As soon as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán assumed Hungary’s presidency of the European Union in July, one thing was clear: he increasingly stands for everything the EU opposes
The European Union traditionally ends its summer slumber in the dying days of August with an informal meeting of its foreign affairs ministers in a political equivalent of a fireside chat. But with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Hungary holding the presidency of the 27-nation bloc, vacation has already been turned into one long firebrand’s shout.
Since July 1, and right up to year’s end, the EU’s arcane rules allow Hungary, a nation of 9.5 million, to represent and often speak for the bloc of 450 million. The problem is that Orbán increasingly stands for everything the EU opposes.
The first two months of the half-year rotating presidency has already turned into “troll diplomacy,” said Péter Krekó of the Center for European Policy Analysis. Orbán “just wants to provoke more anger from the leaders of the European Union,” he said.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin is the EU’s archenemy because of his war in Ukraine, Orbán travels to Moscow and hobnobs with the autocratic leader. When China is increasingly considered the EU’s “systemic rival,” Orbán travels to Beijing to make friends and boost Hungarian business interests. When the EU embraced U.S. President Joe Biden after four especially acrimonious years with Donald Trump, Orbán makes a special detour to Mar-a-Lago to visit his trusted political ally.
And all this since taking on the EU presidency only eight weeks ago.
