State Secretary Barna Pál Zsigmond said on Facebook that the “pro-war Brussels elite’s boycott” of the Hungarian EU presidency is about punishing Hungary for carrying out its peace mission, a government official said on Facebook.
Pál Zsigmond, the parliamentary state secretary of the European affairs ministry, posted the comments late on Monday after the European Commission’s chief spokesperson said that senior European officials would not be participating in EU Council meetings. The parliamentary state secretary said that a leftist and liberal “pro-war coalition” which had formed after the European parliamentary elections together with the European People’s Party was campaigning to re-elect the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, while “the people voted for change”. He said the commission was incapable of noticing that European people wanted peace through negotiations and the reopening of diplomatic channels.
Besides Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, there were no European politicians who were “welcomed everywhere” and were in a position to talk “to everyone”, he said. Now Brussels was trying to blackmail Hungary “to side with the pro-war left”, he added. Hungary’s EU presidency “remains committed to sincere cooperation” with EU member states and institutions, “but it is also committed to peace”. The chief purpose of presidency events is to pursue dialogue, restore Europe’s competitiveness and regain Europe’s leading role in the world, he said, adding that this was a joint responsibility of all member states and institutions. He said it was “regrettable” that the incumbent “Von der Leyen commission” had subordinated the welfare, peace and security of Europe to its own party political interests. Zsigmond’s post concluded with: “Let’s make Europe great!” Meanwhile, Kinga Gál, the chairperson of the Fidesz EP group, wrote on X late on Monday that the reason the commission had decided to boycott the presidency was “clearly to do with” von der Leyen’s election campaign. “We’re used to her using EU institutions as a tool of political blackmail and pressure, especially against Hungary,” she wrote.