As of today, 1 July, Hungary has taken over the EU's rotating presidency. However, diplomats are concerned because nationalist leader Viktor Orban, who has been in power since 2010, has frequently clashed with Brussels. What are the main points of contention?
Hungary has begun its six-month rotating chairmanship of the European Union. The presidency's role is to chair council meetings, set the agenda, establish a work program, and facilitate dialogue within the Council and with other EU institutions. However, Hungary, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban—the EU's longest-serving head of government—is often seen as the EU's enfant terrible.
Orban is the only EU leader who has maintained close ties with Moscow despite its invasion of Ukraine. As such, he is against aid for Kyiv.
Orban refused to send arms to Kyiv and has called for a ceasefire and peace negotiations, saying he alone in the EU is looking for peace. He also criticised sanctions against Russia and is opposed to Ukraine's EU ambitions, though he has stopped short of blocking accession talks.
Under a policy of "eastern opening", Orban has also sought close ties with China.
Indeed Budapest seems to revel in taking controversial stances in the EU, opening its presidency under the slogan "Make Europe Great Again", a nod to Orban's "good friend" former US president Donald Trump.
'Christian Europe'
A proponent of the "great replacement" narrative, which claims that there is a plot to supplant white Europeans with non-white immigrants, Orban rails against immigration and has heavily restricted the right to asylum, saying he wants to defend a "Christian Europe".
In 2015, after Orban had won a record fourth term in office, he was quick to put in place harsh restrictions on immigrants flooding into the EU as a result of the war in Syria, refusing onward travel, closing off the border with high fences of barbed wire, and running patrols of some 3,000 “border hunters” to join 10,000 police tasked with keeping refugees out of the country.
He then introduced a series of anti-immigration “pushback laws”, and refused an EU request to find homes for 1,294 refugees.
Today, he is still fighting against the EU's recent overhaul of its laws on handling asylum-seekers and migrants. In June, the EU's top court fined Hungary €200 million and imposed a daily €1 million penalty for failing to follow the bloc's asylum laws and illegally deporting migrants, a decision Budapest slammed as "unacceptable".
'Illiberal Democracy'
Since coming back to power, Orban has moved to transform his country into what he calls an "illiberal democracy," involving wide-ranging changes he has made include curbs on press freedom and judicial independence.
He has also clamped down on LGBTQ rights, with a law banning the promotion of homosexuality to minors drawing EU infringement proceedings.
Billions of euros in EU funds remain frozen over issues including LGBTQ rights, the treatment of asylum seekers, alleged corruption in public procurement and the independence of academics.
Most recently, Brussels also launched infringement proceedings against Hungary over the creation of what critics say is a Russian-style agency with investigative powers to curb foreign influence.
In 2018, the European Parliament voted to trigger an "Article 7" disciplinary procedure against Hungary, the "suspension clause," which could, in theory, result in Budapest being stripped of its right to vote in EU proceedings, while it tried to determine whether Budapest is undermining European legal standards and democratic values.
In 2022, the European Parliament declared that Hungary was no longer a "full democracy", but a "hybrid regime of electoral autocracy" in "serious breach" of EU democratic norms.
Rampant corruption
On top of that, according to Transparency International, Hungary is themost corrupt country within the EU, and ranks number 76 on a worldwide list of 180 states.
Hungary has also not joined the EU's independent European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), whose job it is to investigate and prosecute EU budget fraud.
Critics often cite corruption to illustrate Hungary's authoritarian drift, accusing Orban's family and allies of benefiting from EU funds.
Oligarchs Lorinc Meszaros, Orban's childhood friend, and Istvan Tiborcz, Orban's son-in-law, today control large sections of the economy.
With newswires)
