[Politico EU] “The European Union is a Union, Not a Charity”

In a press conference held in the European Council earlier today, discussion heated up as talks of a removal of Electronic Travel Authorizations (ETA) and European Travel Information and Authorization Systems (ETIAS) were brought up by reporters of Politico EU.

When asked about the possibly discriminatory nature of this policy towards third country nationals, particularly Ukrainians, the atmosphere in the room swiftly soured. Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar proudly announced that he does not understand why the European Union should care about third-countries. Following this statement, Luc Frieden, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, reiterated Petteri Orpo’s statement that the European Union is a union, and not a charity.

With the eyes of the press and his fellow politicians on him, the Finnish Prime Minister rushed to defend himself, clarifying that the charity he was referring to was indeed Hungary. As tensions continued rising, and the conversation veered into problematic territories, the representative of the United Kingdom asserted that it had no intentions of removing ETAS or ETIAS. This statement was backed up by the Danish Prime Minister’s confirmation that the leaked information stemmed from a brief discussion held in an earlier Council meeting, and yielded no official conclusions.