The Council’s legal service has told EU ambassadors this breaches EU treaties, and EU leaders have been fuming about Hungary’s rogue presidency. They’ve struggled, though, to do much about it beyond publicly condemning Budapest’s actions.
One of their responses is to send lower ranking civil servants instead of ministers to the informal ministers’ meetings Hungary is organizing in Budapest. For example, the bloc’s foreign affairs ministers are set to snub Hungary by organizing their own foreign affairs summit in August instead of traveling to Budapest for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s event.
The European Commission is now set to follow a similar route. Eric Mamer, the chief spokesperson of the European Commission, confirmed to POLITICO the decision to only send senior civil servants to Hungary’s meetings.
Jacopo Barigazzi contributed reporting.
