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Viktor Orbán’s diplomatic freelancing with Vladimir Putin on his solo trip to Moscow last week contravened the EU’s treaties, according to the bloc’s legal service. The Hungarian prime minister’s unannounced visit to Russia in a bid to promote peace talks with Ukraine drew sharp condemnation from EU and Nato allies who promptly said Orbán did not represent them in his talks with the Russian president.
The EU’s legal service told member states on Wednesday that Orbán’s actions had violated the bloc’s treaties that forbid any “measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the Union’s objectives”, according to three people familiar with the matter. He also violated a legal provision that calls on all members to perform foreign policy activities “unreservedly in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity”, they added. “This was a political mistake to go to Moscow,” European Council president Charles Michel, who represents the EU’s 27 members, told the Financial Times. “In 10 years, I have never seen such a severe reaction from 26 other countries to the actions of [one country] . . . a yellow card.”..
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