Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is making his first visit to Ukraine since the start of a full-scale war with Russia in February 2022, according to a Hungarian government spokesman.
“Viktor Orbán arrived in Kiev this morning to discuss European peace with President Volodymyr Zelensky,” spokesman Zoltan Kovacs posted on X on Tuesday (2).
The talks between the two leaders are looking at “possibilities of achieving peace, as well as on current issues of Hungarian-Ukrainian bilateral relations,” Kovacs added.
Orbán has been a controversial figure in relation to European support for Ukraine. The authoritarian Hungarian leader has regularly tried to crush EU initiatives by offering more military and financial support to Kiev during the conflict.
The Hungarian prime minister also has a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has often come under scrutiny. Their bond is underpinned by economic cooperation and some shared values.
Both leaders have also enacted anti-LGBTQ policies and cracked down on free speech in their countries. Hungary has supported Russia at the United Nations and rejected EU sanctions following Putin’s aggression in Ukraine in 2014, after Russia illegally annexed Crimea.
Tuesday’s meeting comes as Orbán and Hungary take control of the rotating presidency of the EU Council, which changes every six months. During each six-month period, the country holding the presidency does not take control of the EU’s overall agenda, but has a platform through which to set its own priorities.
On the EU Council website, it compares the exercise of the presidency “to someone hosting a dinner party, making sure that all the guests come together in harmony”, adding that to “ensure effectiveness, the presidency acts as an ‘honest broker’, rising above the interests of the incumbent”.
Orbán took control of the presidency on Monday (1) with a call to “Make Europe Great Again”, a reference to Donald Trump’s political slogan that will alarm many of his European counterparts who are braced for the former US president’s potential return to the White House, worried about what it will mean for the EU.
Other important European diplomatic meetings are planned for July. NATO will celebrate the alliance’s 75th anniversary in Washington, DC, from July 9-11. The agenda for that event is expected to be dominated by long-term plans to support Ukraine and talks about its eventual membership in the alliance.
The European Political Community (EPC), a forum for 47 European countries, both inside and outside the EU, to discuss the continent’s strategic challenges, will also meet on 18 July in the UK. Ukraine and Hungary are both EPC members.
Ukraine is expected to dominate that agenda, and Zelensky may participate in the meeting in person. Orbán may have had this in mind when timing his trip to Kyiv, ensuring that his first meeting with Ukraine’s president since the war began would not be in such a public and high-stakes diplomatic setting.
Source: CNN Brasil
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