Viktor Orbán’s Game

Viktor Orbán’s double game: Spin EU conspiracies in Budapest, collaborate in Brussels Hungary OKs sanctions packages and negotiates reforms in Brussels.

  • In Brussels, the story is the opposite: Hungary wants to negotiate to avoid a slash in EU budget funding and unlock withheld European recovery funds.
  • The bifurcated approach is more than an odd EU sideshow.
  • “There is the hope, I think, in the [European] Commission, the member states, that he’s not vetoing sanctions and that he will lift his veto on the minimum tax,” said German MEP Moritz Körner, a member of the pro-business Free Democratic Party, referencing Hungary’s lingering roadblocks over setting a basic global corporate tax.
  • “When the sanctions have to be renewed,” the prime minister said, “there’s also the opportunity for the politicians in Brussels to see the error of their ways.”
  • Specifically, Krekó said, the sanctions questionnaire being sent to households is meant as a reminder to Brussels that the Hungarian government can shift public opinion.