Lithuania will temporarily not send ministers to Hungary for EU meetings, after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán recently visited Russia without consulting other EU member states.
“For the time being, we have simply decided to limit our participation at the political level in Hungary,” Žygimantas Pavilionis, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Lithuanian Parliament in Vilnius, told BNS agency.
Orbán recently traveled to Moscow to visit Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin without consulting other EU member states. The move drew fierce criticism, including from Lithuania.
Since early July, Hungary has held the rotating presidency of the European Union, which rotates between the 27 EU member states every six months.
This also means that Hungary will hold a series of informal meetings in Budapest, which usually bring together ministers from different departments of EU countries.
According to the BNS agency, Lithuania does not want to participate at the ministerial level, but could possibly send deputy ministers.
According to a spokesman for the presidential chancellery, it has not yet been decided whether President Gitanas Nausėda will attend an informal EU summit in Budapest.
Sweden also announced on Thursday that it will only participate in meetings in Hungary in July at an official level.
Hungary’s actions were damaging and there had to be consequences, said Jessika Roswall, Sweden’s minister for EU affairs.
According to Roswall, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Poland also plan to respond to Orbán’s actions in a similar way.
