The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, warned yesterday that the latest international initiatives of the Prime Minister of Hungary and current President of the EU Council, Viktor Orbán, including his recent meeting with the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, “do not "They represent Europe."
“Of course he is flying freely and he is making trips that have no key other than a bilateral key, they do not represent Europe, of course,” Albares declared to Spanish National Radio in relation to the meeting that Orbán held last Friday. with Putin in Moscow, immediately after meeting in Kyiv with the president of Ukraine, Volodimi Zelensky.
Orbán, Albares assured, “has every right in the world” to carry out bilateral visits “that he considers,” but “he cannot speak on behalf of Europe” because he “did not go to Moscow on behalf of Europe.” “That must be very clear, the President of the Commission (Ursula von der Leyen), the High Representative (Josep Borrell) and, of course, the European governments made it very clear, that the trip to Moscow was not in name of the 27,” he warned.
In the minister's opinion, the country that holds the EU Presidency must “be careful and not fall into ambiguities” and, therefore, must “clearly separate when one speaks on behalf of the 27 and when one acts bilaterally.”
After his meetings with Zelensky and Putin last week, the Hungarian prime minister met this Monday with the president of China, Xi Jinping, whose country, he declared, “is a key power in creating conditions for peace in war of Ukraine” and is “the only world power that has been clearly committed to peace from the beginning.”
According to Orbán, whose government assumed the rotating Presidency of the EU Council on July 1, Hungary “will consider the next six months as a peace mission to mediate between Russia and Ukraine.”
In his view, although the warring parties have the final say in the war, three world powers – China, the United States and the European Union – should have a decisive influence on when the conflict will end.
This same Monday, Orbán announced that he will visit Washington DC as part of his current “peace mission.” Washington will host the annual NATO summit on July 9-11, where the Alliance is expected to address the possibility of providing more support to Ukraine.
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