{"id":378300,"date":"2024-07-15T20:18:55","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T18:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/07\/15\/commissione-ue-orban-visita-ungheria\/"},"modified":"2024-07-19T17:16:13","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T15:16:13","slug":"von-der-leyen-at-odds-with-orban-commission-visit-to-budapest-canceled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/07\/15\/von-der-leyen-at-odds-with-orban-commission-visit-to-budapest-canceled\/","title":{"rendered":"Von der Leyen at odds with Orban, Commission visit to Budapest canceled"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Support for Ukraine ‘as long as it takes<\/em>‘ is non-negotiable for the European Commission. Bearing the brunt is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/strong>, who, since being\u00a0the head of the EU Council for the next six months, has embarked on a personal peace mission, meeting<\/a> first Zelensky, followed by Putin, Xi Jinping, and Donald Trump. And embarrassing Brussels. So much so that the EU executive has announced that the College of Commissioners will not travel to Hungary for the traditional visit to the rotating Presidency, scheduled for late summer.<\/p>\n

In addition, Ursula von der Leyen decided to boycott informal EU Council meetings until they are hosted by Orb\u00e1n government ministers<\/strong> “in light of recent developments marking the beginning of the Hungarian presidency.” Commissioners will attend only formal Councils<\/strong> – where decisions are made at the legislative level – in Brussels and Luxembourg. Only the most senior Commission officials will go to the informal meetings.<\/p>\n

European Commission chief spokesman Eric Mamer made the announcement. The case erupted on\u00a0July 5, when the Hungarian\u00a0Prime Minister caught the other EU 26 by surprise by going\u00a0to Moscow<\/a> for a bilateral meeting with Vladimir Putin to discuss the Kremlin’s conditions for ending the conflict in Ukraine. All while maintaining – consciously or unconsciously – a certain ambiguity about his role at the head of the 27 member states. The three EU heavyweights, Charles Michel, Ursula von der Leyen, and High Representative Josep Borrell,\u00a0immediately clarified that Brussels had given no mandate to Orb\u00e1n to negotiate with Moscow.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Donald Trump and\u00a0Viktor Orban in Florida, 11\/07\/24<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Several heads of state and government of the 27 had also hinted at some irritation at Orb\u00e1n’s flight forward. However, von der Leyen did not coordinate her decision today with the European chancelleries: “An institutional prerogative of the Commission,” Mamer clarified. Just today, in an interview with Hungarian news outlet Magyar Nemzet<\/em><\/a>, Budapest spokesman Balazs Orban said he was “convinced that the entire period of our country’s EU presidency should be used, in political terms, to create the conditions for peace negotiations.” Relaunching on new “trips and negotiations to be made.”<\/p>\n

Brussels maintains that there can be no peace talks in Ukraine without Ukraine. Borrell reiterated at the NATO summit in Washington last week, “There is no peace plan other than Zelensky’s. The whole EU supports this position.” The pro-Russian Orb\u00e1n, who has been the voice out of the chorus since the beginning of Russian aggression and systematically blocks aid packages to Kyiv, thinks differently. There have already been several calls in Brussels to take the rotating Presidency away from Hungary. The European Parliament already asked for this, while\u00a0the Renew Group repeated the call a few days ago, and the rumors have become so persistent that a few days ago, Budapest’s Minister of European Affairs, Janos Boka, called a press conference in Brussels to deny the rumors. For now, the possibility does not seem to be on the table,\u00a0\u00a0but the diplomatic snub decided today by the European Commission may be an early warning.<\/p>\n

\n

In light of recent developments marking the start of the Hungarian Presidency, the President has decided that @EU_Commission<\/a> will be represented at senior civil servant level only during informal meetings of the Council.<\/p>\n

The College visit to the Presidency will not take place.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Eric Mamer (@MamerEric) July 15, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The EU executive President instructed Commissioners to boycott informal councils to be held in Hungary between now and December. Orb\u00e1n pays for his escapades with visits to Putin, Xi Jinping, and Trump<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":378266,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[25835,26884,26023],"class_list":["post-378300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-viktor-orban-en","tag-commissione-ue-en","tag-orban-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378300"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":379587,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378300\/revisions\/379587"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}