The Irish Times view on Hungary’s EU presidency: a bumpy six months lie ahead

Hungary’s choice of the Trumpian slogan, “Make Europe Great Again”, to represent its six-month presidency of the EU, suggests that it sees its leadership role as less the expected referee and manager of the EU’s agenda, and rather more as agenda-setting, leading from the front. Embarrassed and angry EU leaders are unlikely to follow.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, maverick and provocateur, opened this week’s start of the presidency with his first wartime trip to Ukraine, notionally a bilateral meeting between neighbours. In practice, however, it was an opportunity for the country which has done so much to obstruct aid to war-torn Ukraine to promote its own version, remarkably similar to Russian proposals, of a path to peace talks, starting with a ceasefire without any withdrawal of Russian forces.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has previously denounced the idea with the support of EU leaders. Talks would only be possible if Vladimir Putin withdrew his troops from the occupied territories of Ukraine, he said.

Orbán spoke of how the war deeply affects European security although he and Zelenskiy are only too well aware that the articulation of the EU’s foreign and security policy is a matter not for the presidency, but the union’s foreign policy chief and its council president. Orbán insisted unconvincingly, however, that “we are at Ukraine’s service during the Hungarian presidency.”

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Almost all the EU leaders except Orbán had visited Kyiv since Russia’s invasion in February 2022. He is also one of only two to have met Vladimir Putin in that time – and more than once.

Officials from the outgoing Belgian presidency have worked, largely successfully, to ensure that the new presidency agenda was cleared of sensitive files that Hungary could obstruct. These included opening accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova, billions in military aid for Ukraine, and another sanctions package against Russia. Orban has regularly opposed financial aid to Ukraine, and, in a rare gesture of compromise, left the room during a council meeting in December in order not to vote against a decision to open accession negotiations.

Budapest has insisted it is not in league with Russia and that its objections to accession talks relate to the long running sore of Kyiv’s failure to guarantee the rights of the country’s large Hungarian minority.

Hungary’s record of obstructionism within the union, and its continuing row with Brussels over the rule of law, have led to some discussions over depriving it of its voting rights under Article Seven of the treaty. That is unlikely, and there is relief in Brussels that the next six months will not be heavy on legislation and new opportunities for an unhelpful presidency. But it promises to be a bumpy, uncomfortable presidency.