COPENHAGEN Denmark's foreign minister said on Thursday the country would not send ministers to informal government meetings linked to Hungary's European Union (EU) presidency this month, in protest at Prime Minister Victor Orban's talks with the presidents of Russia and China.

Orban held talks on a potential Ukraine peace deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping on separate occasions earlier this month, angering some EU leaders who warned against appeasing Moscow and said Orban did not speak for the 27-nation bloc.

The European Parliament on Wednesday adopted a resolution that condemned Orban's Russia visit, stating that the EU assembly "considers that this violation should be met with repercussions for Hungary".

Sweden Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland also last week said they would only be represented by civil servants.

"The government wants to clearly distance itself from the Hungarian presidency's handling of Ukraine in the first weeks of the Presidency," Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said in a written response to the Danish parliament's European Affairs Committee.

Denmark will, for now, only send civil servants to cover informal ministerial meetings in Hungary, he added.

  - Reuters