Sam Greene
Good morning to those of you joining us in Washington or elsewhere on the eastern seaboard of the United States. Good afternoon to those of you joining us over on the other side of the Atlantic. My name is Sam Greene, I am director of Democratic Resilience Program and head of the London operation at the Center for European Policy Analysis, or CEPA. Thank you very much for joining us for today’s on the record press briefing on Hungarian foreign policy, European politics, and the complexities that both of those things involve. Very, very happy to be joined today by three of our excellent fellows, uh Peter Kreko is director of political capital Institute at Budapest, based think tank, an associate professor at LTA University in Budapest and senior non resident Fellow at CEPA. Tamas Matura is also a senior non resident Fellow at CEPA. Joining us from Budapest, founder of the Central Eastern European Center for Asian Studies and associate professor at Corvinus University, and joining us from an undisclosed location somewhere in the Baltic is Marija Golubeva, former member of Latvian parliament and former minister of interior the Republic of Latvia, now researching and implementing projects on informational, institutional resilience in democracies. We again just to remind are on the record. We will also provide a transcript and recording of this conversation for all of you afterwards. Colleagues, we’ll get back in touch towards the end of discussion with some questions for our panelists, but I would invite you to start posting questions. Peter, I might start with you. We’ve seen a lot of what we might think of as activism from Viktor Orban. We’ve seen visits to Kyiv, we’ve seen visits to Moscow, we’ve seen the summit with Xi Jinping, and now we’re seeing a foreign policy Summit, multilaterally being hosted by the Ukrainian government. What, in your view, is orban’s primary objective, both with this summit and with his broader foreign policy.

Péter Krekó
Yeah. So first of all, thanks a lot for the opportunity, and thanks for all of you for for attending. I will be very brief here at the beginning, I the generally the the rotating presidency of the of the Council of Europe gives the member states a limited opportunity, I think, to first of all, be more visible within the European Union itself. Second, to push a bit their agendas within the European and third, to be more visible on the on the worst stage. And fourth, to, you know, strengthen their position within the European Union. So the council presidency gives you some of the opportunity to get connected to important leaders of the European Union more often. And I would say that from these four objectives, I think maybe only the third one is the one that Orban could achieve to be more visible on the word stage, because he definitely was in the in the front page of most newspapers within the US, in European Union, in China and beyond, with his rather atypical diplomacy, and he painted himself as the representative of official representative of the European Council that is representing a joint position of the European Union in Moscow in China, while, and even when he met with with Donald Trump, for example, on the sidelines of the NATO Summit, while no one gives gave him a mandate for that. And while he while the NATO allies, were not even informed in advance that he is going to meet with these leaders, so it was anything but a joint EU position. And I think Orban practically lost this opportunity to strengthen his position within the European Union. And I think with his rogue diplomacy, he just alienated himself even more within the European Union. And right now, what we see is that the EU summit will be not held in in Budapest, but in Brussels. This is, according to Jose broel, who, who, who announced it is just an obvious message towards Budapest that this is not the way how you run new presidencies. So I think to a certain extent, it’s we understand what the game is. Orban wants to be more visible on the world stage, and he paints himself as, you know, a world class leader. One day, talks with Vladimir Putin the United States, Jim pink, and then with Donald Trump, he thinks is the upcoming US president, and so on. But I do think that it just undermines his position within the European Union. And within the European Union, Orban is more going towards a troll diplomacy just wants to provoke more anger from the leaders of the European Union. And I think in that case, it was that we successful, but it comes with very negative consequences on Hungary, for example, even in terms of losing the chance of unfreezing some of the EU funds that Orban wants to receive. But because of rule of law issues, is because of of going against the human stream in in in many instances, he loses this opportunity. But, and I would like just to raise and but what his objective? I mean it is, it is a given opportunity to every member state that receives the rotating presidency in every half year of the European Union. And Orban is just losing this opportunity. But I would like to also say that on seventh of November, The next meeting of the political community will take place in Budapest, and it could also be for urban a very good opportunity to paint himself as a world class leader and and the proximity of the US elections are just making it even more important, and it also highlights An important player in the game, and this is France. France is becoming the big member state within the European Union that, in certain extent, is more cooperative towards Victor or bonds, unorthodox foreign policy and EU policy than other EU members. Given the political communities a French initiative, we clearly see that that French has a different kind of different approach towards Budapest than, for example, Berlin has these days.

