On Nov. 7, the meeting of the European Political Community (EPC) will be held in Budapest, Hungary, with more than 40 countries attending, reports Mandiner based on an interview PM Orbán gave to Kossuth Radio this past weekend.
There will also be a meeting of the leaders of the 27 EU member states following the EPC gathering.
The paper further reported on Orbán’s comments regarding his earlier discussion with Emmanuel Macron. He had consulted with the French president about the EPC meeting because it was Macron who invented this formation back in 2022, so he felt it appropriate and correct to consult him about the Budapest summit.
The Hungarian prime minister also clarified that the topic of the summit will be the competitiveness of the European Union economy, noting that the gathering will be just two days after the U.S. presidential election, meaning there could be a completely new situation in world politics as a backdrop.
The first EPC conference was held on Oct. 6, 2022, in Prague with the participation of 44 countries, although Russia and Belarus were excluded. Even the United Kingdom, which had already left the EU in 2020, was present at that conference.
As an intergovernmental conference, the heads of government take part. The idea is to “involve all the European countries we can,” Fidesz EP representative Enikő Győri told Mandiner. The summits occur in the spring, hosted by a non-EU member state, and the autumn, hosted by an EU member state.
Next year’s conferences are set to be held in Albania and Denmark.
The informal meeting of the Council of the European Union, which will take place after the EPC meeting, is to adopt the EU growth pact, which is one of the priorities of Hungary’s EU presidency.
