Orbán cabinet outraged that EU Commission boycotts Hungarian presidency

The Hungarian presidency of the European Union remains committed to sincere cooperation with member states and institutions, Hungary’s EU affairs minister said on the X platform on Monday.

All institutions and member states “have been invited to participate in Presidency events aimed at addressing common challenges. This task and responsibility is shared by all Member States and institutions,” he said

Boka said: “The EU is an international organisation constituted by its Member States. The EU Commission is an institution of the EU. The EU Commission cannot cherry pick institutions [and member states] it wants to cooperate with. Are all Commission decisions now based on political considerations?”

The X post came after an announcement from EC spokesman Eric Mamer, also on X, that the EC College will not visit Hungary during its presidency.

The @HU24EU remains committed to sincere cooperation w/ #EU Member States & institutions. They have been invited to participate in Presidency events aimed at addressing common challenges. This task and responsibility is shared by all Member States and institutions. 1/2

— Bóka János (@JanosBoka_HU) July 15, 2024

In light of recent developments marking the start of the Hungarian Presidency, the President has decided that @EU_Commission will be represented at senior civil servant level only during informal meetings of the Council.

The College visit to the Presidency will not take place.

— Eric Mamer (@MamerEric) July 15, 2024

Orbán government: Pro-war Brussels elite taking revenge on Hungary

The “pro-war Brussels elite’s boycott” of the Hungarian EU presidency is about punishing Hungary for carrying out its peace mission, a government official said on Facebook.

Pál Zsigmond Barna, the parliamentary state secretary of the European affairs ministry, posted the comments late on Monday after the European Commission’s chief spokesperson said that senior European officials would not be participating in EU Council meetings.

The parliamentary state secretary said that a leftist and liberal “pro-war coalition” which had formed after the European parliamentary elections together with the European People’s Party were campaigning to re-elect the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, while “the people voted for change”.

He said the commission was incapable of noticing that European people wanted peace through negotiations and the reopening of diplomatic channels.

Besides Prime Minister Viktor Orban, there were no European politicians who were “welcomed everywhere” and were in a position to talk “to everyone”, he said. Now Brussels was trying to blackmail Hungary “to side with the pro-war left”, he added.

Hungary’s EU presidency “remains committed to sincere cooperation” with EU member states and institutions, “but it is also committed to peace”.

The chief purpose of presidency events is to pursue dialogue, restore Europe’s competitiveness and regain Europe’s leading role in the world, he said, adding that this was a joint responsibility of all member states and institutions.

He said it was “regrettable” that the incumbent “Von der Leyen commission” had subordinated the welfare, peace and security of Europe to its own party political interests.

Zsigmond Barna’s post concluded with: “Let’s make Europe great!”

Meanwhile, Kinga Gal, the head of the Fidesz EP group, wrote on X late on Monday that the reason the commission had decided to boycott the presidency was “clearly to do with” von der Leyen’s election campaign.

“We’re used to her using EU institutions as a tool of political blackmail and pressure, especially against Hungary,” she wrote.

Agriculture council must ‘show the way’ for post-2027 policy

The Hungarian EU presidency is working with the Council configuration on Agriculture and Fisheries to show the new European Commission the way forward regarding the main direction of common agricultural policy post-2027, the agriculture minister said in Brussels on Monday.

Speaking after a meeting of agriculture ministers, István Nagy said the Hungarian presidency saw “putting the interests of farmers front and centre again” as a top priority.

The priority of the presidency’s agriculture policy was to create a competitive, crisis-proof, sustainable, farmer-friendly and knowledge-based agriculture, he said. Most member states supported the notion that the EC should prioritise the agricultural and forestry sector, he added.

Nagy said he had talked with representatives of the farmers’ lobbyist Copa-Corega, and they also expressed support for the Hungarian presidency’s priorities.

Rural areas must be boosted and demographic challenges tackled, he said, noting that several member states proposed that the EC should extend advances on agricultural funding to this year.

Hungary also supports a French proposal calling for a committee to be set up to review “the social acceptance and debate over lab-grown meat, and the possible effects of their introduction to the EU”.

Regarding trade policy, Nagy said agriculture “shouldn’t pay the price of geopolitical tensions and debates in other sectors”. The council of agriculture ministers will carefully monitor the trade partnership between the EU and Ukraine, especially the implementation of the autonomous trade measure, he said.

On the matter of knowledge-based agriculture, Nagy said the Hungarian presidency is working to launch a research programme according to the interests of central and eastern Europe, focusing on healthy soil, sweetwater and food supply systems and support for creating local value-added, he said.

Besides member states, the Western Balkans, Ukraine and Moldova should also take part of the dialogue on eastern Europe, as those membership candidates could contribute to European sovereignty and food security, he said.

Read also:

• Hungary’s presidency: Is PM Orbán carefully walking a tightrope? – Read more HERE
• Six EU members to boycott Hungary’s EU presidency due to PM Orbán’s Moscow journey