EU threats won’t stop Ukraine peace mission – Hungary

Threats from the EU will not force Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to abort his peace mission to assist in finding a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said.

Budapest is already used to dealing with pressure from Brussels, Szijjarto told RT during a visit to Moscow on Tuesday.

“It is so obvious that the pro-war politicians of the EU are unhappy [with] what we have been doing because they do not want peace, they want this war to be continued. They do not care about the escalation, but we do,” he said.

The foreign minister stressed that Hungary is “used to such kind of attacks… such kind of pressure” from Brussels.

“So we will continue our peace mission… We will work in favor of a peaceful solution” to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine because it is in Hungary’s national interests, he added.

In a separate comment to RIA Novosti, Szijjarto said the EU had “threatened to boycott us… threatened to ignore us,” but this pressure has made Budapest even more eager to continue with its peace efforts. “We are a patriotic government, we are a non-mainstream government, we are under financial sanctions from the EU. So I do not see how they can threaten us any more than they already do.”

Brussels has withheld billions in cohesion funds from Hungary in recent years, citing concerns over the rule of law and protection of human rights in the country. In December, the European Commission unblocked €10.2 billion ($11 billion) for Budapest, but €21 billion still remains frozen.

Unlike most EU member states, Hungary has refused to supply weapons to Ukraine, criticized the bloc’s sanctions on Moscow, and called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

Orban embarked on his peace mission in early July as soon as Budapest assumed the half-year European Council rotating presidency. He has already visited Ukraine, Russia, China and met with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the US. His plan reportedly includes making concessions to Moscow regarding NATO expansion in Europe, which Russia listed as one of the key reasons for launching its military operation in February 2022.

When the Hungarian prime minister arrived in Moscow, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell insisted that it was a bilateral visit and that Orban was “not representing the EU in any form.” European Council President Charles Michel later called the peace mission “a problem” and described Orban’s diplomacy as “not acceptable.”

Politico reported last week that the bloc’s foreign ministers are planning to boycott a foreign affairs summit in Budapest on August 28-29 to “send a clear signal” that it should not misuse its EU presidency. On Tuesday, 93 European MPs wrote a letter urging the European Commission to strip Budapest of its voting rights.