Sam Greene
Okay, well, there’s a lot of different threads to unpack there. I’m particularly going to come back to this idea of troll diplomacy and what it might achieve, what the consequences might be. But Tomas, if I might turn to you next, Peter talked, I think broadly, about the politics of foreign policy. I wanted to ask you to reflect a little bit on the on the foreign policy aspect of it, particularly when it comes to China. We do see a lot in the press, and I’m sure we’ll talk about, you know, or bonds relationship with with Russia, but the relationship with China also seems to be both Central and challenging. What in the longer run, do you think Orban wants to see in terms of the European relationship with China, not just the relationship between Hungary and China? Why?

Tamás Matura
Thank you, Simon. Thanks for having me today. Well, I think the position of the Hungarian government with Avi China is quite interesting. So on the one hand, what the government says is that Hungary wants to say a perfectly smooth relationship between the European Union and China, where trade goes on and westmin goes on, etc, etc. While, in reality, I think that the Hungarian government is this is a half truth, because at least in half of the reality the Hungarian government is pretty much interested in a certain level of unease or even chaos when it comes to EU China relations. Why it’s very simple. Mr. Orban, in the past decade, has been gaining a lot, both politically and economically speaking, through trying to play the role of a middleman between Russia and the EU, China and the EU. So if the relationship is perfectly smooth, he has no role to play. He has no influence. If the relationship is perfectly fine, then he cannot present himself in China or in Moscow, for that matter, as someone who could help Chinese or Russian interests to get facilitated in the EU. So that is true that given the fact that how much the Chinese are investing in Hungary that part of the relationship is pretty much in the interest of the Hungarian state. It should go well. So the economic relationship between China and the EU, at least when it comes to EV industry, and generally speaking, the trade that is related to this new kind of electric cars that is that is supposed to go well. But at the same time, I think this orbit is quite okay with a certain level of disturbance or even chaos in the EU China relationship, just to have some kind of influence.

Sam Greene
Thank you. We’ll again come back and unpack various strands of of that. But Maria, I want to turn to you first. And while Maria is speaking again, I would invite you know all of the all of you on the call, members of the of the press to post your questions to the chat or to raise your hand, and I call on you as as we go, Maria, as both Tamas and Peter were suggesting. You know, Budapest is not the only EU capital that takes issue with parts of the Commission’s foreign policy, and that number does seem set to grow. Is Budapest. Do you think in a position to capitalize on this putative disunity within Europe?

Marija Golubeva
Well, I do agree both with Peter and with Thomas. As far as Mr. Auburn’s personal interests are concerned, I think being the middleman who can fix certain issues, both for China, for Russia, for whoever is interested in influencing European politics, is the way he presents himself. But we should also not forget about more specific ways that Mr. Orban perceives Hungary’s business interests. I mean, while Mr. Orban really does cast himself as protagonist through emphasis on agonist of this relationship with Brussels, in a sense of struggling with Brussels. He’s proclaiming that asylum seekers from the Hungarian border will be sent directly to Brussels with a ticket if a European court overturns Hungary’s way of policy on not granting asylum. So in a way, I think all of this is partly a manner of creating noise while specific interests are being pursued. In a rather pragmatic vein. If we look at what is happening with blue coil, with the whole Ukraine Hungary Russian oil issue, there is a lot of business interest, as Mr. Robin perceives it, being pursued there, while all the noise is being created by, you know, addressing European issues in a particular way. So I would, I would say that it’s, it’s very much a matter of of trying to benefit in all possible ways from a lack of unity, whether Europe will be able to restore unity at the level of Council and not just at the level of the commission. I mean, to have to pursue a common foreign policy on all issues, starting from Ukraine and ending with the issue of Russian oil. I think very much depends on other countries, not on Hungary, not on Slovakia, but other governments that have so far seen also for themselves, some kind of benefits in, for example, not having qualified majority vote and having unanimity and all foreign policy decisions.

Sam Greene
Come back to that question on the procedural side of EU foreign policy in in a few moments, but Peter, I might come back to you while we’re waiting on on questions from the from the floor, you mentioned troll diplomacy. Troll diplomacy, I would imagine, is, is, you know, reasonably powerful tool when what you’re trying to do is to get in the way of people doing things that they want to do, like the commission does. Budapest, though, aspire to some degree of leadership when it comes to European foreign policy or to an alternative European foreign policy, and if it’s seeking that leadership, how might you know this summit and the other activities we’ve seen this year affect Hungary’s standing among other EU member states?

