BRUSSELS. European Union-Hungary, tensions do not ease and the boycott of Budapest continues. In the capital of the country with the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, informal meetings of the Eurogroup and Ecofin are taking place, with tables destined to remain empty in terms of attendance at the highest level. The economic ministers of the member states will boycott the meetings, as will the European Commission. Neither Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni (Economy) nor Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis (Economy at the Service of People and Trade) will be in the Hungarian capital, where the community executive, they assure in Brussels, will be represented at the level of officials and technicians.
In Budapest, well-informed EU sources say, the number of ministers is expected to be “slightly more than the fingers of one hand”, which means seven or eight ministers, no more. Among them, the Irish minister, Paschal Donohoe, who is also president of the Eurogroup, and Giancarlo Giorgetti.
The Italian Minister of Economy is expected to brief the G7 economic ministers’ meeting, held in Rio de Janeiro last July under the Italian presidency, and the Minister of the Treasury will have to summarize precisely because he is the president in office. And then there will be the host, Hungarian Mihali Varga, in the delicate situation of having to thank Donohoe for not canceling the Eurogroup meeting, after having thought about it anyway.
In the end, the Eurogroup meeting will take place tomorrow, as will the Economic Affairs Council meeting the following day. This does not eliminate the boycott of the Hungarian presidency, which continues. The European partners are making the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, pay for his visits to Moscow and Beijing, held without consulting or coordinating with other countries or EU institutions, giving a real slap in the face to Ukraine. Germany, Sweden, Finland and the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), immediately announced that they would boycott the Hungarian-led meetings, and all the others have joined them. Giorgetti will remember that during the G7 ministerial meeting, support for Ukraine was also discussed, to contribute to the embarrassment of Budapest and to keep the EU on the origin of the existing tensions and boycotts.
The informal nature of the meetings hosted by the country with the rotating presidency allows this to the extent that it makes it more practicable, given that they are not decision-making forums. The real issue now is to understand how the leaders will behave, given that Hungary is scheduled to host the meeting of the European Political Community on November 7. A desertion by the heads of state and government or even having to reorient the meeting elsewhere, perhaps even Brussels, would be a hard blow to Orban and his leadership.
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