The European Union is looking for ways to remove Hungary from the bloc’s presidency over Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Ukraine “peace mission”, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told media on Sunday.
Budapest currently holds the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, the body that defines the bloc’s overall political direction and priorities.
Orban embarked on what he called a Ukraine ‘peace mission’ earlier this month, aiming to find a resolution to the conflict by holding talks with its “five main actors” – Ukraine, Russia, China, the EU, and the US. As part of the mission, he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, triggering outrage among EU leaders.
Erdogan recalled his own meeting with Orban on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Washington earlier this month. The Hungarian Prime Minister had shared his plans to go and meet US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump as well, Erdogan said.
”The next day, they started to criticize Viktor Orban intensely. They said, “He said this, he said that, we do not agree with what Viktor said, what he said is not true.” Mr. Orban went to Moscow, as you know, and they criticized him. He went to China and criticized him in the same way,” Hürriyet newspaper quoted Erdogan as saying.
The European Parliament last week condemned Orban’s Moscow visit, describing it as “a blatant violation of the EU’s treaties and common foreign policy.” Newly re-elected European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen slammed Orban’s trip as an “appeasement mission.”
“Now they are calculating how to remove Hungary from the EU presidency,” the Turkish President claimed.
Moscow said last week that the EU’s criticism of Orban over his Ukraine peace initiative goes to show that Brussels has resolved to support Ukraine militarily, and that its pro-war policies will not change.
During the meeting in Washington, the Hungarian leader called on the Turkish President to join him in his efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Ukraine conflict. In his Sunday’s interview, Erdogan has called for “patience” and expressed hope that “when the time comes, we will do what is necessary together.”