It would be amusing to suppose that there was a chorus of liberal voices in Budapest objecting to their prime minister, admittedly a bit of a populist himself, collaborating so openly with Boris Johnson, someone who has voiced extremist views on Muslims, is militantly anti-European, and has been responsible for much democratic backsliding in his time in power, attempting to suspend parliament, limit the freedom of the broadcast media and the courts. And yet, so far as can be judged, Viktor Orban’s populist summit with Johnson seems to have attracted little of the outrage that it has ignited in London. Less amusingly, Orban’s apparent acquiescence, and worse, in an upsurge of antisemitism in Hungary seems to be no barrier to a warm welcome in Downing Street. It is no coincidence that one of the main hate figures for conspiracy theorists is the Hungarian Jewish emigre George Soros. Johnson, who is certainly no antisemite, nonetheless seems happy to pursue his cynical, dangerous liaison with Europe’s most successful authoritarian, verging on totalitarian, leader, aside from Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus.
They are an odd couple, and their meeting makes one wonder who’s using who. Orban is on something of a charm offensive, touring European capitals to make himself look important and statesmanlike rather than a chancer, ahead of elections next year. Orban will also enjoy annoying the EU’s leadership, which has clashed with him many times over human rights abuses and Hungary’s adamant refusal to take its share of migrants seeking refuge in the EU. Hungary habitually vetoes and weakens EU common foreign policy positions, most recently on Israel and Palestine. His Fidesz party has just been thrown out of the European Conservative/Christian Democrat group in the European Parliament, and he is looking for allies against President Macron and Chancellor Merkel, who find Orban so difficult to deal with. Recently Hungary has taken to diluting EU criticism on China, over human rights abuses in Hong Kong for example, something Johnson will probably have to raise at their meeting. Given the vast industrial and economic advantages Hungary derives from the EU there is no chance that Orban would try and pull Hungary of the EU; but with allies in the Visegrad group of Central European states, especially Poland, he seems very happy to take as much, and give as little, to the EU as possible. With the British gone, Hungary is the leader of the EU’s awkward squad. Despite setbacks for the likes of Marine le Pen and the far right in Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany, the wave of nationalistic protest has not subsided completely.