Péter Krekó
Yeah, thank you. Very important, very important question. I Orban definitely wants to have leadership role in the European Union, and it’s he’s quite open about it. So the good thing about analyzing Victor by his intentions is that he talks about them quite openly already. Back to four or five years ago, he said that the new capital of Europe is Budapest and not Brussels, and he means that in the certain sense that, yeah, of course, he shares a different vision on Europe. And this is absolutely typical in far right parties and populist right parties in Europe and also in the United States, that it’s by a different definition of Christianity and a different definition of the best. But his definition of Europe is that Europe has to be the the Europe of nation states, and nationalism is very important where you have traditional families, and that is based on Christianity. And his his vision on Europe that he. Tries to sell to the European public is partially successful, but on a small segment of the European electorate. And it’s it received 12% of the votes in the last EP election. This is the European patriots for Europe group, which is the ID 2.0 so it’s a it’s also a French led group, and this is a French project. Let’s be clear about that. This is not orban’s invention, but Orban could bring some new players into this group as it re transformed itself after the parliamentary elections. One very important one is the VOC party from Spain, that that went from Georgia, Maloney’s ECR to to this new, even more old, new, even more radical group. The other one is even more interesting. Andrei Babis anovich came from the Renew group, from the from the liberal group, and it made even bigger moves. But it it was more of a French invention. Orban originally, where he wanted to go to Georgia Maloney’s ECR that, but Georgia Malin did not want Orban, I think, first, because he’s much more pro Russian than the mainstream of this euro skeptic group that that the backbone of which are the Italians and and of the of the polls, who are pretty hawkish towards Russia. But the other reason is, I think no one really wants a real troublemaker into their group. And I think I think Orban, again, overplayed his his diplomacy. He also has an impact in one even more radical fringes of the of the political electorate, but talking altogether, it doesn’t, it’s not more than 20% of the of the mandates in the European Parliament and patriots for Europe have practically been excluded by the European mainstream, and they will have zero institutional influence in the European Parliament. To exaggerate a bit. So in short, I think orban’s vision is not the mainstream vision in the European Union. And honestly, a bit of, I think also the US press and European press sometimes gives too much credit to Orban in the sense that, how is his impact in the European scene? Of course, he has a big impact in the on the US outright, which is definitely, definitely something important. But in Europe, I think increasingly in the mainstream, he’s a counter indicative, and not an indicative of where the where the mainstream lies and and I think it’s also quite talkative that he he turned to this troll diplomacy. So if you are in a in a winning position, you don’t have to troll anyone. You just can use your power. But he just can’t he, he does not have too much friends in in European decision making and and the last last sentence that, of course, what he would like to achieve is not an influence in the European Parliament. Honestly, the European Parliament, even if, if it’s stronger than before, it’s still not the most important decision making body of the European Union, the most important decision making body is, sorry, I don’t, don’t know what I said. The European Parliament, the European Council, though, is very important, and he wants to form a blocking minority of like minded groups. He wanted to put Slovakia on the blocking side. He could he not achieve that so far, but there will be elections in Austria soon where his hope that the Freedom Party, the far right party, will come to power and and if it becomes a majority coalition partner, which is far from being true at the moment, or or Sure, then Austria can join the Davis Group, blocking minorities in the European Council. And also there will be elections next year in Czech Republic, when Andre Babish, he sits in the same group as Orban, the Patriots for Europe group. Can can also join this club in Netherlands. We have a government in Netherlands that is supported by the Freedom Party, so slowly, his pointer group can have more executive power in the member states level, and though have bigger influence through the European Council. But I think it’s it’s we cannot tell at the moment if these plans are successful, because the usual experience is that when far right parties become governmental parties, they are much more moderate than than from opposition. And in that respect, I think orbans Fidesz is more the exception than the rule.

Sam Greene
Thank you very much for that very good to see some questions coming in, and I’m going to go first to Andrew Gray from Reuters, if you want to unmute yourself to ask your question.

