Brussels takes over Hungarian presidency because of Orban’s contact with Putin three days before von der Leyen’s vote

The discomfort is already translating into actions. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has decided to leave Hungary’s presidency of the Council of the European Union after the visits of the far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to Moscow and Beijing at the beginning of the semester, which she called a “peace mission”. The college of commissioners will not go to Budapest on the traditional visit when a country assumes the rotating presidency and will send an official, not commissioners, to informal meetings of ministers held in Hungary with the Orbán government as host.

This was announced by European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer via social networks by the leaders of the 27. “In light of recent events at the start of the Hungarian Presidency, the presidency has decided that the European Commission will be represented at the senior official level during informal Council meetings. There will be no presidency visits to the College,” Mamer explained.

Orban’s meetings with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, which he called a ‘peace mission’, raised tensions in the EU to the maximum and some capitals proposed taking action for the improper use of the rotating presidency of the Council. Indeed, all ambassadors except the Slovak one rebuked their Hungarian counterpart in a meeting last week over Orban’s international agenda, who later went to meet Donald Trump in the United States, although on this occasion they did not use the logo of Orban’s presidency in the promotional video of the meeting.

In Brussels they accused Orban of going against EU rules, which establish that “Member States shall actively and unconditionally support the Union’s foreign and security policy.” The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union states, “They shall refrain from any action contrary to the interests of the European Union or that could harm its effectiveness as a force of solidarity in international relations.”

They believe that Orbán has failed to comply by going to Moscow and Beijing to defend an approach to the conflict in Ukraine that clashes with the rest of the capitals and which consists in supporting Kiev against Russian aggression and that it is Volodymyr Zelensky who establishes the framework to start peace talks. Hungary, in fact, vetoes every move to support Ukraine that requires the unanimity of the 27.

The possibility is that the minister will leave the Hungarian presidency because he believes that the use of the rotating presidency of the EU Council is on the table in the capitals. However, third vice-president Teresa Ribera ruled out doing so in her case. She did so precisely in statements made to journalists while attending an informal environmental council in Budapest last week. However, agriculture chief Luis Planas has not ruled it out this Monday, but has cleared the ball by ensuring that he will close his September agenda with his team at the end of this month.

Informal meetings of ministers under the Hungarian presidency were already low-profile. For example, for the first time, on competitiveness issues, only eight of the 27 ministers, including the host, attended. The European Commission took the initiative by formally declaring a sit-in against Orban. He does so 72 hours before the vote in the European Parliament on his candidacy to continue leading the community government, while liberals have called on the EU to go a step further and remove Hungary from the rotating presidency and hand it directly to Poland, which will assume the presidency in January 2025.