The European Union has stripped Hungary of the right to host the next meeting of foreign and defence ministers over its stance on the war in Ukraine.
It comes weeks after Hungary assumed the presidency of the Council of the European Union, a role in which it would normally host the event, and amid anger over a meeting Prime Minister Viktor Orban held with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said Hungary’s actions should have consequences and that “we have to send a signal, even if it is a symbolic signal”.
Hungary described the move as “completely childish”.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
The European Union has stripped Hungary of the right to host the next meeting of foreign and defence ministers over its stance on the war in Ukraine.It comes weeks after Hungary assumed the presidency of the Council of the European Union, a role in which it would normally host the event, and amid anger over a meeting Prime Minister Viktor Orban held with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month.
Every six months, under each new council presidency, the EU’s foreign and defence ministers hold informal meetings to discuss the biggest global issues facing the bloc.
Following the decision, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto wrote on Facebook: "What a fantastic response they have come up with.
"Mr Orban’s meeting with Mr Putin came as part of what he described as a “peace mission” - launched days after Hungary assumed the council presidency - that also saw him visiting the leaders of Ukraine and China as well as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the US.
The trip sparked condemnation from leaders across the EU, with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen describing it as “nothing but an appeasement mission”.Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said Mr Orban had “no mandate to negotiate or discuss on behalf of the EU”, while Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the trip sent “the wrong signal to the outside world and is an insult to the Ukrainian people’s fight for their freedom”.The episode is one of numerous occasions since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on which Hungary has been at odds with most of the rest of the EU about the appropriate response.
After winning re-election in April 2022, just months after the invasion, Mr Orban told a crowd of supporters that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was among the people he would have to “battle” in his fourth term.Last year, he repeatedly used Hungary’s veto to delay a €50bn (£42bn) package of non-military financial aid to Ukraine.
The original article contains 497 words, the summary contains 327 words. Saved 34%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
“Hungary stripped of EU” woot woot!
…“EU meeting” doh.
Good. Now suspend them.
Y’all Euros need to cut that turd loose or “take care” of its ruling party. If you don’t, it’s just gonna keep on being a liability.
It’s not so simple when many decisions in EU require unanimity. That sucker at least had the merit to show the limits of this model, and I expect rules to evolve to avoid being held hostage by one moron who doesn’t respect the rule of law
Much like we’ve seen with the American political system, it relies on good-faith actors to a frankly shocking and inappropriate degree, and it starts to break down when you have lots of people who actively work against the common good.
We need to get rid of the single member veto at this point, it’s been abused. Maybe replace unanimous votes with like, 80%.
Agreed. As a Euro, they need to be taken care of. Permanently. Throw them out, shut off all talks with Turkey, too. We don’t want either of them.
Good thing people like you don’t get to make geopolitical decisions.
Ah yeah, I’m sure “people like you” would do a much better job. Oh wait, your kind is why things are in the shitter.
Would do a much better job by throwing out the second biggest military (after the US) out of NATO. Or establish a precedent on throwing out countries you don’t like out of the EU, basically telling everyone “you can’t be a sovereign country because we can throw you out when we don’t like what you are doing”.
Good job mr President
Wouldn’t being thrown out the equivalent of getting back their sovereignty according to populists? Not just looking at UK… Populists shout that EU takes their sovereignty away but that is just for electoral gain, there is a reason why so many new countries want IN, including Turkey. That’s also why Orban’s stance is a fucking bluff
Yes, because the EU right now has a lot of unanimous decisions. It’s a gentleman’s agreement between independent countries. Once you make it “do what we say or I boot you” it stops being that.
You must know how strategically asinine it would be to boot Turkey from NATO, right? It would basically hand the Black Sea to Russia. Turkey would reclassify the Ukrainian war as an internal conflict or something like that, which would let Russia bring pretty much their whole navy into the Black Sea if they wanted to, which would have dire consequences for Ukraine.
Also, this conversation is not about NATO. It’s about the EU.
Read the posts again. They are saying “close off any talks with Turkey” meaning closing diplomacy. They are calling to boot out Hungary. Both shitty geopolitical moves that I am making fun of.
Would do a much better job by throwing out the second biggest military (after the US) out of NATO
This is the sentence I was specifically responding to.
But I also disagree with your more general sentiment. If a leader/country establishes a behavioral pattern that consistently works against the interests of the group they’re in, the group in question is fully justified in kicking them out of said group - or at least, severely curtailing the bad actor’s influence in that group.
“Very childish” of Ukraine civilians to die.
Hungarian here, Viktator is a dick, don’t judge my whole country by him, thanks.
My problem is not that there exists ONE guy like him. It rather worries me that he’s been doing shit like that for the past fourteen years, people have been watching it and every four years since then, more than half of them were like “yeah, that’s what I want for the next four years, too.”
Obviously it would still be unjust to judge the other half, but the fact that half of the county supports this thing is worrying at the very least.
More like every third person, turn out rates and all. But even that number is achived by what is basically propaganda flowing from all state owned TV and radio stations, newspapers and constant billboard campaings. They don’t even say they are the best, they just say it’s them or the PM from before them, who is now basically seen as devil incarnate (probably because of the same propaganda), even though I lived most of my life under Orban.
My bad, I should have written half of the voters.
American here, we won’t judge you for Vik the dick, if you won’t judge us for Don the con.
Deal.
continue judging Hungary for Miklós Horthy
Never said anything about history!
