Viktor Orbán first came to prominence when in 1989 he declared on live TV that Hungary must put an end to the ‘Russian occupation’. On the first day of February this year, he held his thirteenth meeting with Vladimir Putin. What’s changed?
Like much of his generation, Orbán initially believed that the fall of communism would mean a ‘return to Europe’ — with not only western democracy but also a western standard of living. Yet after a brief and unpleasant stint studying in Oxford, the student politician discovered that Britain’s future elites were ignorant and decadent.
Orbán eventually concluded that Hungary had to jettison its naïve faith in Western Europe
The early years of Hungarian democracy proved shaky, with EU accession taking nearly 15 years to achieve. The resulting boost to trade and access to subsidies certainly helped ameliorate the post-communist economic shocks, but it wasn’t enough to achieve that long-promised growth in living standards.
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