He stood alone for months in blocking a European help bundle for Ukraine price $52 billion however then meekly folded. He refused to just accept Sweden as a brand new member of NATO for greater than a 12 months earlier than finally bowing to stress from greater nations and giving his unconditional assent.
The identical sample repeated itself on Tuesday when Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary made a shock go to to Kyiv to fulfill the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, taking a path effectively trodden for greater than two years by different European leaders however beforehand shunned by Mr. Orban.
Hungarian officers defined the beforehand unannounced journey as an effort to advertise “peace” — Hungary’s euphemism for a settlement constructed on Ukrainian capitulation to Russian calls for. Many observers noticed it as an alternative extra as a transfer by Mr. Orban to attempt to finish his isolation over Ukraine on the European stage.
Zsomber Zeold, a former Hungarian diplomat and overseas coverage knowledgeable in Budapest, stated the go to had “come as an entire shock to me and lots of others” on condition that Mr. Orban has staked out such a hostile place towards Ukraine for thus lengthy. “Essentially the most believable rationalization,” Mr. Zeold stated, is that “he needs to construct up some sort of credibility inside the European Union as not only a one-sided, pro-Russian actor.”
Hungary this week took over the rotating presidency of the European Union promising to “make Europe nice once more.” However the presidency is basically a clerical place, and Mr. Orban’s oft-repeated vow to “take over Brussels” has rested as an alternative on a calculation that elections final month for the European Parliament would make Hungary’s governing Fidesz social gathering a robust new middle of gravity for like-minded nationalist forces within the continental physique.
That hope, nevertheless, has to date been hobbled by Mr. Orban’s fame because the European bloc’s most Kremlin-friendly chief — a place with which only some marginal figures wish to be related.
Peter Kreko, the director of Political Capital, a analysis group in Budapest that’s usually vital of the Hungarian chief, described Mr. Orban’s the journey to Kyiv as a “sensible, sudden shock that may enhance his probabilities of getting nearer to the E.U. mainstream” and forging an alliance with conservatives like Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister. Whereas Ms. Meloni agrees with Mr. Orban on the necessity to tightly prohibit immigration and defend nationwide sovereignty, she has been delay by his pro-Kremlin stand on Ukraine.
“He is aware of that visiting Zelensky is code for being a ‘member of the membership’, and he want to ship a robust message to E.U. leaders that he’s within the membership even when he performs the outsider many instances,” Mr. Kreko stated.
When Hungary final week introduced the formation of a brand new right-wing alliance within the European Parliament known as Patriots for Europe, Mr. Orban declared it the beginning of a “new period” of “peace, safety and improvement” as an alternative of “conflict, migration and stagnation” that “will change European politics.”
However the brand new Hungarian-led legislative alliance, which Mr. Orban predicted “will quickly be the strongest right-wing political group in Europe,” solely managed to draw two small populist events from Austria and the Czech Republic. A tiny right-wing Portuguese social gathering has since stated it’ll be part of, too. One other potential addition is the far-right Italian social gathering of Matteo Salvini, an outspoken fan of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who’s struggling to beat a dismal efficiency within the Europe’s June elections.
Europe’s strongest nationalist events have to date all stayed away, decreasing Mr. Orban’s probabilities of turning into a central determine on the surging populist proper.
Regulation and Justice, the previous governing social gathering in Poland, which has a far greater economic system, navy and inhabitants than Hungary, shares Mr. Orban’s hostility to immigration and the Brussels paperwork. However it declined to affix the brand new alliance, largely due to Hungary’s stand on the conflict in Ukraine.
Ms. Meloni of Italy has additionally proven little interest in becoming a member of forces with Hungary within the European Parliament and is sticking along with her personal group within the meeting.
By touring to Ukraine, Mr. Orban “is making an attempt to interrupt out of political no man’s land within the E.U., and displaying a extra open strategy towards Kyiv could be key on this regard,” stated Edit Zgut-Przybylska, an assistant professor on the Polish Academy of Sciences who has written extensively about Russian affect in Hungary.
