Budapest is racked with tension. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sends a stream of refugees to Hungary’s eastern border, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party has scrambled to respond to the humanitarian crisis while turning his back on his previous pragmatic relationship with Moscow.
Fidesz’s unequivocal condemnation of Vladimir Putin’s actions will have come as a relief to Brussels. But a bitter argument still rages over Hungary’s opposition to the bloc’s new ‘rule of law’ budget mechanism, which allows EU funds to be made dependent on adherence to legal and democratic norms.
When the European Court of Justice rejected a challenge to the mechanism from Hungary and Poland on February 16, Hungary’s struggle with the bloc ratcheted up a notch. The dispute is key to Fidesz’s stance for Hungarian national sovereignty within the EU, and it is almost certain that the government won’t back down with crunch elections approaching on April 3.
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