(Bloomberg) -- The European Union’s foreign policy chief said he plans on moving an August meeting of the bloc’s foreign and defense ministers from Budapest to Brussels to protest Viktor Orban’s diplomatic forays.
The meeting is traditionally convened by the country that holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency, but EU member states have been angered by visits that the Hungarian prime minister made in recent weeks to Moscow, Beijing, and Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
“We have to send a signal, even it if its a symbolic signal,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign and security policy, told reporters Monday after a meeting of foreign ministers. He added that Hungary’s repeated moves to speak against EU policy must “have some formal consequences.”
Previously, a number of member states and European Commission have said they will downgrade their participation in informal meetings planned in Budapest by Hungary during its EU presidency.
So far, Orban hasn’t been swayed by the widespread condemnations from other member states. Last week, he said he will continue his self-styled “peace mission” despite criticism that he’s overstepping the role of the rotating presidency.
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