Il boycott of the Hungarian rotating presidency by many EU countries has succeededIn the prospectus distributed this morning in the press room of the Bàlna conference centre, on the banks of the Danube, where the Eurogroup and the informal Ecofin meet, the traditional September meeting for finance ministers and central bank governors, only eight ministers are listed, less than a third of the total.
The other 19 member states are represented at the level of undersecretaries or officials. The eight countries present at ministerial level are Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia. The boycott was decided because of the unilateral foreign policy initiatives taken by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the beginning of his presidency of the EU Council.