Orbán cabinet: Europe ‘should stop marching down a dead end’

Last week’s summit of European leaders in London was about “thwarting the United States’ peace efforts”, the prime minister’s political director said on Tuesday, adding that this had made the meeting a “pro-war gathering based on the logic of continuing the previous unsuccessful Western strategy”.

Is Europe ‘marching down a dead end’?

Speaking to public current affairs channel M1, Balázs Orbán said it was good that Hungary had not been invited to the meeting, saying it meant that everyone was aware of the country’s “consistently pro-peace position that Europe should stop marching down a dead end”.

Hungary, he said, recommended aligning the European strategy with that of the US and initiating direct talks with Russia “to try to end the bloodshed”.

He noted that Hungary had recommended that Europe change course on multiple occasions, saying it was clear that “the world order is changing” and would favour countries that were capable of shaping and defending their own sovereign strategies.

Orbán said the “problem with the EU” was that its “liberal left-wing globalist leadership has navigated it into an untenable situation in recent years, making it an isolated political actor”. He insisted that the EU had ended its cooperation with Russia on energy, entered into a trade war with Russia and was close to falling out with the new US administration for ideological and geopolitical reasons.

Hungary, by contrast, maintained pragmatic ties with Russia, pursued strategic cooperation with China and maintained strong strategic cooperation with the new US leadership, he said.

Concerning Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s letter to European Council President Antonio Costa in which he recommended that the EU follow the policy of the US and start peace talks with Russia instead of continuing arms deliveries to Ukraine, the political director said the government had not expected the letter to leak, “but this is also fine for the Hungarian government”.

He said this made it clear to the world that Hungary believed that the situation had fundamentally changed and it was time for Europe to change course. “This is the position Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will represent in Brussels,” he added, referring to this week’s special summit.

Meanwhile, he said Orbán and US President Donald Trump as well as the Hungarian government and the US administration were in constant contact, discussing and adopting a joint position on most topics, such as ending the war between Russia and Ukraine.

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