Hungary is Europe’s “Bad Boy”

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB]  Times & Transcript

Hungary has cultivated warm relations with not only Russia, but also a host of other authoritarian countries.

No one doubts that Hungary is considered the “bad boy” of eastern Europe. The United States has often made its dissatisfaction with the country clear.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban is jeopardizing Hungary’s position as a trusted NATO ally, the U.S. ambassador to Budapest, David Pressman, warned on March 14, with “its close and expanding relationship with Russia,” and with “dangerously unhinged anti-American messaging” in state-controlled media.

On a visit to Iran last February, Hungary’s increasingly anti-American foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, denounced Pressman as “the leader of the Hungarian opposition” in an interview with the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

Hungary’s parliament passed a law in December which Orban’s ruling Fidesz Party (Alliance of Young Democrats) said would prevent undue interference in national politics by foreign persons or groups.

The new law set up an authority, the Sovereignty Protection Office, to explore and monitor risks of political interference. The law punishes banned foreign financing for parties or groups running for election with up to three years in prison.

This new sovereignty law could have “a chilling effect” on free and democratic debate in the country, a panel of constitutional law experts from the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, said on March 19. The European Commission indicated that the new legislation violated European Union laws on democracy and equal rights of EU citizens.

Orban has also been advocating for the EU, of which Hungary is a member, to suspend financial and military support for Ukraine, and he advocates a policy of pushing the government in Kyiv into immediate peace negotiations with Moscow.

Orban has warned that only electing conservative candidates to the European Parliament this coming June and replacing the EU’s current leadership will lead to peace in Ukraine. “The whole European community is on a razor’s edge. We are standing on the dividing line between war and peace,” he wrote May 1 on social media.

“But our vote will determine whether there is a pro-war or a pro-peace majority in the European Parliament, in the European Commission, in the European Council. Now we have a pro-war majority. We must change that, and we must change it on June 9! Only peace! Only Fidesz!”

Some officials in the Baltic States, among Ukraine’s most fervent supporters, have raised questions about whether Hungary should be forced out of NATO, but American officials and diplomats have never publicly raised that possibility. NATO’s 1949 founding treaty in any case includes no mechanism for the expulsion of a member.

This has been a long time coming. Viktor Orban was first elected Prime Minister in 1998. He replaced a government led by the Hungarian Socialist Party, which had embraced neo-liberal economic policies. The centre-left had administered economic shock therapy following the end of Communist rule after 1989. As a result, left-liberal politicians and lofty ideas about liberal democracy lost credibility with many people. 

After Orban lost power four years later, in 2002, his conservative Fidesz party invested in widespread civic organizing, and unified many Hungarians around a shared nationalist identity and agenda. This helped him regain power in 2010.

His victory took place in the context of the 2008 global financial crisis, which caused many foreclosures in Hungary, and underscored the larger failure of Western economic programs to deliver economic prosperity. 

Since then, Fidesz has been able to win four national elections, and has taken political control over the judicial system, media, universities, cultural institutions, churches, and the economy. It has successfully promoted Hungarian nationalism, even extending voting rights to ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring countries.

Orban has positioned himself as the sole Hungarian leader able to defend Christian Hungary against the forces of migration, liberalism, and globalization. Fidesz’s constituency is currently concentrated in smaller towns and rural areas, which have strong cultural, religious, and political ties to conservative movements.

Hungary has cultivated warm relations with not only Russia, on which it relies for supplies of natural gas and help in building a new nuclear power plant, but also a host of other authoritarian countries, including Belarus, China and Iran.

On May 8, Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Budapest, the last stop on a European tour that included France and Serbia. Xi called for a further expansion of relations between the two countries.

Chinese state media reported that Beijing was ready to promote high-level development of ties with Budapest. China has become Hungary's number one source of foreign direct investment. Hungary has also become the first EU country to participate in Xi's Belt and Road Initiative, the plan launched in 2013 to build networks connecting Asia, Africa and Europe.

Xi said he and Orban agreed the Belt and Road Initiative “is highly consistent with Hungary’s strategy of opening to the east,” and that China supports Hungary in playing a greater role within the EU on promoting China-EU relations. China promised to “speed up” construction of a high-speed train between Budapest and the Serbian capital, Belgrade.

The war in Ukraine was one of the key topics of discussion. “China is one of the pillars of the new world order,” Orban declared, adding that Hungary will support a Beijing plan for peace in Ukraine. “Today, Europe is on the side of war. The only exception is Hungary, which calls for an immediate cease-fire and peace negotiations,” Orban stated.