Pro-Putin European leaders reaffirm their power
Orban attacked Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in Sunday’s victory speech. He had asked Budapest to do more for its neighbors, placing Orban in a group of leftist and liberal opponents of his Christian nationalist project. Orban claimed that his victory was despite the efforts made by the “left at home”, the international left all around, and the Brussels bureaucrats.
Orban is presiding over a Hungarian political system in the middle of Europe, which would make Putin look like a strongman. Chico Harlan said that Orban has not only reworked the electoral system to give his party an advantage but also deployed spyware to harass journalists and demanded a system for checks and balances. He has created a media empire for pro-government that is an echo chamber for his story.”
Orban can also count on major admirers within the United States.
A wing of the conservative movement has adopted his government, which censors LGBT content and demonizes immigrant and ethnic minorities. It is also a political ideal that feuds with the European Union’s supposed globalists. It is not a surprise that Hungary has a poor economy, a result of years of its brightest leaving to escape an Orban-dominated country and a smaller graying population than other second-tier cities in China and India.
The European Union has taken procedural action against Hungary for its democratic slippage under Orban and has withheld some E.U. funds. Although funds were earmarked for Hungary, they failed to force Budapest to alter its course. The war in Ukraine continues, and Kyiv’s observers don’t expect much from the next Orban term.
“We don’t have any new expectations towards the Hungarian side,” Olha Stephenyshyna (Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration), stated in a Monday briefing. She also said that she believes Budapest’s friendship will continue.
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