EU leaders snub Hungary's presidency events over Orbán's Moscow and Beijing trips
A look back at 15 July 2024, when senior EU officials announced a boycott of informal meetings hosted by Budapest.
What did it mean when the European Commission said its top officials would stay away from meetings hosted by an EU presidency? On 15 July 2024, the Commission announced that senior European Union officials, including Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, would boycott informal meetings hosted by Hungary during its rotating EU Presidency.
The reason was Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's visits to Russia and China, which concerned Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Commission described those contacts as rogue meetings, signalling that the trips were not seen as part of any agreed EU position.
A presidency under strain
The rotating presidency gives a member state the task of hosting informal gatherings. By withholding top-level attendance at those events, the Commission chose a visible but limited form of protest: it did not cancel Hungary's role, but it reduced the political weight of the meetings Budapest would host.
A parallel pressure on the Russian border
Three days earlier, on 12 July 2024, the Parliament of Finland passed a law allowing border guards to restrict trafficked asylum seekers from crossing the Finland–Russia border. The measure came against the backdrop of Russian emigration since the invasion. As later estimated, roughly 900,000 people left Russia by early October 2022, among them economic migrants, conscientious objectors and some political refugees.
Together, the two developments showed how the war continued to shape European politics, from the EU's internal disagreements over contacts with Moscow to the management of its eastern frontier.
