A massive, concerted attack launched against Orbán's "peace mission" – Szijjártó

A "massive, concerted" attack, "often based on lies", has been launched against Viktor Orbán's "peace mission", Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced during the break of Monday's meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. The Hungarian minister said that they were facing "an aggressive, pro-war hysteria and attacks on the government's peace policy, as well as attempts to discredit it".

As we reported earlier, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell has called for a closed session on Monday in order to discuss "all that has happened in the last few weeks", beginning with Viktor Orbán's trips to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing, all the way to Szijjártó's speech at the UN, where he accused the EU of "pushing for war".

The Hungarian Foreign Minister said we are further and further away from peace and that more and more, the EU economy has been the one getting the short end of the stick due to the sanctions against Russia (which he has voted in favour of each time, and all of which PM Viktor Orbán has welcomed several times with other heads of state and government, most recently in June). Szijjártó said that they were not given an answer to questions about the amount of weapons Ukraine needs or when Ukraine would run out of troops. He said that as far as he has seen, outside the EU "everyone has begun using diplomatic channels", (citing as an example the fact that the Swiss and Russian foreign ministers met last week, and the US and Russian defence ministers had spoken by phone).

"No one gave the impression, which some people here are trying to suggest, that there was a misuse of the EU presidency."

– Szijjártó said, despite the photos of Orbán’s trip to Moscow that were posted with the logo of the Hungarian EU presidency and statements such as "the end of the first week of the Hungarian EU presidency has shown everyone that this will be a mission of peace for the next six months" having been made by the Foreign Minister himself. (With one exception, none of the member states' envoys accepted the Hungarian explanation, and the Council's legal service is of the opinion that blurring the lines when it comes to the presidency and the "peace mission" isa violation of EU law.)

Szijjártó argued that it was undemocratic not to be able to discuss the reopening of diplomatic channels with Russia, whereas the majority of the world was in favour of the Hungarian government's position.

"They have devised a fantastic retaliation and revenge", he said, adding an "oh dear", about the possibility of High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell organising a formal Council meeting for the same dates as the informal foreign ministers' meeting planned in Budapest at the end of August, thereby effectively boycotting it. He called the plan "quite childish". The Foreign Minister acknowledged that "quite a few" had indicated that they would not come to the Hungarian capital if that were to happen, but said that about the same number would still like to see the meeting go ahead, and some had even suggested that it should be convened in Ukraine. The latter would require a unanimous decision, which he reminded everyone of, also indicating that he would not agree to it.

"To use diplomatic jargon, there is a lot of squabbling going on right now" with the High Representative on whether "to have it or not have it". In any case, “the Slovaks were the only ones who stood with us”.

Szijjártó complained that Borrell ignored this, and in his summary, said that all 26 other countries had criticised the Hungarian prime minister's behaviour until he was corrected. He said that, while he has been diligently attending such informal meetings, the others have often not, and "at many of the meetings there have been no more than five or six of us ministers", so "it is not worth over-emphasising the issue".

"We are not a jawohl [yes] nation", "we are not looking to collect brownie points from either Washington, Berlin or Brussels".

Hungary initiated proceedings over Ukraine's obstruction of the transit of Russian oil

Szijjártó said that Hungarian and Slovakian supplies were "fundamentally threatened" by Ukraine's decision to halt oil transfers from Russia's Lukoil (EU countries have banned maritime imports but not pipeline ones, so the two countries have effectively been exempted.) The Foreign Minister said that Hungary's supply needs could physically not be met without Russian imports because there were not enough pipelines, adding that the Ukrainian ban affected a third of Hungarian supplies and almost half of Slovakian supplies. He said that the move was unacceptable from a country that would like to join the EU (Although any member state can veto major steps in the accession process, but Hungarian EU Affairs Minister János Bóka had previously said that such a veto was not expected before the end of December).

A day earlier, Szijjártó had held talks with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who, when he checked in for Monday's meeting, had also claimed that they were letting everything through. "This is not true", Lukoil has not been able to deliver for weeks, Szijjártó said, adding that the Ukrainian government is blocking this with a law that in turn violates its association agreement with the EU.

In such cases, the government can first initiate a consultation procedure, which the Hungarian government did today along with the Slovaks. It can then bring the case before an arbitration court, after which the EU can suspend the provisions of the agreement that benefit Ukraine, such as the duty-free regime. Szijjártó also added that meanwhile, more than two-fifths of Ukraine's electricity imports come from Hungary, which, together with the Slovaks and the Poles, has been providing emergency aid to maintain the Ukrainian power grid.