French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin has lost his “Trojan Horse in the European Union” following Viktor Orbán’s political setback in Hungary. He also called on newly elected Prime Minister Peter Magyar to lift Hungary’s veto on aid to Ukraine.
“It is a loss for Viktor Orbán, it is a loss for several pillars of this international response, and above all for Vladimir Putin, who is losing his Trojan Horse in the European Union,” Barrot told RFI radio.
“What we expect from Peter Magyar’s successor is to do what he has said: to restore some of the pillars of the rule of law that Viktor Orbán dismantled, to return Hungary to its rightful place among European countries, and to lift certain unjustified vetoes,” the French foreign minister added.
Viktor Orbán has built close ties with powers seen as seeking to weaken the European Union, such as China and Russia, from which he has insisted on securing hydrocarbon supplies while ignoring alternatives.
Regarding Moscow, media reports have revealed fragments of phone conversations suggesting a systematic flow of information from Orbán’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov during meetings of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
