The Hungarian Foreign Ministry said planned talks between Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and Germany’s top diplomat Annalena Baerbock have been cancelled due to an “unforeseen change in his schedule”.
The ministry has asked Berlin to postpone the visit to a later but still relevant date, it told 444.hu, a Hungarian news site, on Saturday. “There are only technical reasons in the background, not political ones,” the statement said.
German Foreign Minister Baerbock was originally scheduled to travel to Budapest on Monday, the first visit by a German politician to Hungary in a long time, with parliamentarians keeping their distance because of the Hungarian prime minister Victor Orban‘s pro-Moscow and undemocratic policies.
Her visit was due to take place shortly after Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 July.
Her visit is also said to have taken place after Foreign Minister Szijjártó accompanied Orbán on a surprise trip to Moscow for talks with the Russian president. Vladimir Putin on Friday, causing great consternation in Europe and the US.
Szijjártó has a particularly close relationship with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, who honored him with the Russian Order of Friendship in 2021.
Orbán said his meeting with Putin, who is seeking a full-scale invasion and war against Ukraine, was a “peace mission.”
He spoke with Putin for two and a half hours in the Kremlin, amid heavy criticism of the visit from senior EU officials and leaders.
During a joint appearance with Putin after the talks, Orbán again called for efforts to find a peaceful solution to the war in Ukraine.
Several EU officials later stressed that the Hungarian leader had no official EU mandate for negotiations with Russia and that it had nothing to do with Hungary taking over the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union.
Orbán has often been a thorn in the side of Brussels on various issues, but among European Union leaders he is seen as the man closest to Moscow.
The cancellation of Baerbock’s visit to Budapest came at the last minute on Friday evening, the German Foreign Ministry reported the same day, adding that it regretted the decision.
It was said that “a serious and honest personal conversation” between the two ministers would have been “very important” in light of Orbán’s trip to Moscow.
