The peace movements of Austria and Hungary called on the Hungarian and Austrian governments to pursue a clear peace policy and to oppose in the strongest possible terms the efforts of internal and external forces to drag the two countries into an armed conflict against Russia. Together they pledge to mobilize their people to make peace and neutrality a reality, given that in the vast majority Hungarians and Austrians oppose NATO’s war drive.
Wilhelm Langthaler, representative of the Austrian Social Coalition for Peace and Neutrality, and Endre Simó, president of the Hungarian Community for Peace said in a joint statement that Austria and Hungary can best serve peace by dissuading the Western allies from further armed support for Ukraine and convincing them that they must make room for meaningful negotiations with the Russians.
They initiate that Vienna and Budapest promote the political settlement with active neutrality committed to peace, taking into account various international diplomatic initiatives like the one of the Holy See and the Chinese peace plan expressing the need to overcome the unipolar world order in favor of a more just one.
The parties consider it unacceptable that NATO rejects Russia’s security demands and instead loads Ukraine with weapons, and even plans to inaugurate Kyiv as an equal partner of NATO at the July summit in Vilnius. They want to pave the way for NATO’s direct military intervention in the conflict in order to achieve, as they claim, a “strategic victory” over Russia.
The de facto inclusion of Ukraine in NATO would mean that NATO ally Hungary would become a part of the war, and Austria would become a border with a country at war with Russia, and could become involved in the conflict itself.
The two sides draw the attention of the Austrian and Hungarian people to the tragic consequences of such a development. For our part, we are mobilizing people to resist so that this does not happen.
The clear stand of our governments in favor of peace can best be achieved if popular action against war, for peace and neutrality, becomes massive!
We want reconciliation and peaceful cooperation between Europe’s eastern and western half! We want the US-led NATO to respect the principle of indivisibility of security and that no party can guarantee its security at the expense of the other, as is happening with NATO’s eastern expansion.
The political goal of our movements is to preserve the neutrality of Austria and the neutrality of Hungary committed to peace.
We want the countries and peoples of Europe to live in peace with each other! We are mobilizing all peace-loving Austrians and Hungarians for this!
