Szijjártó: Hungary will veto EU sanctions against Georgian officials if necessary

Hungary will veto EU sanctions against Georgian officials if necessary, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday.

The head of Hungarian diplomacy hosted Georgian Foreign Minister Maka Botchorishvili in Budapest, and after their talks they held a joint press conference. According to MTI, Szijjártó said that the Hungarian government considers the proposal that the European Union should sanction the Georgian Minister of Interior and two police chiefs on account of police excesses during the Tbilisi protests nonsensical and unjustified.

“It is nonsense, it is outrageous, there is nothing to justify it. Hungary is firmly opposed to the placing of Georgian government officials on a sanctions list, and if such a proposal is officially made, we will of course veto it, everyone can be assured of that.”

– said Szijjártó, and again congratulated the Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia Party on its recent election victory. He said that in his opinion, the people of the South Caucasus country have made their will clear.

"They elected a pro-peace, pro-family, patriotic, conservative government, and as usual, the liberal mainstream got really worked up about it. Because whenever a conservative, patriotic party wins an election, the liberal mainstream immediately questions the democratic nature of the political system, and when a liberal party wins an election, they celebrate the fantastic rule of democracy," Szijjártó said.

The Foreign Minister criticized the European Parliament's recent adoption of a resolution on Georgia in which, in his opinion, "they spoke about an entire nation in a humiliating way". The minister urged Georgians to continue to stand up for themselves and for the sovereignty of their nation.

They held parliamentary elections in the EU candidate country on 26 October, and according to the official results, the incumbent ruling party won, but the opposition, led by head of state Salome Zourabichvili, refuses to recognise the result. According to international observers, in the elections, which, if not rigged, could not be described as fair, the pro-Russian ruling party, which has adopted a number of authoritarian laws modelled on Russian ones, won 53.93 percent of the vote. Shortly afterwards, the Georgian government decided to suspend negotiations on EU accession. This led to several days of protests in major Georgian cities.

At the press conference, Szijjártó also mentioned that the day before he had travelled to Florida with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Gellért Jászai, President-CEO of 4iG, where they met with the future US President Donald Trump. According to the minister, "the Hungarian-American political relationship is on the threshold of a golden age", and with Trump's election for president, relations between Hungary and the United States could be better than ever.

He noted that since the Russian-Ukrainian war is still going on, "the efforts of the Hungarian peace mission must be stepped up". "Last week the Prime Minister met with the Holy Father. I was in Moscow and in Washington, and we also held talks in Malta. The Prime Minister and I were just in Florida, and this week there will be other events, at least two of them, that will be part of the Hungarian peace mission: one tomorrow and one the day after tomorrow," he said.