The government of Hungarian nationalist populist Viktor Orbán is rapidly distancing itself from European consensus. Hungary has refused to sign an EU declaration rejecting the authoritarian regime of Belarusian Aleksandr Lukashenko on the fourth anniversary of the protests for democracy that shook Belarus after the electoral fraud with which the regime remains in power. Budapest has refused to support the now traditional declaration, highly critical of Lukashenko, an ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and claims that it will not participate in actions that involve “interference” in other countries, as several diplomatic sources have explained to Morning Express. The movements of several capitals to change its mind and support the call to Lukashenko continue.
The episode deepens the crisis between the EU and Hungary, the most unruly member of the community club, the closest to the Kremlin and the country that usually delays the approval of sanctions against Russia and Belarus. But not only that. A few days ago, Budapest also blocked — in the form of two declarations — the common call of the EU for transparency regarding the results of the elections in Venezuela, in which Nicolás Maduro has claimed victory.
Faced with the blockage of the Orbán government – Hungary holds the presidency of the EU Council this semester – the European warning calls, in which the electoral minutes were demanded to be published, were finally issued in the name of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, and not of the 27 EU members, until Budapest decided to sign the latest declaration, last Sunday.
The case of Belarus is similar and shows Orbán’s increasing isolation in the community club, where he only has – occasionally – the support of the government of the Slovak Robert Fico, who has also taken an authoritarian, but more pragmatic, direction. Since the summer of 2020, when Lukashenko – who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist since 1994 – harshly repressed the protests after the fraudulent elections, with thousands of people arrested and repressed, the EU has issued a warning call to the Belarusian authorities and shown its support for the country’s “democratic movement”, whether in prison or in exile.
This year, Budapest is refusing to sign this declaration, which is still being fine-tuned and which, if Hungary does not change its mind at the last minute, will have to be issued alone, this Thursday, in the name of the head of European diplomacy, explains a senior EU source. It seems like one more element of European diplomatic and bureaucratic symbolism, but in reality it is yet another way for Budapest to crack the common front against the Kremlin, its war against Ukraine and against other autocratic regimes. Lukashenko managed to suppress democratic protests in 2020 thanks to Putin’s help, and the Belarusian allowed Russian troops to use his country as a launching pad to invade Ukraine.
The gesture towards Belarus and the Lukashenko regime, which the EU considers a threat to European security – especially after the episodes in which it has used migratory flows from that country to Poland and the Baltic states to try to destabilise those countries – is also another attempt to put obstacles in the way of the EU’s functioning.
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Relations between Hungary and the EU are at their worst since Orbán travelled to Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin on a self-imposed “peace mission” to Ukraine, to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, and to Florida (USA) to speak with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. All during the first days of the semester of the Hungarian presidency of the EU Council, in another gesture that breaks European consensus and is considered disloyal from the point of view of the European treaties. In response to this, Brussels has retaliated and is boycotting events of the Hungarian presidency in Budapest.
The unrest deepened last week. In another gesture of rapprochement with the Kremlin, Hungary has opened its work visas more laxly to Russians and Belarusians, a move that contradicts European guidelines and has caused serious security concerns in the EU.
The European Commission has demanded explanations from Budapest and has threatened the Orbán government with taking measures – and even isolating the country from the Schengen area of free movement – if it considers that these visas that open the door and facilitate entry with much fewer controls for citizens of Russia and Belarus pose a risk to the Union, in the midst of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine and when sabotage and hybrid warfare attributed to the Kremlin have increased throughout Europe.
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