The person to be in charge of Hungary in Trump’s government

Index.hu writes that Wess Mitchell, the leader of the Washington based Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) think-tank will be in charge of Hungarian matters in Donald Trumps’s government. The nomination of Mitchell known as the expert of transatlantic relations was officially announced on Monday.

Hungarian matters belong to the Department of European and Eurasian Matters in the American Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This post was filled by Victoria Nuland in the second part of the Obama government. The relationships between Viktor Orbán’s government and Nuland went from cold to hostile with time. Foreign minister Péter Szijjártó even admitted that after their second meeting he initiated that the two parties shouldn’t meet any more as they shouldn’t destroy the bilateral political cooperation further.

Nuland resigned in January and her post was unfilled since then. What might be interesting about the nomination of Wess Mitchell is that CEPA is occupied with the safety policy of Central Europe, and the company has an office in Warsaw. It is said that the Hungarian government was expecting this nomination, they find him to be a good choice, but don’t expect a total turn in American-Hungarian relations.

One of the main research field of Mitchell’s institution is the Russian propaganda, disinformation and the fight against it, which is not a priority in the Hungarian government. Furthermore, Mitchell wrote his dissertation about the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which he even compared to the European Union in this article.

A further curiosity is that the think-tank led by Mitchell has a Hungarian associate, in fact, the Ministry of Defence’s Russian- and cyber safety analyser is currently doing a research with CEPA thanks to a scholarship by the Hungary Initiatives Foundation (founded by the government). Moreover, several people representing Hungary – like Péter Szijjártó – will give a lecture at CEPA’s annual forum in September.

Featured image: www.facebook.com/CenterforEuropeanPolicyAnalysis

Ce: bm

Source: http://index.hu/