NATO member state Hungary is a democracy. Though the heavily state-controlled or influenced media largely supports Prime Minister Viktor Orban‘s government, independent media outlets do exist. And although he is controversial in the West, Orban’s policies on immigration and LGBT issues find significant support from Hungarians. Orban won another supermajority in parliamentary elections last April, even though the opposition unified against him.
The key U.S. concern, then, should not center on whether Orban is sufficiently democratic but on whether he remains an American ally. The evidence suggests he is not.
RUSSIA CANNOT SUSTAIN THE OFFENSIVE INITIATIVE
Of greatest concern is Orban’s preference for supporting Russian and Chinese interests over those of the United States. The latest example came on Tuesday. Radio Free Europe reports that Hungary is demanding that the European Union, of which it is a member, should waive sanctions on powerful oligarchs who butter Vladimir Putin’s bread. They include Mikhail Fridman, who was arrested by British authorities in early December on suspicion of money laundering and conspiracy, and Alisher Usmanov, a corrupt oligarch with close ties to Putin.
That Hungary would want to give these men a free pass from sanctions is odd. Except, that is, if one considers that Orban’s government is trying to do Putin a favor. That suspicion is supported by other events since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February. These include:
- Hungary’s support for a rollback of sanctions on Russia in return for lower energy prices. Budapest has also opposed price caps on Russian energy exports designed to limit Putin’s means of extorting European populations for their winter heating.
- Hungary’s slow-rolling of Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO. Along with Turkey, Hungary is the only NATO member that has yet to approve the two nations’ request to join the alliance.
- Orban’s leveraging of EU aid supplies to Ukraine for his own purposes and his making it harder for Ukrainian refugees to travel within neighboring Hungary. This is not to say that Ukraine deserves a blank check from NATO, but Hungary’s actions fall far short of what should be expected from a NATO ally during the most significant land war in Europe since 1945.
- As Balkan Insight reports, Orban has given the Russian intelligence services free rein on Hungarian territory. It’s unclear how this action comports with Orban’s self-presentation as a nationalist. Nevertheless, the prospective damage to NATO intelligence-sharing is obvious.
But it’s not just Russia where Orban’s favor falls against U.S. interests. Even more alarming, considering the rising likelihood of a U.S.-China war, is Hungary’s support for Xi Jinping’s regime.
China has made massive investments in Hungary in recent years, also establishing $1.5 billion campuses of regime-affiliated universities on its soil. These are things Orban likes to play down in his cultivation of American conservatives at events such as the Conservative Political Action Conference. But even as China refuses to condemn Putin’s invasion and even as Xi threatens war with Taiwan, Orban remains a happy choirboy for Beijing.
Take two examples from only December.
- In a call with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Orban’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto pledged new support for China’s Belt and Road initiative. Szijjarto also welcomed how “Hungary has now become the number one investment destination for Chinese companies in Central Europe.” And he called for the rapid adoption of an EU-China investment agreement that has stalled as EU parliamentarians protest China’s policies and its sanctioning of their members. In return for this support, Wang declared that “[China] hopes that the EU and its member states can be like Hungary and view China’s development and rejuvenation in an objective and friendly manner.”
- Earning the keen attention of Chinese state media, Orban declared that economic “decoupling” is the “most dangerous thing in the world today.” He added that decoupling from China would be a “huge mistake” and that Europe “would lose its competitiveness if it does not cooperate with China.”
Top line: It is unclear why Orban’s government is either trustworthy enough or sufficiently policy-aligned to justify Hungary’s continued inclusion in NATO. Orban certainly is no American ally.
