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An informal meeting of EU foreign and defence ministers will be held in Brussels instead of Budapest in a bid to rebuke Hungary’s controversial solo diplomatic efforts on Ukraine, the bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said on Monday.
“We have to send a signal, even if it’s only a symbolic one,” Borrell told reporters after announcing the change of venue for a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.
Borrell said Hungary’s repeated and uncoordinated moves against EU unity “must have some formal consequences”.
EU countries Condemning Hungary and its Prime Minister Viktor Orban Because he claimed to have carried out “peace missions” to Ukraine, Russia, China and Florida. Budapest has never clearly explained whether these missions were carried out in its capacity as a country or as the president of the European Union.
Hungary holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union until December 31.
Earlier, several EU member states said they would reduce the level of participation in informal meetings held in Budapest during Hungary’s presidency of the European Union.
European Commission ask The European Commission said last week that Hungary must not attend informal ministerial meetings during its six-month term in the bloc in protest at Orban’s solo diplomatic efforts on Ukraine.
The informal EU foreign and defence ministers’ meeting from August 28 to 30 is the only remaining meeting, as it is the only EU ministerial meeting not convened by the EU’s rotating presidency but by the EU’s chief diplomat.
According to several EU diplomats, 13 member states want the meeting to be held in Budapest, five member states said they would not attend, and eight member states said it would be up to Borrell to decide.
Some even floated the idea that Borrell could symbolically hold the meeting in Kiev instead of Budapest. However, support for this idea remains in the minority.
But given that 25 EU countries, except Slovakia and Hungary, supported the initiative to condemn Orban, Borrell decided to go ahead with the decision.
“We fully support Hungary and the peace initiative,” Slovak Interior Minister Matus Sutai-Estok told reporters at an informal meeting of EU interior ministers in Budapest on Monday.
In recent weeks, Hungary has accused the EU of pursuing a “policy of supporting war” by providing military and economic support to Ukraine.
“Putin is the one who is the war advocate, the only one who is provocative is Putin, who calls for the partition and transfer of Ukraine as a prerequisite for any negotiations and ceasefire,” Borrell said after the meeting.
According to several EU diplomats, during the talks on Monday, most EU member states expressed anger with Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjarto in the conference room.
“What a great response they came up with,” Szijjarto said. explain After the meeting. “I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but it felt like kindergarten.”
Borrell said after the meeting that Hungary was bound by Article 24.3 of the EU Treaty, under which all member states must “actively and unreservedly support the foreign policy of the European Union, in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity.”
He added that the relevant clause had been cited by some member states before and it was neither “decoration” nor “empty words”.
“Each member state has the sovereign right to develop its foreign policy – that is a fact. But as long as they are members of this club, they have to abide by the treaties,” Borrell said.
Asked whether Orban’s actions amounted to illegality, Borrell said: “For me it is clear that what happened falls within the realm of lack of loyal cooperation.”
(Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic)
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