Andrew Gray
Yeah, thank you, sorry for the slight delay there. Yeah. I just wanted to follow up on the motivation question, which you’ve all touched on, to an extent. You know, this is a question we get asked a lot as journalists, from our editors. You know, why is or. One doing this and and to what extent you’ve obviously mentioned the patrol diplomacy, the idea of wanting to play the middleman, play a big role in the world stage. But is there any evidence in your view, that in some ways, he’s acting for others, that, in other words, you know, there was this question as to how much actually he’s doing Putin’s bidding, in particularly inside the EU when it comes to sanctions and other issues, or perhaps also Trump’s bidding, given his recent visit there. So I just wonder if any of you could comment on what you see as the motivations behind this that may involve external factors. You know how much external actors are playing a role in what he’s doing here? Thank you.

Sam Greene
But also now, does we have a question coming in from Federica Fubini from Korea, who asked, I think, a related question that, do you just the panel, have any inkling as to what extent the Patriots group, you know, inspired supported behind the scenes by Trump and and his circle, right? So another question about, essentially, who’s, you know, whose motivations are, are at work here? Don’t know who wants to tackle that. Peter, I might kick that to you in the first instance.

Péter Krekó
Okay, we’ll be brief. I think Tomas has probably more wisdom on this question than I do. And also Maria, so I, I think that that, yeah, this is the billion dollar question. And honestly, we as analysts, or me at least, are also struggling to give a definite response to that. What we can see for sure is that while Orban is clearly not stupid what he does right now with Russia and China, it totally alienates him from the European mainstream and from the NATO mainstream. So it has a price, and he feels it. He sees this, still he is doing that. So logically, it’s hard to assume that, that he does not receive something in turn. And we have some, also hard, more harder evidence on that how the business circles very, very close to the Prime Minister are benefiting from projects like the Budapest badgrid railway line that, for some reason, was made confidential for more than a decade. But it’s, it’s what we know is that one of the subcontractors of the project is, is a close friend, let’s say, of Viktor Orban. Also the VC links at the Russian nuclear power plant extension project in Budapest that the Budapest was very reluctant to give up, despite the fact that other EU members after the invasion gave up their Rosatom projects. There are also some business things there. And, and from previous infrastructure project, we could also see these things. So of course, there are strings attached. And, and Russia is using the classical tool of money traps here as everywhere else. But I think it’s not, it not describes the whole story, because I think Orban first finally believes that Russia will win the war. And I think this is a real commitment on the governmental side, real belief. Second here, on the longer term, he thinks that the West is over. He thinks that European Union and NATO is is more the, you know, projects of yesterday than of tomorrow. And if you want to bet on tomorrow’s word, he thinks that it’s already a China led bird. So he, if you think strategically, and he does not think he will lose the power in in the next elections, then you have to turn to Russia and China. And the very brief response to federico’s question, yes, I think Trump’s Trump is definitely regarded to be a role model. And yeah, we can see some things between the far right and and and and and that and the Maga infrastructure in in the United States. But what, what we can also see is that, with the Patriots Europe forming the institutional influence of Russia and China, is becoming more obvious. What we could see in a report by political capital is that the support towards the Russia and China are much, much stronger on the far right, far right and the far left of the spectrum of of the European Parliament. And we need a Patriots for you of receiving enormous amount of EU funds, they will use it to channel Russian and Chinese influence into into European Parliament. So I think it’s a serious issue. I will link a research that we have done in the in this topic, in in the in the chat.

Sam Greene
Thanks. Maria Tosh, do you want to come in on any of that? Tom, you looking a little skeptical, Thomas, on some of the issues on, on China? Maybe.

Tamás Matura
Yeah. Well, thank you for the question. Science says that countries with similar regimes tend to pursue similar foreign policy independent of each other. So what I mean by that that correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causality. Here that the very fact that Victor Urban’s foreign policy Austin cbla supports Russian or Chinese interest, I think that’s a side effect. That that’s something that comes with the foreign policy of Mr. Orban that predominantly supports his own regime survival. So I think if we want to really understand and analyze Hungarian foreign policy, the underlying question is always, how does this and that foreign policy action helps the Hungarian regime and Mr. Orban’s government to survive. And if we look at, you know, just it has the hypothesis, if we look at the recent actions of Mr. Orban with a V Russia, with a V China, what we see over there that, yes, these actions, either on purpose or not on purpose, help the Chinese or the Russians to a certain extent, but always help Mr. Orban as well. So Peter, maybe you can, you can prove me wrong. But can we? Can we really mention any occasions where Mr. Orban came back from Beijing or from Moscow and had to push through a decision that was not favorable to his own regime? Peter mentioned Budapest back with railway lines, seems to serve Chinese interest, yeah, but at the same time, it’s putting a lot of money into the pockets of acolytes of the government. Same with pox nuclear power plants, same with most of these developments. So I think it’s just a coincidence, not necessarily an unpleasant one, from the point of view of Mr. Orban. But I don’t I’m not sure that there is any kind of proof or evidence of causality here

