The Prime Minister of Hungary, the ultra-conservative Viktor Orbán, sees the year 2024 as a favorable moment to achieve his goals, which go beyond national politics and look to greater international influence through the export of a model that, according to him, other countries should also apply.
The 60-year-old pro-Russian ultranationalist leader maintains that his positions on migration, Ukraine’s entry into the European Union (EU) or relationship with Russia are appropriate in the current historical context and hopes that the European elections next June will result in a conjunction of populist right-wing forces that redefines the new Europe that he projects and desires. Viktor Orbán has been at the head of the Central European country for thirteen years, after a first term in the period 1998-2002.
At his annual press conference with foreign media on Thursday in Budapest – the fifth since this tradition began – Orbán accused the EU of blackmailing Hungary and maintained that in Brussels “affairs are going in an unbearably bad direction.” He then announced that his party, Fidesz, is negotiating with the European parliamentary group Conservatives and Reformists – which leads the party of Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Melonia – for possible cooperation after the June elections. Fidesz was part of the European People’s Party (EPP), and left it in 2020 to avoid expulsion.
Orbán assured that, above Fidesz’s dealings with one or another European parliamentary group, “we must not lose sight of the great strategic goal”, that is, that “the center-right stops following the policies of the left and joins to the right, which is getting stronger.” Indeed, despite the setback in Poland – where the centrist Donald Tusk’s coalition has ousted the ultra-conservatives from power – the extreme right or the populist right govern, condition the government or have had electoral victories in Italy, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands , and are trading higher in Germany, Austria and France. The loose verse of the Prime Minister of Slovakia, the social democrat Robert Fico, populist and pro-Russian, fits with them.
According to the Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev, an observer like few of the particularities of the European countries of the former Soviet sphere, those who think that Orbán acts only as a blackmailer who, to obtain economic compensation, uses the veto on issues that Brussels considers key are wrong. Last week, the EU unlocked part of the funds destined for Hungary that it had withheld due to erosion of the rule of law, considering that Budapest had already resolved aspects of its reform of the judicial system. But another 20 billion euros remain frozen.
“European leaders are now misinterpreting Orbán in the same way they misunderstood Vladimir Putin in 2022,” Krastev warned in the Financial Times regarding last week’s European summit. They assumed that Orbán’s tough positions were basically a bargaining strategy, a way to extract more money from Brussels. However, this time it was not about money first and foremost, it was about the future profile of the EU.”
On Thursday in Budapest, Orbán defended the postulates that lead him on continuous collision paths with the EU, a club that he officially detests but does not at all intend to leave – the disastrous consequences of Brexit for the United Kingdom have been a great lesson for Europhobes. , but transform to suit you.
The Magyar leader attacked the new EU migration pact, reached by a qualified majority, which toughens the conditions but, in his opinion, not enough. Orbán defended the Hungarian model: “No other solution could have results.” Hungary applies a very restrictive immigration policy. The borders are closed with fences and asylum applications must be submitted to their embassies in neighboring non-EU countries, i.e. Ukraine and Serbia. With the war, the only realistic option is Belgrade, and very few requests are received.
Ukraine is another fixed issue on his agenda. EU countries except Hungary agreed last week to open accession talks with Ukraine. Orbán’s no to an agreement that required unanimity was resolved because, at the request of the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the Hungarian was absent from the room. But it was not possible to convince him to renew the EU budget to send 50 billion euros to Kyiv over the next four years, an issue that was postponed to a special summit on February 1. Orbán assured in Budapest that he has accepted the proposal of the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenksi, for a bilateral meeting after the brief and tense conversation they had on December 10 in Buenos Aires at the swearing-in of Javier Milei as the new president of Argentina.
Viktor Orbán, the only European leader to meet with Putin since the international arrest warrant was issued for alleged war crimes in Ukraine – Orbán and Putin met in October in Beijing – even questions the use of the word war for Russian aggression to Ukraine. “This is a military operation. There was no declaration of war between the two countries. When Russia declares war, there will be war – he argued in Budapest. We must be glad that there is no declaration of war because then there would be a general mobilization in Russia; I do not wish it to anyone”.
