63 MEPs call for stripping Hungary of its EU voting rights

MEPs are calling for withdrawing Hungary's EU voting rights after the Hungarian prime minister's much-criticized trips to Russia and China, Politico has reported, citing a letter obtained by the paper. According to this, a total of 63 MEPs have appealed to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, as according to them, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán "has already caused significant damage by exploiting and abusing the role of the Council Presidency.”

Hungary took over the six-month rotating EU presidency from Belgium on 1 July. Since then, Orbán has visited Kyiv, Moscow, Beijing and Washington. He has labelled his trips as a peace mission and, although the Hungarian government claims that he did not go to these talks representing the EU, Vladimir Putin was quick to take advantage of Hungary's current position and said that they were aware that Orbán was there representing the European Union.

In their letter, the MEPs wrote that Orbán “undertook several diplomatic visits, notably to visit Putin in Russia and Xi Jinping in China, during which he intentionally misrepresented his empowerments”. The MEPs called on the European Parliament to respond accordingly.

“This requires real actions, such as suspending Hungary’s voting rights in the Council, since practice has shown that mere verbal condemnations of this situation have no effect,” – the MEPs added.

The letter was backed by MEPs from several countries and parliamentary groups, including the EPP, Renew and the Greens.

Orbán's arbitrary trips, including the unannounced visit to Moscow have raised eyebrows in international diplomatic circles. As a consequence, European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer officially announced on Monday that the body would only be represented at a lower level at informal meetings organized by the Hungarian presidency.

Eric Mamer wrote on X that instead of the Commissioners, the Commission will only be sending senior civil servants responsible for the relevant area at the EC to these meetings, and the Commissioners who oversee the issue at political level will not be present. The College of Commissioners will not be travelling to Budapest either, the spokesperson explained, justifying this by the events surrounding the launch of the Hungarian Presidency. Sweden, Finland, Poland and the three Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, had already announced that they would skip informal meetings during Hungary's six-month presidency.

The Hungarian prime minister visited Ukraine a few days after Hungary took over the rotating EU presidency, and also went to Russia, the Nagorno-Karabakh summit of the Organization of the Turkic states and China in the days following his meeting in Kyiv with Zelensky. At a press conference after their meeting in Moscow, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that he believed Orbán was there on behalf of the EU presidency, a claim the Hungarian prime minister did not dispute on the spot. In the days that followed, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó further blurred the lines between the EU presidency and bilateral meetings with statements such as: "Now that the first week of the Hungarian EU presidency is over, it has been proven to everyone that these next six months will be about a peace mission".

In her reaction to the boycotting of the Budapest meetings, Kinga Gál, chair of the Fidesz MEPs in the European Parliament wrote that the boycott was "clearly part of the election campaign of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen".