"Those who have fled to us from Ukraine are all safe," the Deputy Prime Minister stressed.Continue reading
The last meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council before the European Parliament elections took place in Brussels, where Péter Szijjártó attended on behalf of Hungary. According to the Foreign Minister, a quarrel broke out between the parties during the meeting.
The Minister told journalists that the atmosphere had become tense when they started talking about releasing 6.5 billion euros to Ukraine, Magyar Nemzet reports. Péter Szijjártó argued that since the risk of escalation is greater than ever, the European Union’s strategy towards the war in Ukraine needs to be rethought.
And there has been a huge row. German, Lithuanian, Irish, Polish, and other colleagues have slammed me on this, but our position has not been swayed by this, despite the shouting of Europe’s pro-war politicians,”
he said.
“They think that if they shout from many directions, I will say fine. But they should know us so well by now that it will not happen. The questions were like ‘what do we think we are?’, ‘how do we think we dare to do this?’, ‘what will happen here under our presidency?’,” the Hungarian politician described the mood of the meeting.
Conscription, another sensitive issue, was also raised at the meeting. “Ukrainian casualties are becoming unbearable, Ukrainian men are not being allowed out of Ukraine and now they want to conscript young Europeans into the war. And obviously, as escalation hits the neighborhood first, you can almost hear the argument clearly that then you have to send the troops from geographical proximity first. All this means that by compulsory conscription in Europe, they want to send young people from Central Europe, including young Hungarians, to war,” he said.
We will not allow young Hungarians to be brought into the war, because it is not our war,”
he concluded.
One of the main points of the debate was the 14th sanctions package. “This sanctions package, in its current form, is completely contrary to Hungary’s economic interests, and in its current form would absolutely jeopardize Hungary’s energy security,” the Minister said, summing up his thoughts on the package. It contains elements that would, for instance, slow down the investment in the Paks nuclear power plant, but could also be harmful for Hungarian agriculture and the food industry. Péter Szijjártó stressed that
Hungary will certainly not vote for the 14th sanctions package in its current form.
He drew the attention of the press to the fact that while in Brussels it is often said that Hungary is blocking something, and how in reality the decision-making process is based on quite different mechanisms. “It is not that there is a decision and you can join it and if someone does not join, there is no decision, but there is no decision until everyone agrees on something,” he pointed out.
Via Magyar Nemzet, Featured image: Facebook/Szijjártó Péter