Viktor Orban, an opponent of Brussels, holds the presidency of the European Union

After months of blaming the European Union for all its problems, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban takes over its rotating presidency on Monday, more isolated than ever over his stance on the war in Ukraine.

The leader of Europe’s longest-serving coalition has recently toughened his rhetoric against the “technocratic elite in Brussels”, saying he is “burning his brains out about how to hurt them”.

“It is as if the defendant on trial suddenly sits in the prosecutor’s seat,” sums up Paul LaDuff, author of a book about Viktor Orbán, calling the situation “absolutely ridiculous.”

“Both sides are playing the game that the institutions want. Fortunately, the game is not of decisive importance,” he told AFP, calling for “not overestimating the importance” of this presidency.

According to him, Budapest will continue to block major cases and “try to loosen the reins” on the rule of law to get its money back.

Because there are many disputes and billions of euros in funds have been frozen due to concerns about corruption and repeated blows to democracy in this central European country.

On geopolitical issues too, the disagreement is complete.

In contrast to his partners, Orbán supports former US President Donald Trump, from whom he has borrowed the slogan for the next six months – “Make Europe Great Again.”

He is close to Chinese leader Xi Jinping while also cultivating ties with the Kremlin and refusing to support Kiev militarily.

However, he was a young liberal when he rose to fame at the age of 26, when he challenged the communist regime in Budapest with a fiery pro-freedom speech in June 1989, during a tribute to the victims of the 1956 uprising against the Red Army.

He was one of the founders of the Alliance of Young Democrats (Fidesz) one year ago, and became a symbol of Hungary’s ambition to break free from totalitarianism and adopt Western values.

But today, Viktor Orban condemns the West’s “retreat” in the face of the “gay lobby” and the influx of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, whom he often describes as potential “terrorists.”

This is the culmination of a long march towards the extreme right.

Prime Minister in 1998 at the age of just 35, he was forced from power four years later, after being defeated at the ballot box by the Socialists. When he returned to government in 2010, he decided to consolidate his power so as not to suffer humiliation again.

Comfortably re-elected in every parliamentary election since then, the father of five claims to be running an “illiberal democracy”.

“Over the past 14 years, Orban has subscribed to Putin’s ideology of a West in total chaos” and reined in opposition forces, Stefano Bottoni, an Italian-Hungarian historian at the University of Florence, told AFP.

He says that in light of this development we must “understand his position” on the Russian attack on Ukraine. If one listens to the 61-year-old leader, it is not Moscow, but NATO and the European Union, that have caused a “global conflagration.”

This is a position that increasingly angers his allies. The expert estimates that he “does not realize at what point this war becomes toxic”, because “for many countries, the war in Ukraine is the most important issue at the moment for redefining Europe”.

Even within the far right, Bottone adds, this creates a “strategic impasse.” He has promised to “occupy Brussels” and to be “an organizing factor. Ultimately, he falls into the third category.”

After years of disagreement with its conservative partners in the European People’s Party in the European Parliament, Fidesz is struggling to find a new political group.

Having become weak internationally, it also faces the challenge of the emergence of a new challenger, conservative Peter Maynard, a pure product of the Orban regime-turned-dissident.

But it doesn’t matter, says Andrea Pitto, an analyst at the Central European University, the bad news “never reaches the ears of his voters,” who are inundated with propaganda, she says.

Viktor Orban, a football fan and scion of a poor family, has only one goal, according to the researcher: “to maintain control, together with his close circle of oligarchs,” over the country.

Source: Accuracy