HUNGARY will face punishment by the European Union for attempting a “peace mission” to Moscow and Beijing earlier this month, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has warned.

He said Hungary would not be allowed to host a strategic meeting next month because of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s visits to Russia and China, which aimed to broker an end to the war in Ukraine.

The EU said it regarded the missions as undermining its support for Ukraine.

Speaking in Brussels, Mr Borrell said: “We have to send a signal, even if it is a symbolic signal,” as he explained why he had decided that the next foreign and defence ministers’ meeting would take place in Brussels, instead of Budapest.

Hungary currently holds the rotating presidency of the 27-member bloc, so it had expected to host the annual late August gathering known as the Gymnich. 

Mr Borrell announced that the gathering would now be held in the Belgian capital in September.

Before the decision was announced, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that the idea of moving the August meeting from Budapest to Brussels was a act of “fantastic revenge.”

He condemned what he called a “concerted, hysterical, often mocking series of attacks” on Mr Orban’s recent meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Other EU leaders insisted that Mr Orban did not represent them at the meetings. In response, some EU nations as well as the European Commission said their top officials would boycott informal meetings of the bloc hosted by Hungary and send civil servants instead.

Hungary took over the six-month rotating role on July 1. Since then, Mr Orban has visited Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, China and the United States on a world tour aimed at brokering an end to the war in Ukraine.