Due to Hungary, it cannot speak with one voice at the EU Biden Democracy Summit
Hungary’s classic is that the European Union, as a unit representing a common position, will take part in the “Summit for Democracy” event organized at the end of December at the initiative of US President Joe Biden, after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was not invited.
A spokesman for the Hungarian government said at a meeting of EU ambassadors on Wednesday that united action by EU member states at the summit could not be supported after the Americans did not invite all EU countries to it, said sources familiar with the matter. To Bloomberg News Agency.
Hungary is the only EU member state that has not been invited to the virtual summit on December 9-10. China and Russia are also not invited.
The purpose of the meeting is for delegates from all over the world to talk about the challenges that democracies face today. However, the Hungarian envoy argued that the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, had not spoken on behalf of the EU as a whole, after a unanimously agreed position on the issue had been reached.
The Hungarian government has been “fighting” the “Brussels bureaucrats” for years, according to Viktor Orbán’s rhetoric, due to the rule of law, media freedom or the independence of the judiciary. The Hungarian government also regularly vetoes the EU’s united action or joint statement on certain issues, such as the failure to address a joint statement on human rights violations in Hong Kong or to stand up for gender equality.
Divide and rule, says the old saying
Under the same conditions, the Commission issued a Opinion of the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the same terms on Thursday, according to which the Court of Justice of the European Union has the right to detain and suspend EU infringements if the country does not comply with the rule of law. Hungary would receive 7.2 billion euros from the economic recovery fund for the virus alone, not to mention the money from the cohesion and other funds – so it doesn’t matter. Although the proposal is not yet the final judgment, in the vast majority of cases the Court has usually delivered the same judgment as the Advocate General.
At Wednesday’s meeting of ambassadors, the Hungarian commissioner said that Budapest would not agree to set up an alliance on the future of the Internet and participate in it on behalf of the entire union.
According to the Hungarian diplomat, the United States will try to divide them and then rule over them, and these aspirations could only be addressed after a discourse within the bloc on the strategic independence of the union.
The EU, meanwhile, continues to plan to take part in the Democracy Summit, where it wants to talk about a number of political and practical steps that will reveal what it thinks and how the Union is trying to promote democracy globally.
However, EU lawyers have made it clear that if only Hungary does not change its mind by then, the EU will not be able to make a written statement together and Von der Leyen and Michel will not be able to speak on behalf of the whole union. Independently of this, the two presidents will be able to attend the event and repeat previously agreed EU positions.
Goulash: Many in the U.S. think they cheated the election
“If we are not invited somewhere, the EU cannot take a position there, as the foreign policy position can only be formed with the consent of all members,” Gergely Gulyás, the minister in charge of the presidency, told government information when asked to respond to Bloomberg’s information. The essence of Gulyás’ statement was as if the blocking of joint EU action was not the result of a Hungarian decision, but a legal consequence of the fact that Hungary had not been invited to the summit of democracy.
Gulyás, a Euronews correspondent, said that with this one of Hungary’s diplomacy with China and Russia, he said he did not believe that Hungary would have bigger democracy problems than the United States, when about a third of the population thought they had defrauded the election. .