Emmanuel Macron will go to Budapest on Monday. This is the last stop on his tour of the 27 countries before assuming the presidency of the European Union. During this trip to Hungary, the first for the Head of State, he will meet a political adversary, but also a European partner, such as Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
On Monday, December 13, Emmanuel Macron will meet in Budapest with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, his adversary in the European Union in the field of values, but a potential ally on issues such as investments, nuclear energy and defense European Union, all of them on the agenda of the French Presidency.
This trip, the first by a French head of state since 2007, takes place within the framework of a summit of the countries of the Visegrad group that make up Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
“We must work together for our Europe”
“He is a political adversary, but a European partner,” Emmanuel Macron stressed this Thursday, thus completing his tour of the other 26 EU capitals. “Whatever our political sensibilities, whatever our options, we must work together for our Europe,” said the French president.
“It is very clear that on the issue of the rule of law there will be disagreements, but I think that on sovereignty issues, on the issue of the growth model and on multiple issues, there may also be the ability to find useful compromises,” he added.
However, Viktor Orban has often been cited by Emmanuel Macron as the leader of a nationalist and sovereignist camp in the EU, opposing that of ‘progressive Europhiles’.
As Gulliver Cragg, France 24 correspondent in Eastern Europe describes it, the Hungarian Prime Minister is really “a problem for the European Union and has been for several years because of his lack of respect for the democratic values of the bloc, the separation of powers and their control over the entire state and media apparatus “.
“There are also many international institutions that no longer classify Hungary as a true democracy. It was the only EU country that was not invited to the recent Democracy Summit organized by the President of the United States, Joe Biden,” adds our journalist .
Violations of the rule of law and EU values
Along with Poland, Hungary has adopted several laws that have been challenged in Brussels, including a text that prohibits the representation of homosexuality to those under 18 years of age. And like Warsaw, it challenges the supremacy of European law over national law.
In response, the Commission has launched various proceedings against them for undermining the rule of law and EU values, in particular a “conditionality” mechanism for EU aid, which blocks the payment of recovery grants.
“If Emmanuel Macron wants to be the bearer of a strong Europe, Viktor Orban is really the antithesis of all that. What he would like is not to have to really respect the values of the bloc, but to continue receiving funds from it. There is another problem that arises. more and more when we talk about Hungary, which is corruption and the appropriation of European funds by friends and family of Viktor Orban, “says Gulliver Cragg.
But these issues “are not necessarily linked” to the agreements that can be reached on digital sovereignty, the reinforcement of European defense, a European investment budget or industrial alliances, argued the French Presidency.
The two leaders had already found common ground when Emmanuel Macron received Viktor Orban in October 2019, in particular on the protection of borders and the need for a European defense.
Meetings with the Hungarian opposition
The Elysee assures, however, that the French president will speak about the points of disagreement and that “he does not have the habit of dodging”, while the Hungarian LGBT + community has asked him to raise the issue during his meeting with Viktor Orban, in a open letter to the French magazine Têtu.
“There are many problems with Hungary and Emmanuel Macron intends to make this very clear. When he arrives in Budapest, he will first visit the grave of Agnes Heller, who was a very critical Hungarian philosopher of Viktor Orban. The President of the Republic also intends to meet with the Hungarian opposition, even if it’s here one day, “describes Gulliver Cragg.
He will meet with Gergely Karacsony, Mayor of Budapest, as well as other representatives of anti-Orthodox parties, including Peter Marki-Zay, the only opposition candidate who aspires to overthrow the Hungarian Prime Minister, in power since 2010, in the elections. parliamentarians in April 2022. This makes him the longest-serving EU leader since Angela Merkel left him.
“Mr Macron, the Hungary you are going to visit is indeed a country ruled by the extreme right,” said the mayor of a Budapest district, the sociologist Gabor Eross, denouncing “the widespread corruption, the anti-LGBT + campaign, electoral fraud, the oligarchy of the economy and the massive repression of civil society “.
Welcoming Emmanuel Macron, having recently rolled out the red carpet for Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, two French far-right figures running for president, “Viktor Orban can demonstrate his European importance” far beyond of the weight of his country of 9.8 million inhabitants, Eszter Petronella Soos, a Hungarian political scientist specializing in France, told AFP.
And at the bilateral level, “despite the differences between a liberal Emmanuel Macron and a conservative Viktor Orban, there are important points of cooperation, for example on energy policy between these two supporters of nuclear energy,” says Daniel Deak, pro-Orban analyst at the Hungarian Institute of the 21st Century.
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