No one in Brussels, and in many other European capitals, hides the relief that the Hungarian presidency of the Council of the EU comes to an end this December 31. And that, in the end, the Hungarian semester has not been as devastating as many feared after its provocative beginning with a unilateral visit by the Hungarian Prime Minister, Víktor Orbán, to Moscow, quickly censured by the main European officials, who viewed with horror how Budapest was trying to erode European unity against Vladimir Putin in huge and hasty steps.
Despite its controversial management, Budapest has achieved, at the end of an officially mandated arbitration of the Twenty-seven as honest mediatorbut which allows many of his own pirouettes – which the national-populist Orbán has carried out with pleasure and in open defiance of Brussels -, adding some important and even surprising community achievements, given the little or nothing that was expected from these six Hungarian months at the helm. of the Council of the EU.
This was recognized by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, one of the European figures most critical of Orbán, at the end of the last summit of European heads of state and government of the year – and under Hungarian mandate – in Brussels, the December 19.
“You advanced our support for Ukraine with the adoption of the 15th sanctions package and the framework agreement for a G-7 loan [por 50.000 millones de dólares]”, assessed the head of the European Executive during the final press conference of the meeting before an Orbán who listened to her somewhat astonished. The Hungarian is known for his pro-Russian position and his constant vetoes of practically any gesture or aid towards kyiv (he has been blocking the 6.6 billion euros in military aid to Ukraine planned by the EU through the European Peace Fund for a year and a half). So, probably, he did not expect the praise, although moderate, from the German, especially because she has not hidden her indignation throughout the semester with the Hungarian way of running the rotating European presidency and, especially, for its favoritism towards Moscow .
In fact, both politicians had engaged in a tough confrontation just two months earlier, during Hungary’s appearance before the European Parliament to give an account of its presidency of the Council of the EU. “There are still those who blame this war not on the invader, but on the invaded,” Von der Leyen reproached him before some MEPs who were also mostly critical: they had proposed, in vain, that Brussels skip Hungary in the turn of countries at the head of the Council of the EU and received Orbán singing the Bella Ciaothe anthem of the Italian resistance. The Hungarian leader, accustomed to all kinds of rudeness in an EU where he boasts of being a loose verse (although since the arrival to the Slovak Government of Robert Fico, who has also just visited Moscow, or Giorgia Meloni, he is less and less isolated) , responded by being defiant as always and also launching his usual attacks against immigrants, and misogynistic and homophobic comments that have earned him many other European disapprovals.
Despite everything, Von der Leyen also highlighted at the end of the Hungarian presidency the “ambitious” Budapest declaration on the new pact for European Competitiveness – the new mantra of Brussels – or the “historic decision” for Romania and Bulgaria to be able to access fully to the Schengen area after Austria lifted the veto to end ground controls as of January 1, among others. For the German Green MEP Daniel Freund, one of Orbán’s harshest critics in the European Parliament, the result of the Hungarian presidency is, however, poor: it only concluded eight legislative procedures, compared to 69 for his Belgian predecessors and 68 for Spain. It is also not a good result when compared to other presidencies carried out in full transition in Brussels, as happened this quarter in which the European Parliament and the Commission were renewed: in the same situation, in 2019 Finland closed 23 files and, in 2014, Italy 20, according to the German’s count.
In any case, the (very moderate) praise from Brussels was short-lived. Von der Leyen left the press room together with the new president of the European Council, the Portuguese António Costa, showing off his complicity. They left behind an Orbán who went out alone and took his own path. Just a few hours later, Budapest managed to anger Brussels and Warsaw again, next in the European semi-annual turn, by announcing that it was granting political asylum to former Polish Deputy Minister of Justice Marcel Romanowski, prosecuted for embezzlement and corruption.
The Government of Donald Tusk, who will assume the European presidency on January 1 and whose victory a year ago ousted Orbán’s main Polish ally from power, the ultra-conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) in Poland, to which Romanowski belongs, described the “hostile” act. The European Commission, for its part, made it clear that it will study the Hungarian decision very carefully and reminded Budapest that grants of asylum from one EU country to another, all of which are considered safe countries, are “extremely exceptional.”
Just a few days before, Brussels had given another strong warning to Orbán by announcing its decision to keep the around 22 billion euros in European funds allocated to Hungary frozen because it considered that the measures adopted by the country to tackle its problems with the Rule of law are not enough.
The tug of war between Budapest and Brussels has been a constant in this semester that ends basically as it began: with deep mutual distrust.
Orbán confirmed his partners’ worst fears as soon as he began his European semester with a trip to Moscow, where he met with Vladimir Putin, thus breaking the EU’s political and diplomatic isolation of the Russian president. His self-described “peace mission” to Ukraine also led him to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. An international tour that concluded a few days later in Mar-a-Lago, the residence in Florida where the then presidential candidate and now US president-elect, Donald Trump, is based, with whom Orbán prides himself on maintaining a privileged relationship. from which, paradoxically, the EU could benefit when the Republican returns to the White House in January.
Orbán’s unilateral move caused deep discomfort in Brussels and many other European capitals, which quickly underlined that the Hungarian lacked any mandate to negotiate anything with Russia on a European behalf and accused him of instrumentalizing his rotating presidency. In a show of protest, the Commission decided not to send any commissioner to the informal meetings held in Budapest in the following weeks, a measure also supported by several, but not all, Member States. Furthermore, the then high representative of the EU for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, decided not to convene the Gymnich in the Hungarian capital, the traditional informal meeting of foreign and defense ministers that is held at the beginning of each presidency of a country. of the EU on its territory. “We have to send a signal. Even if this is a symbolic signal,” the Spaniard defended his decision, demanding “loyalty to the foreign policy” of the EU from the European partners.
With his characteristic style, Orbán, in his last appearance at the head of the EU, downplayed the criticism. “You can look for a political presidency or a bureaucratic one,” he summarized. “If it is bureaucratic, you limit yourself to continuing the procedures in progress. But if it is politics, you make political decisions (…); “I made a conscious decision and opted for a political presidency,” defended the veteran politician—the one who has been in the current European Council the longest—, who said goodbye with a message to his successors: “Be brave.” Brussels only hopes for a new semester with fewer political upheavals and more unity.