Sam Greene
on that. I will come to Maria in a second. But just directly following up on that, there’s a question from RAF kasser at the Associated Press on this question of alienation, noting that Orban has used this tactic of pushing against EU rules to his advantage for a very long time now, and in ways as you were describing, that always seemed to redound to his interest. Is there any reason to believe that he is now overstepping a line, or is this simply a tried and true tactic from

Tamás Matura
there is absolutely a reason for that, but I think it has happened a while ago when EU money stopped flowing to Hungary. So I think that was the unwanted and undesired result of his foreign policy. I cannot really imagine that he wanted that to happen. So probably that was, that was something that that they do regret, but now it’s a sunken cost. So as far as I know, the government thinks that EU money will not continue flowing into Hungary, at least not in the foreseeable future. So now they are trying in a very opportunistic way. Now they are trying to make the most out of it, of this current situation. And you know, if you, if you have this kind of idea that, okay, EU money is gone and gone for good, then, okay, let’s go to Moscow. Let’s go to Beijing. Let’s go to wherever I want. Because you, you know, that was probably one of the last shackles, the last chains on the on the hands of Mr. Orban, and and now it’s gone. So he’s kind of a lose, how you call that cannon, or, you know, on a ship going that way, or in another way.

Péter Krekó
It just one sentence on that. I think we there was another unintended consequence of of orbans. I mean, outlier is back to 2021 when he was expelled from the European People’s Party, and what Tomas said, losing the funds is partially a consequence of that. So he left the most mainstream European group in the European Parliament because he had to, because he was here again putting domestic political interests first and behind foreign policy interest and put the Jean Claude Juncker, who was the European Commission leader by the European People’s Party. So he’s the boss, let’s say, of his, his his camp. He put it on a, on a on a billboard, in a in a in a smear Billboard with, with George Soros, Alex Soros and and painting them as, as you know, the evil guys. And it really backfired. And I think since then, Orban is becoming more and I mean a bit losing reality, I think, with the with the EU, with EU processes, and even if he’s the guy who is the for the longest time serving as a member of the European Council. I think he just can’t predict that well anymore, what is happening within the European Union and the regime increasingly closes itself in wishful thinking. For example, Orban really deeply believed that Ursa von der Leyen won’t be an ex commission president, and again, she he picked her as as an evil figure in the in the European parliamentary election campaign, and it again, backfires right now, and USA von der Leyen, not for a surprise for many have become, again the or continuing for mandate as the President of the European Commission.

Sam Greene
Thanks, Maria. Do you want to come in on any of this?

Marija Golubeva
I do. Agree that at the moment, I don’t think we have any positive proofs that what Orban is doing is done directly on instructions from any of his bigger, more powerful allies, whether in Russia or the US, but I think there is a very important element of of this authoritarian learning which is happening across countries and even across forms of regimes. I mean, we have more democratic countries, relatively more democratic countries like Hungary, and less democratic countries like Russia, or you name it, or China. And there is a mutual learning happening all the time. Many political scientists have pointed at that. So taking the page out of Putin’s book, for example, adopting a foreign agents law in Hungary, or taking a page from Trump’s book and doing something the way Trump has done before is does not necessarily in any way indicate that Orban is doing it at the bidding of these figures. But I think we should again look at what is the proportion of European leaders or European governments that are ready to let him run away with it. At the moment, despite all that Peter has pointed out with the future possibilities in Austria, Czech Republic, etc, it’s still rather a minority. And I don’t think, for example, we can put the Netherlands in that camp. There are serious differences there. So I would, I would be still skeptical that Orban can run away with it at the moment without any checks on his way. Because, for example, let’s see what happens in the European Parliament with his nominated European Commissioner. Very likely a fiasco. He does have a plan B, apparently, but we will see that there will be other repercussions. So I think that at the moment, he’s taking very big risks, and perhaps his sense of brinkmanship does not really let him see all the risks that he’s taking.

