How will Hungary’s Orban square the circle of ties with China and Trump?

The Hungarian prime minister must walk a fine ‘economically neutral’ line between East and West

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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (left) visits US president-elect Donald Trump at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 2:00pm, 15 Dec 2024

Viktor Orban, the strongman Hungarian prime minister, ended his country’s helm at the six-month rotating EU presidency much as he started it: with a flurry of “peace mission” visits that earned him a stern rebuke from Ukraine.

On Monday, Orban was in Mar-a-Lago, US president-elect Donald Trump’s Florida residence, meeting Trump, business tycoon Elon Musk and other political figures. On Wednesday, he had a one-hour phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, for which he was scolded by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“No one should boost personal image at the expense of unity; everyone should focus on shared success,” Zelensky wrote on social media.

By Thursday, Orban was in the air again, off to Turkey to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to again promote his idea of a “Christmas ceasefire” for the war in Ukraine – a proposal that was roundly rejected by Kyiv.

The whirlwind week captured Orban’s self-styled policy of “economic neutrality”: he wants to remain in the good graces of superpowers to Hungary’s east and west, continuing a high-wire act he has performed for years.

“He’s an outlier as an EU and Nato member state that is in favour of Trump and a bit of a disruptive force Trump feels he can connect to. Through this, Hungary seems to be an important country beyond its significance in size and its economic might,” said Peter Kreko, director of Political Capital, a Hungarian policy research firm.