Prime Minister Orbán cancels all international commitments for the week due to flooding

"Due to the extreme weather conditions and the ongoing floods affecting Hungary, I have postponed all my international commitments," Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced on X on Monday. There had been some question earlier whether he would still travel to Strasbourg, where he was due to address the European Parliament's plenary on Wednesday as PM of the country holding the rotating presidency of the European Union.

His announcement came the day after Péter Magyar, leader of the Tisza Party directly addressed him in a message on Sunday, saying "My suggestion to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is that he should cancel his trip to Strasbourg next week, ask the European Parliament to postpone the debate and personally lead the efforts to protect the country from flooding". The Tisza Party said they had also asked the EP President, Roberta Metsola to offer Orbán a postponement. In their view, it is not the time for political debate when faced with the threat of flooding. Instead, at a time like this, there needs to be full national unity. "The captain's place is on the bridge and he should not leave it even for a minute," they wrote.

Due to the situation, the Prime Minister has also postponed his commitments scheduled for the second part of the week: he will not be visiting the Vatican and will not be attending the UN General Assembly in New York either, where Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó will represent Hungary instead, Bertalan Havasi, the Prime Minister's Press Chief, told Telex.

Daphne Collard, the Head of the EP's Spokesperson's Unit and Deputy Spokesperson confirmed on Monday that the EP understands the situation and will therefore postpone the debate planned with Orbán. The Prime Minister was due to present the programme of the Hungarian presidency of the EU Council on Wednesday, but the body will now instead discuss floods and climate change.

Collard was not yet able to say when the debate would be rescheduled for, and whether it would be possible to fit it into one of the two plenary sessions slated for October. This will be decided by the Conference of Presidents, with EP President Roberta Metsola already having contacted the Hungarian Presidency on the matter.