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1 of 3 Photo: Andrew Medichini/AP/TT
– Come back, Mr. President, make America great again and give us peace!
The prayer to Donald Trump comes from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at a large meeting of conservatives in Budapest.
When the US holds its next presidential election in November 2024, Hungary will hold the presidency of the EU Council of Ministers. And Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is already keeping his fingers crossed for who he will be able to congratulate after the election.
– If President Trump were president now, there would be no war affecting Ukraine and Europe today, Orbán said in his opening speech on Thursday to the participants of the conservative American CPAC conference.
CPAC – Conservative Political Action Conference – also gathered last year in Budapest. In addition, a few months later Orbán made a return visit to a CPAC meeting in Texas.
Learn from Hungary?
The love between the increasingly right-wing conservative Orbán and the arch-conservatives in the US seems to be mutual.
– If Prime Minister Orbán would ever want to run, I think he could be elected governor of Texas, said CPAC leader Matt Schlapp in his response to the Prime Minister.
He also said that CPAC has learned from Hungary in particular when it comes to approving which journalists will be allowed to cover their conferences in the future.
– We decided to do it “the Hungarian way” and decide for ourselves who are fair journalists and who are not, Schlapp said in his speech, which was broadcast, among other things, on the Hungarian news channel Hir TV.
Pressed economy
For Orbán and the Hungarian government, the CPAC meeting is especially important to show citizens that they still have friends around the world. The previously close cooperation with the neighboring countries of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland has seriously deteriorated in the past year, mainly due to Hungary’s much more benevolent view of Russia in the war in Ukraine.
The Hungarian economy is also under heavy pressure from record high inflation figures.
At the same time, the EU Commission is withholding multi-billion sums in various forms of EU support following criticism of, among other things, inadequate anti-corruption work and weak independence within the judiciary.
“Right direction”
As recently as Wednesday, the Hungarian parliament voted through a series of new laws to meet EU requirements.
There won’t be any money from Brussels for a long time anyway.
– It is a step in the right direction, but the adoption itself will not be enough. We also have to make an assessment of how they (the measures) are implemented, said an EU source at a press briefing on Thursday – and at the same time stated that the new laws only cover four of the 27 “milestones” that the EU set up for the payment.
Facts
Viktor Orbán
Viktor Orbán, born in 1963, has been Hungary’s prime minister since May 2010 when his conservative Fidesz party won over 50 percent of the vote. He also led the country for the first time as prime minister in 1998–2002.
Orbán has been widely criticized abroad for increased government control over mass media, universities and courts, vicious tone against migrants and LGBTQ people and close relations with authoritarian regimes in Russia and China.
Several years of economic growth have simultaneously made him popular at home, where many also see him as a strong force against the EU leadership, which in Hungary is often portrayed as a threat to self-determination and Hungarian values.
Orbán has been married to Anikó (née Lévai) since 1986 and has daughters Ráhel, Sára, Róza and Flóra and son Gáspár.
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