According to DPA inquiries, only ministers from nine countries will attend the two-day meeting in Hungary. Thus, ten ministers will participate in the meeting, including the Minister of Finance of Hungary, Mihaj Varga.
Currently, Hungary holds the EU presidency on a rotating basis, which means that Budapest is responsible for hosting a number of informal ministerial meetings.
However, after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s arbitrary July visit to Moscow, where he met with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, many EU member states have slipped into a de facto boycott of the Hungarian presidency.
Lithuania, Sweden and Denmark have announced that they will not send their ministers to Budapest for the time being. The finance ministers of Finland, Estonia and Latvia will also not go to the Hungarian capital for the same reasons.
Meanwhile, other EU countries have cited various reasons that prevent their ministers from participating in the meeting.
For example, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner will not go to Budapest, as he has to participate in negotiations on next year’s budget on Friday.
EU diplomats also cite various events on their agenda that prevent them from attending the Budapest meeting, or state that serious negotiations in Budapest are impossible due to the small number of participants.
However, some member states do not agree to the boycott. For example, Luxembourg emphasizes that dialogue with Hungary is necessary, and therefore Luxembourg’s Finance Minister Gilles Roth will travel to Budapest.
Ministers from Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Malta, Cyprus, Belgium, Bulgaria and Slovakia are expected to attend the meeting.
2024-09-14 15:55:18