Sam Greene
Thank you for that. Same with you for a moment, Maria, Maria, we also have another question, Federico about business dealings with Lugo, which you mentioned in one of your earlier comments, and just wondering if you would, you know, expand on that, and does that signal, you know, some degree of endorsement, if not collusion, with with what you know Hungary is up to on a foreign policy front?

Marija Golubeva
Well, again, this is something, this is something that is happening on the verge of overstepping very serious restrictions, but not exactly trying not to overstep them formally. So what Hungary is now urging Ukraine to do is to sell the the oil in the pipes that is coming from Russia’s Luke oil to Hungary before it crosses the border. So in a way to actually to see it as Hungarian oil, to rebrand it as Hungarian oil, which is already belonging to Hungary and is now flowing through the through the pipes to to Hungary. So not to take it as Russian oil. I think again, this is a sort of solution that would raise many eyebrows, not just, not just among experts, but I think also among or lawyers, but also among politicians. So we shall see how that plays out. I don’t think Ukraine has that many reasons to give in, but we’ll see. But it’s very important that many steps like that will not be possible. At some point there will be there will be others in Europe not happy with that kind of thoughts.

Sam Greene
Okay, please do keep your questions coming in the chat, or again, use the raised hand function here in in the meeting itself. But Maria, again, if I can stick with you a little bit, you mentioned, you know, earlier, both the procedural aspect of EU foreign policy making and decision making. You also mentioned that this is really, you know, the solution to this is less about Budapest and more about other member states. Do you think that orban’s approach to the EU, to Russia, to China, to the war, to Luka oil, to all of this, and to the ways in which he weaponized foreign policy for domestic political purposes, isn’t enough to force reform of the EU’s foreign policy processes.

Marija Golubeva
Well, per se, I think nothing Mr. Orban does can be a decisive factor for a reform to happen. What has to happen is coalition of interests among other European governments deciding that in the end, they benefit more from giving up some of their some of their gains from having the requirement for unanimity in decision making, that they can gain more by actually giving that up and agreeing to qualified majority vote, or at least constructive abstention, or whatever they agree on to have some form of non unanimous decision making becoming a regular thing in the Council on Foreign policy and security. To issues. So in other words, when they perceive the security risks and foreign policy risks as so high for the European project as such, and they see themselves as mainly benefiting from a united Europe and losing a lot if that collapses. And that depends on two factors, not just their pragmatism, but also their sense of reality. Because I think sometimes governments may tend to overlook that that moment has already come. So we’ll see in the next year or two, whether there will be enough governments, apart from big countries, that make many initiatives in European policies, for example, outside the list of foreign ministers who have a year ago, about a year ago, published a letter saying that we should be using qualified majority voting de facto more often in European foreign policy, and you can just have a look at those countries the list and see which countries are not in that list. And there are many, and that gives you kind of an indication of which countries to look at which of them will start changing their positions, if they do, if they start changing their positions on this, this is a hopeful sign that the reform might take place, and Europe might become stronger as a result.

Sam Greene
Thanks Tomas, how much leverage does Hungary have to pursue the relationship that you were describing, that it wants with with China and with Russia. For that matter, if Brussels is opposed directly, not much so.

Tamás Matura
So I have already mentioned before, I think that smooth economic relationship is the most important, that that concerns Hungary the most between the EU and China, given the immense amount of investment and the subsequent trade between Hungary and China, and at least according to the foreign policy and economic experts of the government, we desperately need the flow of Chinese investment into the country because, practically because of lack of EU funding coming into the country. So but the problem is that the current legal framework, including anti subsidy proceedings and anti dumping proceedings, do not work with decision making process that is based on veto power, so Hungary alone cannot really stop any kind of anti subsidy or anti dumping measures to be introduced Vivi China. So the key here, I think, is Germany, there is a very clear Hungarian intention from the side of the government to make German industrial groups, including large automotive companies, present in Hungary to be heavily invested into the presence of Chinese companies, first of all, the battery makers. When the first major battery related investment in Hungary was announced, like two years ago, the C, A, T, L investment, which is by far the largest one. At the same time, there were a lot of gossips and rumors that actually the German automakers had played a pivotal role in convincing the Chinese settling down in Hungary. So I think that this is, this is the trick, what Mr. Robin would like to pull, not for the first time, a lot of a lot of German presence in Hungary has been playing a big role in his influence in the EU because if he makes Germans interested in the success of Hungarian economics and the Hungarian economy, then Berlin could act accordingly. And I think this is the thing we have to we have to pay attention right now whether Berlin will make up his its mind or not about how to handle the Chinese EV producers, if the Germans eventually decide that Chinese EV producers are too big of a headache, and therefore they will push the EU towards some kind of anti subsidy proceedings. Then Hungary, I don’t think that Hungary can stop that from happening.

