The Hungarian leader appears to be working overtime at fraying the country’s ties with even its longstanding friends and allies — and the strain is beginning to show.
By Sándor Ésik
November 2024
In October, Julia Gross, Germany’s ambassador to Hungary, was expected to deliver a customary set of remarks at the annual reception honoring German Unity Day in Budapest. But unlike in years past, no Hungarian ministers were there to listen. The government was on a two-day retreat in a countryside castle, convened to discuss a string of pressing political and economic issues facing the nation. There could hardly be a more fitting image of Hungary’s growing isolation and hostility to the outside world than to have its most senior officials holed up behind castle walls.
I happened to be in the audience that evening and had not expected anything other than a routine diplomatic event. And Gross did begin her speech with the expected nods to Hungarian and German friendship. But her tone soon shifted. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government had frayed the bonds of trust with Germany, the EU, and NATO, claimed Gross. Just the previous week, Balázs Orbán, the prime minister’s political director, criticized Ukraine’s efforts to counter Russian aggression and suggested that Hungary would have been wise not to resist the 1956 Soviet invasion. But the damage went much deeper, the German ambassador argued, from Orbán’s provocative travels — as EU president, he had recently had audiences with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Xi Jinping in Beijing — to his dogged attempts to halt Finnish and Swedish bids for NATO membership.
In an even bolder move, Gross addressed the audience directly: “I assume that for you — Hungarian voters, regardless of your political persuasion — this increasingly leads to the question: How does this serve my interests, and how does it make my life as a Hungarian better?” she remarked, “I see a room full of people here who can be trusted. But at the moment, Hungary is on a path that is leading it away from its friends.” In an exceptionally rare turn, Germany’s ambassador to Hungary called on Hungarians to hold their government accountable.
Predictably enough, Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó was apoplectic when the substance of Gross’s remarks reached the ministry, and he made sputtering comments about how her speech had intruded on Hungarian sovereignty. He also summoned Gross and her French counterpart, who had signed a letter criticizing Balázs Orbán’s Russophile statements.
This isn’t the first time in recent months that a Western diplomat has made public remarks about Hungary’s worrying turn: Last year, U.S. ambassador David Pressman delivered his own incendiary speech. The German ambassador’s comments, however, mark a stark departure from business as usual. Germany has long held a special interest in Eastern Europe, dating back to its nineteenth- and twentieth-century territorial ambitions. In recent years, Germany’s stake in Hungary has been primarily economic. German business and industry controls nearly 90 percent of the Hungarian retail sector, Audi and Mercedes assembly plants are the main employers in their respective regions, and graduates from nearly every technical school in Hungary find jobs with German companies.
During the era of Chancellor Angela Merkel, German diplomacy often maintained a delicate balance with Hungary through informal channels, whether business forums or the Budapest office of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, the official foundation of Merkel’s Christian Democrats. On previous receptions honoring German Unity Day, a Hungarian government representative to Germany and his entourage would circulate the room, shaking hands with the German ambassador and German business leaders.
The new German leadership within the Social Democrats and the Greens has grown increasingly frustrated with Orbán, whose erratic effects on the Hungarian economy have begun to be felt by German companies large and small. At the same time, the traditional doors of diplomacy have slammed shut. Szijjártó recently canceled a meeting with the German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, opting instead for a last-minute trip to China. When not snubbing foreign officials, Szijjártó reacts to public criticism with aggressive saber-rattling and name-calling directed at Hungary’s European neighbors or others. By refraining to send official representatives to the German Unity Day celebration, Orbán’s government was choosing to snub the ambassador. The German ambassador seized the opportunity to issue a reprisal of her own.
Germany is not the only country that has felt the icy sting of Hungary’s cold shoulder. From my office near Parliament, I can see where foreign dignitaries are received. In 2024, despite Orbán’s EU presidency, no EU leaders have made diplomatic visits to Hungary. Only the necessary work-related trips take place, stripped of formalities. Twice this year, the Hungarian government declined to meet with delegations of U.S. senators upon their arrival in Budapest. In recent months, I saw only the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the grand master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta arrive to official welcomes. Meanwhile, Hungarian officials are busy traveling abroad to cozy up to China, Russia, Serbia, and their various partners.
At the same time, Orbán’s government appears to be frantically working to sever ties with its former allies: the EU, NATO, the United States, and now even Germany, long among its strongest diplomatic partners. In a riotous October session of the European Parliament, Ursula von der Leyen, the German president of the European Commission, lashed out at Orbán for supporting Russia in the war with Ukraine, allowing Chinese police to operate within Hungarian territory, and continuing his crusade against the European community.
A day later, at a public event in Budapest, Orbán seemed tired and sometimes even confused as he mixed up dates and the order of past events. Perhaps the roasting in Brussels had taken its toll and left the prime minister rattled and exhausted. It must not be easy to always be on the attack, jousting with enemies real and imagined.
It was almost as if he would have preferred to be in the countryside, behind his castle walls.
Sándor Ésik is an attorney practicing in Budapest, Hungary. He is also a blogger and an activist for democratic causes. His English blog about Hungary, the Hungarian Muse, is available on Substack.
Copyright © 2024 National Endowment for Democracy
Image credit: Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images
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