János Bóka, the minister of European Union affairs, said Hungary has held more than 250 meetings with all EU member states, candidate states, institutions and European umbrella groups in preparation for its presidency.
Minister Bóka called the scale of preparations for Hungary's EU presidency “unprecedented”. He said in a Facebook post on Monday that Hungary expected 122 extended legislative dossiers, with 55 of them “in the council” and 30-35 dossiers planned to move forward during negotiations between the European Council and the European Parliament. Hungary’s presidency plans 1,500 council working group meetings, he said, with 37 formal council meetings held in Brussels and Luxembourg, 230 presidency events held in Hungary, including 16 informal council meetings, as well as an informal European Council meeting and a European summit. Bóka said the staff of Hungary’s Permanent Representation to the EU has doubled, with 265 people in Brussels working on the presidency’s preparations and administration. He noted today he attended a joint meeting of parliament’s foreign affairs committee and European affairs committee and briefed MPs on the main objectives related to the presidency’s preparations and progress made thus far.