Sam Greene
Thanks for another question coming in from again, RAF at the Associated Press this week, the gimlich, right? So the rotating six monthly EU foreign policy Summit, as we’ve already mentioned, has been withdrawn from from Budapest. Is this a symbolic gesture, or should we see this as a genuinely significant tipping point in terms of how the EU deals with people like Orban.

Péter Krekó
I would just very briefly say that I think what we definitely see that the EU’s behavior towards hunger is changing, and what we can see these days the coordinated actions against the Hungarian government and the rather, I would not say that in total unity, because there are differences, for example, between the German approach and the French approach and so on. But. Of the measures, and also, I mean freezing the EU funds that that happened regarding Hungary. I mean, let’s say, five years ago, it was regarded to be totally impossible. So I think the air is really freezing around Hungary, and Hungary is facing more institutional responses than before, and it just finally comes to the conclusion that it’s mostly the question of political will, if, if E leaders think that they have to reduce the negative impact of of Hungary within the European Union. And I think they have, they have a reason to be a bit afraid. First of all, Hungary is a member of the European Council that in many of the decisions, makes the decisions anonymously, which means that Hungary is needed for the vote, for example, the budget. But also, there is another thing, and it comes a bit to what Thomas said, and I would absolutely agree that what Orban does is usually serving the interests of Russia and China, but it’s it serves his own interests as well. Orban wants to Beacon the European Union from within, and not because Russia and China asks him to do and also, and when it comes to the policy towards European Union Russia and China has diverging interests. Because, yeah, as an important trade player, is more favored by China, for example, than the Russia. But but also, he wants to weaken it, because he feels that it’s restricting his political power. He feels that the European Union is a threat to him, both politically. If we take a look at the public opinion polls, the European Commission, after 14 years of Euro skeptic campaigns, or at least 10, European Commission is more popular in Hungary than the European the Hungarian government, European Parliament is more popular still in Hungary than the Hungarian parliament. So as a political actor, it wants to destroy the its image and credibility, but also it wants to be gone it’s from within, because it feels that the political values that the EU are representing are just diametrically opposed to the values that he he he, he represents and, and, and right now, if he feels that there are no money coming from the European Union beforehand, it was a lot of money with some strings attached. But if you have only the strings and not the money, it’s it’s a different game. But of course, it does not mean that Orban would like to leave the European Union, because he’s still pretty much aware of the fact that that he is valuable to a certain extent, Russia and China, because he’s a member of the EU and and the the and the free trade within the European Union is a huge asset that he does not want to get rid of. But in short, really the I think the EU member states and EU institutions are really changing the game and and the conflict between the EU and Hungary is not the same as we could see in the five years before the the balance have have toppled.

Sam Greene
Thanks. We have a question that’s also come in again from from Andrew at at Reuters, also on trade offs and diverging interests, right? So we’ve talked about, you know, or about affinity with, with Trump, his belief that Trump, you know, maybe the next President of the United States. We know that, that Trump is likely to pursue an adversarial relationship with, with China. Do we have any idea, first of all, how or whether Orban has had to justify his his own position on China in his meetings with with Trump and with Trump world. But also, you know, should we foresee a clash between Budapest and Washington when it comes to China policy if Trump ends up in the White House.

Tamás Matura
Well, if I may, I think the government has been very clear about that. A couple of months ago, there was a major interview with Balazs Orban, who is not related to the Prime Minister, but probably one of the one of the most important political figureheads in the government and and I think he very explicitly said in that that interview, that Mr. Trump is a businessman with whom we can negotiate, and we will negotiate our relationship with Him, with a V China, Russia, whatsoever, first second the in the American campaign, compared to, compared to the one that kind of catapulted Mr. Trump to the White House. China is not mentioned that much or that many times, so I don’t know whether you remember. You can still find it on YouTube when back in 2015 2016 Mr. Trump was speaking like China, China, China, China, all the time. It’s not that important, seemingly. Right now do. Victory. We’re not sure how, how hard he will go on China, or how hard he will be, how tough he will be about China. Right now, it might be a little bit different. So I think that from the perspective of the Hungarian government, that there are two options. Option number one, a democratic government stays in the White House. That is kind of a guarantee of strange relationship between Hungary and the United States. So let’s go and do whatever we can with with China. Option option B is that Donald Trump returns to the White House, and we will try to negotiate with him. So so I think even from the point of view of game theory, a very strong Hungarian Chinese relationship is the best Pareto optimal decision from the side of the Hungarian government.

