Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Saturday that he will be going to Washington “in two weeks” to attend the first meeting of President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace.”
Although originally intended to oversee Gaza’s rebuilding, the board’s charter does not seem to limit its role to the Palestinian territory and appears to want to rival the United Nations.
One of the U.S. leader’s closest allies in the European Union, the nationalist Orbán attended the launch of the initiative last month in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.
“Two weeks from now we will meet again in Washington, because the Board of Peace, the peace body, will have an inaugural meeting,” he told a campaign event in the western town of Szombathely.
Permanent members must pay $1 billion to join, leading to criticism that the board could become a “pay to play” version of the UN Security Council. The U.N. passed a Security Council resolution that approved a “Board of Peace” last November with a focus limited to the stabilization of Gaza outlined in the Trump administration’s 20-point Gaza peace plan. The mandate appears to have grown since then with Trump saying publicly last month that the Board of Peace “might” replace the world’s primary global body.
CBS News confirmed that more than 50 countries were invited to join as of Jan. 21. The White House has not made clear the criteria used to decide which countries are being invited to join. The Trump administration announced a list of participants, but many had not confirmed their attendance at the first meeting. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is slated to head the board, called the formation a work in progress, indicating an expectation by the Trump administration that membership would rise.
Orbán — currently the longest-serving national leader in the EU — faces an unprecedented challenge at a general election slated for April 12.
Independent polls show the opposition led by Peter Magyar, an ex-government-insider-turned-critic, is ahead with a stagnating economy and growing discontent with public services, among key issues.