Hungary’s new Tisza-led government has officially withdrawn the country’s intention to leave the International Criminal Court (ICC), reversing one of the Orbán government’s most controversial foreign policy decisions.
The decision was published in the latest issue of the Hungarian Gazette on Friday evening. According to the government decree, Hungary is reaffirming its commitment to strengthening the international legal order, maintaining the effectiveness of multilateral institutions, and supporting international criminal justice.
The move means Hungary will remain a member of the ICC, despite the previous government initiating the withdrawal process last year.
Orbán government launched withdrawal during Netanyahu visit
The withdrawal procedure was launched by the former Orbán administration in April last year, shortly before an official visit to Budapest by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was at the time the subject of an ICC arrest warrant.
As an ICC member state, Hungary would have been legally obliged under international law to detain Netanyahu upon entry. However, no arrest took place during the visit. Shortly afterwards, Hungary’s parliament — then dominated by a Fidesz two-thirds majority — voted in favour of beginning the country’s exit from the court.
Under the original timeline, Hungary’s withdrawal from the ICC would have become effective this June.
Péter Magyar had promised to keep Hungary in the ICC
Prime Minister Péter Magyar had already signalled after Tisza’s election victory that his government intended to halt the withdrawal process and preserve Hungary’s ICC membership.
Although Magyar himself also invited Netanyahu to Hungary earlier this year, he previously stated that ICC rules must be respected by member states.
“If a country is a member of the International Criminal Court and a person under an international warrant enters its territory, that person must be detained,” Magyar said earlier, according to Hungarian media reports.
The government has now also submitted a proposal to parliament to formally repeal the previous Fidesz-backed withdrawal legislation adopted last year.
Government also restores restrictions on Ukrainian agricultural imports
Another decree published in Friday’s Hungarian Gazette reinstates restrictions on the import of several Ukrainian agricultural products into Hungary.
According to HVG’s summary, the restrictions affect a broad range of products, including beef, pork, poultry, eggs, frozen vegetables, wheat, rye, barley, maize, flour, sunflower seeds, rapeseed products and wine.
The import ban had originally been introduced by the Orbán government through emergency wartime legislation aimed at protecting Hungarian farmers from cheaper Ukrainian imports.
However, the legal basis for the restrictions expired automatically on 13 May when Hungary’s state of emergency linked to the war in Ukraine officially ended.
Although the new parliamentary majority previously voted to temporarily preserve dozens of wartime decrees to avoid legal uncertainty, the specific regulation banning Ukrainian grain imports was accidentally omitted from the transitional legislation, causing the restrictions to lapse earlier this month.
Friday’s new decree effectively restores those import controls.
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