EU foreign affairs ministers and diplomats are back in Brussels today for an informal meeting to discuss the war in Ukraine, Gaza and wider tensions in the Middle East.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin is attending the meeting, as is Ukraine's foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba.
The informal meeting was originally meant to be held in Budapest given that Hungary is holding the six-month rotating presidency of the EU.
But, at the start of July, just one week into Hungary's presidency, the country's prime minister, Viktor Orbán decided to launch his government's own "peace mission" to bring the war in Ukraine to a close.
Mr Orbán’s meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping in Beijing vexed other EU member states and senior EU officials. They had little chance of achieving any real progress - the Hungarian government had not consulted Kyiv about its plans to mediate as a peace broker.
In the US, Mr Orbán's meeting with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump - who has so far offered no firm commitment on future US military support for Ukraine - added salt to the wounds.
Péter Krekó, a Hungarian political scientist at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, told RTÉ News that the meetings in Moscow and Beijing were "primarily aimed to raise Orbán's international profile".
Mr Orbán, he said, wants to be "the important guy who sits around the important tables".
Twenty-five EU member states criticised Hungary’s actions. Only Slovakia has supported Mr Orbán’s solo diplomacy.
In EU-parlance, informal meetings of foreign affairs ministers are called a 'Gymnich’ after the German town where the first informal meeting of the then EEC Council took place in 1974.
They are often held in grand old castles and sometimes outside capitals. When Ireland held its sixth presidency of the bloc in 2004, then minister for foreign affairs Brian Cowen held the 'Gymnich’ in Tullamore.
The whole idea is for foreign ministers to meet in a relaxed setting so that they can hold more candid discussions on shared policy. Generally, there are no closing statements either.
But last month, the EU’s head of foreign policy, Josep Borrell, announced that the next informal meeting at the end of August would be held in Brussels.
So there will be no photo ops at Budapest Castle.
Instead, today’s meeting is being held in the familiar setting of the Europa building in Brussels - the usual venue for EU Council summits.
Tomorrow, EU defence ministers will hold their informal meeting - also in Brussels - and get updates on the latest from the frontline in Ukraine.
It is an usual step to move such informal meetings to Brussels. But Mr Borrell has the authority to so.
Speaking to reporters on 22 July after the last meeting of EU foreign ministers, Mr Borrell said that there had been "quite strong divisions" among member states over where to hold the informal meeting at the end of August.
Some ministers, he said, had been willing to go to Budapest but others "clearly did not want to go".
"We have to send a signal, even if it is a symbolic signal," said Mr Borrell, in reference to Hungary’s actions.
Mr Borrell also said that the change of venue was not a boycott of Hungary’s presidency. At the very least, it sends a strong signal that Hungary cannot pursue an agenda that is openly hostile to EU foreign policy on Ukraine.
On the decision by Mr Borell to host the meeting in Brussels, Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said: "I think it was a wise decision. The important issue for me is that the meeting is taking place. We will facilitate important discussions on the Middle East, on Ukraine. We're going to have a very significant discussion on Ukraine and obviously discussing other issues in terms of the Middle East."
Mr Martin also said he concurred with Mr Borrell's position that holding today’s informal meeting in Brussels sent a "symbolic signal" to Hungary.
Another blow to Hungary occurred in mid-July when the European Commission announced that the executive would be represented at informal meetings during the six-month presidency by senior civil servants, and not by commissioners.
Hungary's foreign minister Péter Szijjártó, a regular visitor to Russia since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, called the change of venue from Budapest to Brussels "childish", according to Zoltan Kovacs, the Hungarian government's international spokesperson.
But taking some of the prestige of the presidency away from Hungary is unlikely to cause a change of direction in Hungarian foreign policy. By Mr Orbán's own definition, Hungarian foreign policy should be "radical" and take a "firm and tough stance" on issues - he said as much during a speech last December at the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs.
"I think the more Orbán feels that he's alone or put in a corner, the more he can become obstructionist, and can use his veto," said Mr Krekó.
Mr Orbán's self-styled brand of "illiberal democracy" has put his populist government at odds with the EU over the rule-of-law, migration quotas and LGBTQ rights over the past decade. And he rarely minces his words when he talks about "Brussels".
He told supporters at his Fidesz party's annual summer gathering in July in Romania's Transylvania region (home to a large number of ethnic Hungarians), that "Brussels remains under the occupation of a liberal oligarchy".
But it is Hungary's continued close economic ties with Moscow since the full-scale invasion in February 2022 that underscores a great divide on foreign policy too between Budapest and most EU capitals.
Unlike most other Central and Eastern European countries, Hungary has maintained its reliance on Russian energy imports.
Mr Krekó said that Mr Orbán is hoping that November's presidential election in the US will be a "game-changer" for him. Mr Orbán strongly supports the Trump-Vance ticket.
"I think it is his last realistic hope to somehow get back to the Euro-Atlantic mainstream."
