The European Union leaders agreed to extend sanctions against Russia on the first day of the two-day summit. However, this unity is not universal and the latest brawl between the newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron and the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban indicates that. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban slammed the French president over Emmanuel Macron’s claim that East European nations lack solidarity and accused those countries of cynicism in dealing with the European migrant crisis. The Hungarian leader’s angry reaction came after Mr. Macron charged Eastern European countries for their “cynical approach” towards dealing with the refugee crisis and for allegedly betraying European principles and values. The comments were made in an interview with several major European media outlets, including Le Figaro, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and the Guardian. During the interview, Mr. Macron said that certain eastern European leaders without actually naming anyone in particular, use the European Union as a source of money without respecting its values and accused them of turning their backs on Europe in the time of need.

While Mr. Macron didn’t name any leader or particular countries it was widely viewed as a criticism pointed towards countries like Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Poland, which refused to accept EU migrant quotas and are being currently dragged to legal proceedings by the EU for that. Hungarian Prime Minister slammed that criticism by saying that Macron’s first public appearance at the official EU level has not been very encouraging and branded him as a new boy into the European politics. He added that if the French president had thought that the best form of friendship between the EU states is to kick the central European countries then it is not the norm.

Mr. Orban maintained his hard stance against migration by saying, “the Western [EU states] just want to get rid of unwisely accepted migrants and to re-distribute them among those countries that protected their borders and did not let them [migrants and refugees] in, such as Hungary.” He went on to say that EU leaders should instead focus on the issues that can be agreed upon, such as adopting a new EU border protection strategy that would deal with the external aspect of the refugee crisis and help the bloc to prevent those who are not wanted from reaching Europe.