Hungary is a sovereign country, and whether Donald Tusk likes it or not, it has the right to represent its own position on the Ukraine war, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Brussels on Monday.
In response to the Polish prime minister’s criticism of the Hungarian stance on the war, a statement by the Hungarian foreign ministry accused Tusk of showing “a complete lack of respect” to a sovereign nation and ally by claiming that Hungary is “betraying Europe and being un-European” and calling it “the darkest place in political hell.”
“Now, of course, we have seen and are seeing the events in Poland in recent weeks and the Polish prime minister’s concept of democracy. We see opposition politicians being imprisoned in Poland. We see that there is no tolerance whatsoever for opinions that differ from those in power, from the government,” he stressed.
“But the fact is that the question must be asked: what kind of behavior is this in Europe? What kind of behavior is it that only one opinion is considered acceptable? What sort of behavior is it that does not tolerate, does not accept, does not acknowledge that there may be other opinions on a given matter?” he added.
Szijjártó highlighted that one of the core values of the European Union is and should be that you cannot sanction someone simply because they have a different opinion on an issue, you cannot label an opinion as un-European just because it differs from your own.
“The fact is, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, that in Europe everyone has the right to their own opinion, everyone has the right to express their own opinion, and therefore no one can be sanctioned, no one can be labeled as anti-European, and certainly no one can be put in prison,” he said.
