(Bloomberg) -- The European Commission will downgrade its participation in informal meetings planned by Hungary, which holds the bloc’s rotating presidency, in protest of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s diplomatic forays to Moscow and Beijing.
The chief spokesman for the European Union’s executive arm, Eric Mamer, announced the move Monday evening, saying that it will send senior civil servants rather than commissioners to informal meetings of ministers held in Budapest.
He cited “recent developments marking the start of the Hungarian Presidency” as the reason for the move in a post on the X social media site. The commission will also skip the traditional visit of its commissioners to the country holding the presidency.
The move follows a decision by Sweden, Finland, Poland and three Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to skip the informal meetings during Hungary’s presidency, which lasts through the end of the year.
Orban blindsided western allies working to present a united front on Ukraine when he traveled to Moscow earlier this month to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, and then to Beijing to see President Xi Jinping.
Asked about the commission’s initiative, Finance Minister Mihaly Varga was unruffled.
“Of course they are free to decide to take part in the events or not,” he told reporters in Brussels. “But I am absolutely sure that there will be high level of participation in the events.”
Sweden’s finance chief said she still was uncertain if she’d attend the informal meeting of her EU peers scheduled for September in Budapest.
“We’ll see,” Elisabeth Svantesson said. “The Swedish government has now made decisions on July meetings to begin with. But we are upset and will continue to express that. So I don’t exclude that we will stay away from additional meetings but the initial decision is about meetings in July.”
The move by the commission doesn’t apply to a planned informal summit of leaders in Budapest in November, or the regular meetings of ministers in Brussels and Luxembourg during the year.
--With assistance from Marilen Martin, Sonja Wind, James Regan and Niclas Rolander.
(Updates with Sweden’s Svantesson starting in eighth paragraph)
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