Ministers won’t attend meetings while Hungary holds rotating EU presidency
Portugal has joined the boycott in place by various European countries against Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán.
The reasons for the boycott is that Hungary holds the rotating EU presidency until the end of the year – and thus will be hosting various meetings to which EU dignitaries would normally be expected.
This time round, however, due to Mr Orbán’s recent trips to Russia and China, which did not go down well with the EU hierarchy, a number of countries have decided to show their displeasure by sending 2nds or even 3rds in the chain of responsibility.
SIC Notícias reports that secretaries of state will be the people most likely to attend meetings, possibly even ‘senior technical officials’.
The decision is expected to remain in place until the end of Hungary’s tenure of the presidency.
In addition to Orbán’s unilateral approaches to Russia’s president Putin, and China’s president Xi, he recently met with presidential candidate Donald Trump to ‘discuss ways of reaching peace’ regarding the war in Ukraine.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
