On Thursday 4 July, the Hungarian government’s international spokesman, Zoltán Kovács, warned a group of European journalists visiting Budapest, including Agence Europe, that the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU wants to “leave a mark”.
“The Prime Minister (Viktor Orbán) is going to use the Presidency in a political way”, warned the spokesman, adding that his country had four cornerstones for the EU Council Presidency: peace, border protection, families and children, and economic growth and competitiveness.
The political aspect of the Presidency soon became apparent, with the Hungarian Prime Minister travelling to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday 5 July, 3 days after his visit to Ukraine and at a time when the Presidency of the Council of the EU has no mandate from the EU to negotiate peace (see other news).
For his part, Hungary’s Minister for European Affairs, János Bóka, called for an alternative Europe, not an alternative to Europe. An alternative he described as “an institutional structure where political initiative and strategic political decision-making are taken by the representatives of the Member States, where the division of competences between the Member States and the EU institutions is determined strictly by treaty, where the European institutions respect the institutional balance, the European Commission is not a political committee and the European Parliament accepts its responsibilities and does not try to transgress its limits”.
The Hungarian Presidency comes at a time of institutional transition, following the European elections. The Minister for European Affairs said that Hungary’s political responsibility was to reflect the result of the European elections, in other words to change the way the EU manages its challenges. The European Parliament has seen a rise in the far right and the sovereignist right. According to Mr Bóka, it is possible to identify areas where change is needed, citing peace and security on the continent, competitiveness and migration. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)