After some details had been circulating in the press for days, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán decided to release his ten-point proposal and assessment he had sent to the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, following his peace mission. The document is the most detailed plan for achieving peace in Ukraine that has ever been made public since the war broke out in February 2022.
Reportedly, the visa waiver scheme is part of President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s efforts to better relations with Western Europe. The citizens of three EU Member States, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, have been allowed visa-free travel to Belarus since 2022.
On 18 July the European Parliament re-elected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen with 401 votes in favour. In her speech before the vote, von der Leyen made numerous political promises for the next five years but also, of course, criticized Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s peace mission.
While left-wing EU politicians are trying to organize a boycott of Hungary’s presidency of the EU Council, Chancellor Karl Nehammer of Austria has stated that he and the ministers of his party is not willing to take part in it, and vowed they will ‘continue to participate in sessions and meetings of the EU Council Presidency’.
The left-wing, pro-war majority in the European Parliament refused to vote in favour of a proposal by Patriots for Europe (PfE) to condemn the attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump. ‘Their intolerance forms the basis for politically motivated violence and threatens our democratic institutions,’ PfE First Vice-Chairman Kinga Gál pointed out after the vote.
All indications suggest that Brussels simply cannot get over Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s peace mission. In the latest development, 63 MEPs have written an open letter to EU leaders, urging them to strip Hungary of its voting rights in response to the prime minister’s ‘rogue’ diplomacy. Additionally, the European Commission has instructed its commissioners to skip informal ministerial meetings organized by the Hungarian EU presidency.
Shortly after assuming the presidency of the European Union, Viktor Orbán visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, to facilitate the end of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
‘The vast majority of Americans and various politicians, whether Democrat or Republican, have come out in support of Trump. Most of the statements have aimed to show unity rather than the usual mudslinging we typically see. Hopefully, we are able to learn and move on from this,’ Republican congressional aide Johnny Szani pointed out speaking to Hungarian Conservative. According to Szani, the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump has united America in a way that has not been seen in a long time. However, he believes this unity will not last long with the elections approaching.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán travelled to Florida for the fifth stop of his peace mission, where he was received by former US President Donald Trump. Trump thanked Orbán for his efforts, stating that peace must be brought about as quickly as possible, as many lives have been lost in a war that should never have started.
Just as in the presidential debate, Joe Biden failed to deliver an acceptable performance in his ‘big boy’ press conference this morning. The voices of discontent within the Democratic Party are growing louder. Whether the current president should step aside and hand his presidential candidacy to Vice President Kamala Harris remains to be seen in the coming days.