to be organised on 28-29 August, the meeting could potentially see a workaround by Borrell transforming the informal meeting in Hungary into a formal meeting in Brussels to prevent ministers from having to go to Budapest, they said.

While the plans have been floated informally among several EU member states, including France and Germany, EU diplomats say it might be too early to take such a drastic step.

EU officials have cautioned such a step would be ‘radical’ and in any case require the full backing of EU member states.

The step is expected to be discussed by EU ambassadors on Wednesday (17 July).

Reacting to the announcement, Hungary’s European affairs minister János Bóka said Budapest as the chair of the EU’s rotating presidency remained “committed to sincere cooperation” with the bloc’s institutions and member states.

The European Commission “cannot cherry-pick institutions [and member states] it wants to cooperate with,” Bóka said.

“Are all Commission decisions now based on political considerations?” he asked.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]

Read more with Euractiv