Although the situation poses a serious risk to national security, the Hungarian government has not yet reacted to Moscow's ultimatum, while PM Orbán is set to meet with President Putin next week.Continue reading
The political alliance, United for Hungary, is demanding, and not for the first time, that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán cancel his visit to Moscow.
The parties that have issued the public demand believe that never in the three decades since the regime change has the country’s sovereignty been under such attack as it was last week. The package of demands sent by Russia to the United States, in which Moscow asks the rival power to withdraw its weapons systems from the territory of countries that joined NATO after 1997, is interpreted as a “call by Russian President Vladimir Putin for Hungary to leave NATO.”
United for Hungary wrote:
A prime minister who, in such a situation, travels silently to Moscow with a click of the tongue to sit on the edge of the carpet in the Kremlin betrays the interests of Hungary and Europe. United for Hungary demands that the Prime Minister should not go to Moscow, and if he goes, he should not come home!”
They also add that “Russia, which is considering invading Ukraine, is asking us to betray our allies, renounce our sovereignty, and render our country militarily defenseless. After this absurd call, the Hungarian Prime Minister, always so vocal against our country’s allies, remained silent. No sovereignty-fearing freedom struggle and sword-fighting, just a plane ticket to Moscow. It’s no coincidence that the European Parliament, the V4, and our allies are now worried about the meeting, and in this tense situation it is treasonous to go to Moscow.”
This is not the first time that Orbán was criticized for not canceling his trip to Russia. The opposition parties wrote in another statement before that “Viktor Orbán’s visit – and the fact that he did not cancel his trip despite the situation – sends a message that NATO and EU member states are not united in rejecting Putin’s proposals.”
Nathalie Loiseau, the European Union’s Chair of the Subcommittee on Security and Defense, also mentioned recently that “Putin is trying to divide us; for example, yesterday he met with Italian companies. And he will continue to test us. I sincerely hope that Viktor Orbán is aware of what is at stake and that he sticks to the EU’s message of unity.”
However, in his regular weekly interview with the state media, PM Orbán stressed on Friday that since Hungary is a member of NATO and the EU, he regularly consults with the country’s allies “before every such meeting.”
Featured image via Zoltán Máthé/MTI
