Not to depress you, but from here, it is a four-month slog to budget planning meetings and Christmas, broken only by the national holiday on Wednesday, Oct. 23, marking the 1956 Uprising, and half term for the kids from Oct. 28-Nov. 1 inclusive.
If a page has turned (or, more accurately, is turning) on the weather, it hasn’t politically. Hungary’s second stint in the revolving seat that is the Presidency of the Council of the European Union started on July 1, and runs until the end of December. By and large, the first time Hungary occupied the position (January 1-June 30, 2011), its term of office was relatively well received. That first stint came less than a year after Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz-Christian Democrat government were returned to power.
In the 13 years separating those presidencies, Orbán has proved himself very happy to take on the Brussels establishment. In pursuing what he calls his “peace mission” and maintaining what appear to be warm relations with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the Hungarian PM has exasperated many of his EU colleagues. (Hungary’s defense is that, if peace is to have any chance, you have to keep communication channels open. Those who deal in realpolitik would point out where landlocked Hungary gets most of its oil and gas and who is financing the expansion of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant.)
The Hungarian presidency is built around seven priorities: acceptance of a New European Competitiveness Deal; the reinforcement of the European defense policy; a consistent and merit-based enlargement policy; stemming illegal migration; shaping the future of the cohesion policy; a farmer-oriented EU agricultural policy; and addressing demographic challenges.
Pushing those through will need the support of European allies, and yet some other member states have chosen not to attend informal meetings in the Hungarian capital. There have been suggestions that other events should be moved. The Hungarians have dismissed such moves as “childish,” which hardly seems the sort of word designed to woe people to your point of view. Has Budapest misjudged the mood in Brussels? A respected Hungarian business contact spoke to me the other day about a long-scheduled visit to the country by a senior member of the international management. “Please don’t mention the presidency,” I was asked. “It’s all too political. I don’t see what Hungary is getting out of this.”
What Hungary wants from its presidency, especially deals on competitiveness and defense, the speeding up of the enlargement process (with a particular eye on the Western Balkans), and getting Romania into the Schengen Zone, are hard to argue against and offer plenty of business opportunities to the whole of Europe. The more meaningful question is whether the Hungarian approach is likely to bring the desired results.
Robin Marshall
Editor-in-chief
This editorial was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of September 6, 2024.
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