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ORBÁN: EUROPE MUST DITCH PRO-WAR STANCE

Europe will be left on its own to handle the war in Ukraine if it does not ditch its pro-war stance, Viktor Orbán said in his address at the Bálványos Summer University in Băile Tuşnad, Romania.
 

The prime minister said the “pro-peace position” was “fermenting”. Many people in Brussels, however, had condemned Hungary’s peace mission, even though the bloc’s founding treaty stated that “the Union’s aim is to promote peace”. Orbán said: “Time is on the side of the politics of peace.” Referring to the upcoming US presidential election, he declared: “Trump ante portas.” If Europe did not shift to a “peace policy” by the time of the November election, it would have to do so after Trump’s victory, “admitting defeat” and bearing the political consequences alone. Brussels “doesn’t like it when we call what they do a pro-war policy, because they think they’re supporting the war in the interest of peace.” Since the start of Hungary’s “peace mission”, however, the US secretary of state had spoken with Russia’s foreign minister, and the Swiss foreign minister had also held talks with him. Volodymyr Zelensky had called Donald Trump and the Ukrainian foreign minister had visited Beijing, he said. “We’re moving away from a European pro-war policy in the direction of a pro-peace policy.”