Polish PM Tusk: Orbán is in Putin’s team if blocks sanctions; FM Szijjártó: Tusk is a Soros-agent
“If PM Viktor Orbán really blocks European sanctions at a key moment for the war, it’ll be absolutely clear that in this big game for the security and future of Europe, he is playing in Putin’s team, not in ours. With all the consequences of this fact”, the Polish prime minister wrote in an X port. FM Szijjártó reacted to the harsh message from Warsaw by saying the PM Tusk was a Soros agent, which means that the official Hungarian-Polish relationship reached a historic low.
Hungary will not pay the price of other people’s wars, “and we won’t allow anyone to put our energy security at risk”, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has said in reaction to a post of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Tusk, who also holds the rotating presidency of the European Council, said on Facebook in Polish: “If [Prime Minister] Viktor Orbán actually blocks European sanctions … it will become absolutely clear that … he is playing for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s team, not on ours.”
Szijjártó on Saturday responded on Facebook: “This may be hard for an agent of Soros to understand, but if it comes to teams, we are playing on the Hungarian team. That’s why we represent Hungarian interests: we aren’t willing to pay the price of the wars of others, and we won’t allow anyone to put Hungary’s energy supply at risk. Because for us, it’s Hungary first.”
Later on Saturday, Szijjártó had talks over the phone with Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign and security affairs chief. Szijjártó noted that the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council will meet on Monday to decide whether the sanctions against Russia should be maintained. “The picture is clear: we won’t pay the price of other people’s wars or at the same time allow our energy security to be put at risk,” he said. “There is no need to try to convince us; what we need are guarantees from Ukraine,” he added.
Europe needs peace, not war, political director Orbán says
Europe needs peace since, regardless of the war’s outcome, it stands to lose if the war continues, the prime minister’s political director, Balázs Orbán, told a conference in Budapest on Saturday. Orbán told the Peace Conference organised by the Rubicon Institute that ending the conflict was “in Europe’s fundamental interest”, and this should happen “as soon as possible”, he said.
According to “relevant literature”, interstate wars lasting more than a year were “the most dangerous” as they threatened to last for decades, Orbán said. “The longer a war lasts, the harder it is to conclude it,” he explained. Further, conflicts without parallel negotiations were usually the “bloodiest, the highest-intensity conflicts”, he added.
He said starting the negotiations did not require a detailed peace plan in advance, as the first step would be a ceasefire. “For peace, we need to restore communication, achieve a truce and active mediation, not sanctions and threats,” he said.
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