The European Commission expects clarifications from Budapest on the talks between Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, a spokeswoman for the EU executive body, Paula Pinho, told reporters at a briefing on 9 April.
Asked about the likely talks between Hungarian and Russian diplomats, Piño expressed “concern” over the fact that an EU member state could coordinate with Russia, thus acting against the bloc’s interests.
“This is therefore extremely worrying and the government of the member state concerned must urgently provide an explanation and the president (of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen – ed.) will also raise this issue at the leaders’ level,” the Guradian quoted Pinho as saying.
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31 March VSquare published a transcript of a conversation between the Hungarian foreign minister in August 2024, during which the Hungarian minister agreed to facilitate the removal of the sister of Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov from the EU sanctions list. Seven months later, Gulbahor Ismailova was removed from the EU sanctions list.
The publication notes that transcripts and audio recordings of the Lavrov-Sijjarto conversations, as well as Sijjarto’s conversations with other Russian officials, were obtained and confirmed by a consortium of investigators including VSquare, FRONTSTORY, Delfi Estonia, The Delfi Estonia.
Siijarto, commenting on the publication, said that what is in these records is what he states publicly, and that the EU sanctions policy is “a failure, it does more harm to the EU than to Russia”.