Hungary’s bold plan: From small nation to Europe’s keystone state?

Hungary should be pursuing a strategy that can allow it to function as a “keystone state”, the prime minister’s political director said at the Tranzit festival in Tihany, on Lake Balaton, on Friday.

Whether a country becomes a keystone state depends on how it finds its role in the international world order, Balázs Orbán said in a debate with foreign policy expert István Szent-Iványi.

He said a country could become a regional keystone if it was capable of making use of world developments to become stronger economically, socially, politically and on the world stage. “If it can’t, then it blends in and is condemned to becoming a follower and running on autopilot,” Orbán said. He said the keystone state role did not depend on a country’s size or the size of its population, citing Switzerland and Singapore as examples.

Szent-Iványi said a country could only become a keystone and successful if it set an attractive example. He said the EU’s organisational culture was one of constructive and good-faith cooperation, adding, however, that he was “not seeing this from the part of the Hungarian government”.

Orbán said Hungary was living through a “good period even compared with certain eras of the 20th century”, noting the country’s strategic cooperation with the United States, China, Russia, Turkiye and the emerging Arab countries. As an EU member, Hungary also cooperates with 26 other member states in 30 policy areas on a daily basis, he added.

“We wanted to create a system — and we’re very close to establishing it — in which every great power has an interest in Hungary’s stability and success,” Orbán said. Hungary, he noted, was also involved in international organisations and partnerships.