On Monday evening, the European issue of Politico published the list of Europe’s 28 most powerful people who they think are going to shape the old continent’s politics and policy in 2020. They divided them into three subgroups: doers, disrupters, and dreamers. PM Viktor Orbán became the second biggest dreamer behind Greta Thunberg.
According to Politico, in the European Union, it is hard to tell who the most powerful person is because they are
rarely the leaders of the continent’s top institutions.
For example, even though the all-time German Chancellor and the French President will always have the lead voice, they cannot convince others to follow them. Germany is the biggest economy of the continent, but regarding its military, it is far behind Paris, London, or even Moscow.
It is the all-time problem of the allies of the European Union to decide who they have to call if they want to talk with the leader of the alliance. Politico says that it depends on what one would like to ask. The newspaper says that Brexit, the EU’s landmark data-protection law, the continent’s push to cut greenhouse gas emissions — every important change that has swept the European landscape began as a dream that caught fire.
At the top, it is French President Emmanuel Marcon
who has shown every intention to use the power of his office, Politico says.
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The list is then divided into three categories, each representing a different type of power: nine doers with the greatest ability to exert influence, nine “disrupters” most likely to overturn the status quo, and nine “dreamers” whose ideas are driving European politics and policies.
Politico found that the Hungarian PM is Europe’s second most powerful dreamer behind Greta Thunberg.
PM Orbán keeps his messages to the people simple:
“Stop Soros”, “Christian Europe”, “illiberal democracy”. He combined that with well-picked fights with Brussels, so many picture him as an antithesis to what he describes as a supranational overreach by the European Union. Politico argues that he became a model of such nationalist leaders as Poland’s Jarosław Kaczyński and Italy’s Matteo Salvini. Furthermore, even though the conservative European People’s Party suspended PM Orbán’s Fidesz over concerns about the rule of law, his 13 MEPs continue to sit with the group in the European Parliament.
Interestingly, on Politico‘s similar list of 2017, George Soros was featured. In 2018, formerly pro-government Lajos Simicska, and in 2019, Márta Pardavi, the leader of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, got listed, 24 reported.
Source: politico.eu, 24.hu