Talking in Kyiv on Tuesday, Mr. Orban repeated his requires “peace” however averted any suggestion that attaining it relied on Ukraine’s giving up. The Hungarian information company MTI stated Mr. Orban known as for a “time-bound cease-fire, which provides a possibility to hurry up peace talks.”
Unian, a Ukrainian information outlet, quoted Mr. Orban as saying “peace is a vital concern. The conflict through which you might be residing now has a really intense impact on the safety of Europe.” He made no public criticism of Mr. Zelensky over the remedy of Ukraine’s Hungarian minority, beforehand a serious bone of rivalry usually raised by Mr. Orban, and as an alternative thanked Mr. Zelensky for listening to his views on a potential cease-fire.
Professor Zgut-Przybylska stated Mr. Orban’s journey “doesn’t imply that the Hungarian authorities will make a U-turn in politics.” As an alternative, it match into what the prime minister has himself described as Hungary’s “peacock dance”: a coverage of fluttering feathers to completely different sides relying on the second.
“Orban has been enjoying this ‘peacock’ dance for a decade,” she stated, “and Hungary’s vitality dependency on Russia will stay stronger than ever.”
Russia, maybe nervous that it may very well be shedding its most dependable buddy within the European Union, performed down the importance of Mr. Orban’s go to. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, was quoted by Tass information company as saying Mr. Orban’s presence in Kyiv didn’t mirror a change in Hungary’s place however solely its obligations after assuming the European Union’s rotating presidency. “We don’t anticipate something,” Mr. Peskov stated.
An early signal that Mr. Orban needs to shed his poisonous picture as a Kremlin puppet, stated Mr. Zeold, the previous diplomat, got here final month when he gave a heat welcome in Budapest to the NATO secretary normal, Jens Stoltenberg, a strong supporter of navy help to Ukraine.
Mr. Orban assured Mr. Stoltenberg that he wouldn’t veto NATO help for Ukraine at a summit this month of alliance leaders in Washington. He nonetheless insisted that Hungary wouldn’t present funds or navy personnel for any joint help efforts. However the promise to not play the function of a spoiler on the summit calmed worries that Hungary would possibly torpedo proposals for a brand new system to supply extra predictable, long-term safety help and navy coaching to Ukraine.
Positioning himself as Europe’s champion of “peace” towards what he derides as Europe’s “warmongers” has performed effectively politically at residence for Mr. Orban. His Fidesz social gathering gained a landslide election victory, its fourth in a row, in 2022 after smearing the principle opposition chief as a reckless chief bent on sending Hungarians to battle towards Russia in Ukraine. That was a lie however, repeated noisily by information media retailers managed by Mr. Orban’s social gathering, it helped destroy the opposition.
Within the run-up to final month’s European Parliament election, Fidesz warned that Europe’s help for Ukraine risked triggering World Conflict III and railed towards what it stated have been proposals in Brussels to impose necessary navy conscription throughout Europe. No such proposals existed, however the concern stirred up by Fidesz helped the social gathering win the vote in Hungary for the European legislature, although a sturdy displaying by an upstart conservative rival decreased the size of Mr. Orban’s victory.
Conscription, the E.U.’s overseas affairs chief, Josep Borrell, stated, “is a nationwide choice” and never one thing Brussels might ever impose.
Home political expediency, nevertheless, has crimped Mr. Orban’s enchantment past Hungary’s borders. His most vocal supporters overseas have been right-wing People like Donald J. Trump. In Europe, solely Slovakia has been vociferous in opposing help for Ukraine.
And that, stated Mr. Zeold, is an issue for Mr. Orban, whose hovering ambitions attain far past simply Hungary’s lower than 10 million folks.
“The Hungarian home political scene is simply too small for Orban,” Mr. Zeold stated. “He needs to play on a much bigger enjoying subject. And that’s the E.U.”
Marc Santora contributed reporting.