Sam Greene
Thanks. That might be the first press briefing I’ve ever been in which we’ve talked about Pareto optimality. But point taken, and I think, you know, gives us a lot to think about. I wanted to stay though, Maria, if I might, on this question of relations with with the US Budapest relationship with Washington has been very difficult for the last three years. Right? The government has clearly decided to make this a partisan relationship. But unlike when it comes to Russia and China, Hungary has chosen not to use a relationship with the US as a wedge in Brussels. In other words, it doesn’t seem to be trying to change Europe’s stance vis a vis the United States. Is that simply a bridge too far, or is it something that that Orban is not interested in doing in your point of view?

Marija Golubeva
Well, I would find it hard to identify the need for him to do it, because, honestly, he has much more tangible benefits in playing of Hungary’s Hungary’s leverage in Europe against its interests in Russia, China, elsewhere, to use his position in the European Union to offer certain benefits to his potential negotiating partners outside of Europe and while the US is governed by the Democrats, he doesn’t see for himself, I think a potential negotiating partner there with whom he can leverage his European influence. So I think he’s simply waiting all the time, hoping that, hoping that President Trump will be president.

Sam Greene
Again, point taken, make one last call for questions from the floor. If there are any concluding remarks or ideas that our panelists didn’t get a chance to make in the conversation thus far, please do feel free to jump in.

Péter Krekó
I would just say one, one short point on, on, on the relationship between the Hungarian government and Trump totally in agreement with Marshall and Mario. Yeah, I think it’s not. It will not be. Yeah, it’s, it’s not very easy to predict what is what could happen with a Trump presidency. But, I mean, it’s hard to imagine that it would be highly favorable for Orban, if we just take a look at the trade relationship, if Trump promises at least a bit of or implements a bit of his promises on cutting trade ties with Europe and and reducing the car import from Europe to the United States, it could hurt the central eastern European region, where car manufacturing is a very important driver of of economic growth. It can hurt the region pretty much if or if Trump make takes seriously his promises, on on sanctions, on European companies that are dealing with China. It can hurt Hungary again, pretty much. If Trump takes it seriously to spend much less on NATO, then I think it can hurt the whole EU a lot, because every one has to spend more on on, on the defense. So I don’t think that this rosy relationship that that it seems in the media, it’s depicting a reality. I think there are at least as much converging interest than diverging interests of of the Maga Republicans and Victor Orban.

Sam Greene
Thanks. One last question that’s just coming from RAF again at the Associated Press, Maria, I might kick this to you first, but also anybody who else wants to, anybody else who wants to to address it, RAF has, to what extent can Orban run around as he’s doing, because Macron and Schultz are in such weak positions. I’m assuming that means politically.

Marija Golubeva
Well, to put it briefly. I would say yes, definitely the weakness of both Germany and France politically, the weakness of the leadership, the current weakness, is very much one of the reasons why there is so much space for Orban to fill with his policies. But I do think that even if we had stronger leadership, both in Paris and in Berlin, we would not necessarily have immediately a much more modest situation with with orban’s ambitions, because he does have, he does have a certain leverage, which he uses with both China and Russia and possibly also with Americans.

Sam Greene
Okay, I think we’ll draw it to a close there. Please do stay in touch again. We will. Sarah, my colleague, Sarah biopsy will join us in a second just to walk us through the logistics. If you would like to get back in touch with any of our panelists or any other experts at secret to talk about these issues or others, please do contact Sarah and our team. Sarah, over to you.

Sarah Krajewski
Thanks so much. Sam, thanks everyone for joining today, your great questions, and as always, our panelists for their for their insight, a recording and a rough auto generated transcript will be sent today following the briefing. A clean transcript will be available on our website later on. If you have any other questions or wish to speak with any of our experts, reach out to me at press@cepa.org or just on the chain that you have from one of the email that I’ve sent you. So yeah, thank you all, and have a great rest of your day.

Sam Greene
Thank you Sarah. Thank you Peter, Tamas, and Maria.