Hungary is launching the process of leaving the International Criminal Court, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s cabinet chief said on Thursday, making the country the only EU member and the only Nato country other than the US and Turkey to shun the ICC.
Hungary has long criticised the court, most recently over an international arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who begins a four-day visit in Budapest on Thursday.
“The withdrawal process begins on Thursday, in line with Hungary’s constitutional and international legal obligations,” cabinet chief Gergely Gulyás told state news agency MTI.
The decision comes as Netanyahu makes his first trip to an ICC member since the body issued an arrest warrant last year.
Hungary, as well as other European states such as Germany that are signatories to the ICC’s founding Rome Statute, have signalled that they would host Netanyahu and find ways to avoid arresting him.
The Israeli premier is wanted by the ICC for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed during Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, following the group’s attack on southern Israel on October 7 2023.
Hungary has called the arrest warrant another form of antisemitism that it says motivates international bodies such as the UN.
“The ICC . . . has lost its credibility and seriousness when it issued an arrest warrant against the prime minister of Israel,” Hungary’s foreign minister Péter Szijjártó said earlier this year.
The EU Commission’s foreign affairs spokesperson said on Tuesday that Brussels “would, of course, deeply regret if any of our member states would decide to withdraw from the ICC [via] a written notification addressed to the secretary-general of the UN”.
“However, such a withdrawal takes effect one year after the notification . . . and does not affect on a state’s duty of co-operation in relation to investigations,” the spokesperson added.
