How Hungary’s Prime Minister Became the Spoiler of the NATO Summit

If there was a spoiler at this week’s carefully organized NATO summit, then it was Viktor Orbán, the conservative Hungarian prime minister who infuriated his NATO allies by meeting with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping on his way to Washington, in what he called a “peace mission”.

Now, on Thursday, the Hungarian prime minister plans to fly to Mar-a-Lago to meet with donald trump, a source close to Orbán told the Guardian, as he seeks to negotiate a peace deal without consulting other EU nations or the Biden administration. On the other hand, he effectively avoided Joe Biden at this week’s NATO summit and did not request a bilateral meeting with the US president, according to three sources familiar with the summit preparations.

The Hungarian prime minister has been discreetly seeking to negotiate a solution to the war in Ukraine, with a view to Trump’s re-election. Trump’s lead in presidential polls was bolstered by Biden’s clumsy debate performance and questions about his mental acuity and age.

Orbán, who also met with Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kiev earlier this month, has sought for Ukraine and Russia to sit down for direct negotiations, talks that Zelenskiy has ruled out in the past.

Bloomberg News reported late Thursday that Ukraine was considering new peace talks that would include meetings with Russian officials, as well as a possible meeting between Trump and Orbán in Mar-a-lago, where the two would discuss recent discussions of Orbán with Putin and Zelenskiy. .

And Orbán could use Hungary’s current control over the presidency of the European Council claim it is negotiating on behalf of other EU countries, according to insiders in Budapest, Brussels and both campaigns in Washington, including with potential president-elect Trump.

Related: “Making Europe Great Again”: Hungary sets the stage for its EU presidency

Orbán shared only a brief handshake with the US president on stage Wednesday, a day after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who he said leads “the only country that has successfully acted as a mediator between conflicting parties in the Russian-Ukrainian war”. ”.

Observers did not expect Biden to hold a bilateral meeting with Orbán.

“Biden may not be interested in elevating Orbán and rewarding him after his performance in Moscow and Beijing,” said Daniel Hegedüs, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund thinktank. “And for Orbán, who plays the long game, seeking a meeting with Trump is certainly the more strategic choice than any meeting with Biden.”

“The real question of the trip is whether Trump will grant Orbán an audience and whether [Orbán] will organize the meeting in some way related to Hungary’s current presidency of the EU Council,” he said.

A person familiar with Trump’s plans said the former president was scheduled to stay in Florida until Friday, when he would then fly to Philadelphia for a rally, and that there was “no time, even hypothetically,” to meet with Orbán. after. That left Thursday as the only day Orbán could fly to meet the Republican candidate.

Trump would also be wary of Orbán’s attempt to position himself as a powerful mediator in Europe, the source said. Bloomberg News reported that Trump did not ask Orbán to negotiate the peace deal for him.

Orbán has not had an official meeting with Biden in the last four years, but met with Trump in March this year at his beachfront complex in Mar-a-Lago. Orbán has supported him several times over the last eight years and express supportcalling him a “man of honor” after Trump was found guilty of 34 charges in a criminal trial.

During a press conference in Budapest on Monday, Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, was asked whether Trump and Orbán would meet during his visit to the US. “It’s worth meeting people interested in peace,” he replied.

His team members have made clear their support for Trump in the upcoming election. In Washington, its political director, Balázs Orbán, took the stage at the right-wing National Conservatism conference, while its foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, told Reuters: “We see an opportunity for peace if President Trump wins. We see an opportunity for good Hungary-US relations if President Trump is winning.”

“I think there must be a very strong external impact to make them at least negotiate,” Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Reuters on Wednesday. “Who has a chance of that next period? That will only be President Trump if he is elected.”

Orbán’s visit to Moscow – only the second by a European leader since Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 – caused a furor in both NATO and the EU, both of which Hungary is a member state. In a letter to Charles Michel of the European Council, seen by the Guardian, Orbán expressed a broadly pro-Russian view of the conflict, saying: “Time is not on the side of Ukraine, but on the side of Russian forces.”

He also argued against the strategic isolation of Russia that has been sought by most Western nations. “The possibility of peace is diminished by the fact that diplomatic channels are blocked and there is no direct dialogue between the parties who have a leading role to play in creating the conditions for peace,” he wrote, arguing against Russia’s isolation .

“The political leadership provided by the United States is limited, given the ongoing election campaign… therefore, we cannot expect such a proposal to come from the US in the coming months,” he wrote.

“I will continue my talks aimed at clarifying opportunities for peace next week,” he added without clarification.

Hungary was among a small group of countries that opposed an annual funding commitment proposed by Jens Stoltenberg and objected to the inclusion in NATO’s final communique that Ukraine’s membership of the NATO military alliance would be “irreversible.” In May, Hungary blocked for almost a year a €6.6 billion ($7.1 billion) aid package for Ukraine that was being prepared by EU countries as part of the European Peace Mechanism. (EPF).

Hungary was sharply reprimanded at a meeting of senior EU diplomats on Wednesday, during a discussion about Orbán’s “peace missions” put on the agenda by Poland, one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies.

EU ambassadors from 25 member states – all except Hungary and its close ally Slovakia – condemned Orbán’s recent visits to Moscow, Beijing and Azerbaijan, where he attended a meeting of the Organization of Turkic States.

Some accused Budapest of being disrespectful and violating EU treaties; others accused Budapest of seeking to “instrumentalize” its presidency.

“It took nine days to [the] HU Presidency will lose any trace of trust they still have,” said an EU diplomat. “From him [Orbán’s] the actions are not in the service of the EU or peace. They play into the hands of Putin and his war project. [The] Hungarian slogan for “Make Europe Great Again”‘ is more about making Russia great again at this stage.”

A second EU diplomat said: “It was quite unanimous the way the 25 member states took the floor and strongly criticized Hungary.” The Guardian understands that no EU ambassador at this meeting mentioned removing Hungary’s presidency, although the idea was discussed more privately before Budapest’s six-month term.

Although academics have argued that the EU could strip Hungary of its presidency, EU diplomats are divided on the legality of the move and are wary of setting a precedent. Authorities are discussing other ways of registering discontent, such as sending officials to ministerial meetings, although the EU’s top diplomat said it was “too early for details”.

Additional reports by Hugo Lowell and Lisa O’Carroll