Opinion

Viktor Orban is a clown and a buffoon, but don’t underestimate his power to do damage to the EU

Orban can obfuscate the stark limits of his presidency role on foreign policy and embarrass the EU as he prances around the world meeting with Putin and Trump, pretending to be playing some European role in relation to the Ukraine war

The prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, arriving to attend a European Political Community summit at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England, on July 18th, 2024. Photograph: Jacob King/PA Wire
Bobby McDonagh
Wed Jul 31 2024 - 06:00

The European Commission has sensibly decided to send a clear message of disapproval to Hungary’s six-month EU presidency, which started this month, by announcing that EU commissioners will not attend any of the informal ministerial meetings organised by Budapest, and by cancelling its traditional meeting with the incoming Hungarian presidency. Most member states fully share the commission’s concerns and are likely to follow suit as regards attendance of informal meetings at ministerial level.

The prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, is increasingly a buffoon on the international stage and in clear breach of his legal duty under the EU treaties of “loyal co-operation” with Hungary’s European partners. He brings shame and ridicule on his country. He is, nevertheless, capable of doing significant damage. His most egregious recent political prank was to pose as a European mediator in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. As regards both procedure and substance, this was preposterous. Procedurally, Orban is way out of line. The rotating EU presidency allows each member state its turn as one of several actors at the heart of the complex EU machinery. The order of presidencies is decided many years in advance; in Hungary’s case long before the scale of Orban’s infantile troublemaking became apparent.

Over the years the role of the rotating presidency has been increasingly circumscribed. The EU’s growing complexity has required other European institutions and office holders to play greater roles to ensure the necessary continuity. A six-month presidency can still exercise considerable influence if it takes forward Europe’s shared internal agenda with professionalism, good will and sensitivity. Ireland’s presidency in 2026 will undoubtedly do that, as it has on all previous occasions.

The EU’s first rogue presidency, namely that of Orban’s Hungary, can do no proactive damage to the union internally. It has no scope whatsoever to push policies that are at odds with the priorities and interests of its European partners. It can, however, constitute a limited spanner in the works by complicating or slowing down some decision-making at the margins, provided it is willing to take the opprobrium and further long-term damage to Hungary’s interests that such obstructiveness would inevitably bring.

READ MORE

On the world stage, in contrast, Orban can do some damage. Ironically, the rotating presidency has precisely zero role in the external representation of the union. Orban’s foreign minister doesn’t chair the Foreign Affairs Council. It is the EU High Representative and presidents of the European Council and Commission that articulate and represent internationally the EU’s external policies as shaped by all the member states acting collectively.

However, Orban can obfuscate the stark limits of his presidency role on foreign policy and seek to misrepresent and embarrass the EU, as he has been doing by prancing around the world meeting with Putin and Trump, pretending to be playing some European role in relation to the Ukraine war.

Orban’s scope for mischief-making is amplified because his clowning suits the playbook of the malevolent actors whom he considers his soul mates and who will cheerfully encourage the pantomime. His defence that he is playacting in a national rather than a European capacity is entirely phoney and unconvincing. He obviously timed the choreography of his visits to coincide with the outset of Hungary’s EU presidency. Moreover, he knows perfectly well how his antics will be perceived, and how they will be misrepresented, by Europe’s enemies.

On the substance also, Orban’s global gallivanting is equally specious. The idea that someone so obviously advancing Putin’s agenda can be an honest broker for any Ukraine/Russia peace process is laughable. His disingenuous refrain is that he stands for peace. He contrasts this stance with other European counties whom he accuses of promoting war. This is unmitigated claptrap. Like all those, in Ireland and elsewhere, who support Putin’s “peace” agenda – Ukraine to cede territory, no Nato-like security guarantee for Kyiv, no punishment for war crimes – Orban promotes the obvious fallacy that rewarding a war of aggression, including the targeting of hospitals and civilian infrastructure, is somehow to support peace. Rewarding the invasion simply encourages more war, the very converse of promoting peace.

Because the European Union is based on treaties and the law it is not easy for it to deal with Orban. In contrast to Hungary – and even more so compared to Trump, Putin and Orban’s other populist buddies – the rule of law is sacrosanct for Europe. It has no alternative to dealing with Orban according to its own legislation and procedures, which were not created with a renegade leader in mind.

The EU will find ways, as it has over recent years, of maintaining a strong line on Ukraine despite Orban’s posturing. It will keep under active review all legal and budgetary options for dealing with him. It will work around Hungary’s presidency, treating it with whatever level of contempt its ongoing behaviour deserves. Europe will come out of Hungary’s six-month presidency as strong and resolute as before it started. And Orban will come out of it further diminished, having squandered a valuable opportunity for Hungary to exercise some influence.

The rotating EU presidency is no longer the European ringmaster that it was many decades ago. However, if Orban is auditioning for a role in the circus the job of clown is obviously a good fit.

Bobby McDonagh is a former ambassador to London, Rome and Brussels