Europeans apparatchiks are against Orban efforts to bring a peace

Viktor Orban (left) and Charles Michel
Photo: Getty Images

Trump ready to be ‘peace broker’ on Ukraine, Orban tells skeptical European leaders, CNN informs.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has told European leaders that Donald Trump is “ready to act as a peace broker” between Russia and Ukraine if elected president, amid concerns across the continent that Trump would attempt to force Kyiv into ceding territory to Moscow.

Orban’s letter, addressed to European Council President Charles Michel and sent to all European Union leaders, was written in the wake of his controversial meetings with former President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

“I can […] surely state that shortly after his election victory, he will not wait until his inauguration, [Trump] will be ready to act as a peace broker immediately. He has detailed and well-founded plans for this,” Orban wrote.

The authoritarian Hungarian premier has sought to cast himself as a peacemaker in the conflict, but his stance is at odds with most EU leaders, who have pledged unequivocal support for Ukraine as it attempts to repel Russia’s military effort.

In his letter to those leaders, Orban said that during the meetings there was a “general observation” that “the intensity of the military conflict” in Ukraine “will radically escalate in the near future.”

Orban also hinted at Trump’s plans to potentially pare back aid to Ukraine if elected, saying: “I am more than convinced that in the likely outcome of the victory of President Trump, the proportion of the financial burden between the US and the EU will significantly change to the EU’s disadvantage when it comes to the financial support of Ukraine.”

Trump, who has a propensity to make sweeping pronouncements on foreign policy, said during a CNN town hall last year that, “If I’m president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours.”

Orban – a rare, longtime ally of Trump in the EU – has undertaken what he has previously called his “peace missions,” meeting Putin in Moscow on July 5 and Xi in Beijing on July 8. Last Thursday he met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

He also visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv at the start of July, marking his first visit to Ukraine since the Russian invasion began.

Orban called on EU leaders to try to find a “window of opportunity” to usher in a “new chapter” in EU policy in his letter, urging them to “make an effort to decrease tensions and/or create the conditions for a temporary ceasefire and/or start peace negotiations” in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Hungary took over the rotating EU presidency last month, unveiling a slogan – “Make Europe Great Again” – that mimicked Trump’s 2016 election motto.

But his visits with Putin, Xi and Trump have gone down poorly with EU lawmakers, who have accused Orban of vitally “misrepresenting” and “undermining” the EU’s stance on foreign policy.

In a letter to Orban Tuesday, European Council President Charles Michel hit back against many of the points made by the Hungarian prime minister.

The European Council president also told Orban that Hungary, which holds the rotating presidency of the council until the end of the year, “has no role in representing the (European Union) on the international stage and received no European Council mandate to engage on behalf of the union.”

“I made this clear even prior to your visit to Moscow and this was subsequently reiterated by High Representative Borrell in his statement of July 5,” Michel wrote.

A separate letter signed by 63 European lawmakers, addressed to the three EU chiefs, said Orban had “caused significant damage” through his meetings.

EU lawmakers finished their letter by calling on the bloc’s three leaders, Michel, Ursula von der Leyen and Roberta Metsola, to suspend Hungary’s voting rights in the European Council, arguing that past examples had shown that “mere verbal condemnation” of Hungary has “no effect.”

The simple question is – why “condemn” if Orban strives for peace?

read more in our Telegram-channel https://t.me/The_International_Affairs