Hungary, governed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, leader of the international nationalist right, began its rotating presidency of the European Union (EU) on Monday (1st), under the motto “Let’s make Europe great again”.
“Today we take over the presidency of the European Union from the Belgian Prime Minister,” declared Orbán in Brussels, where he met with Alexander De Croo, head of the government of Belgium, the country that held the rotating presidency of the EU for the previous six months.
“It begins” is the only word that accompanies a photograph of Orbán and De Croo published by the Hungarian Prime Minister together with the announcement of the baton passing on the social network Facebook.
“The central objective of the Hungarian EU presidency is to strengthen European competitiveness,” Hungarian European Affairs Minister János Bóka had said in an interview with public radio station Kossuth the previous day.
To achieve this objective, it will try to reach a consensus to sign a new European pact for competitiveness during the Hungarian presidency, which will last until December 31st.
In this way, political attention “would be focused on this issue and areas in which decisions could be taken to strengthen competitiveness would be identified”, reiterated Bóka.
The other six priorities defined by Orbán’s Executive are common defense and the defense of external borders, as well as advancing the expansion of the community club, promoting cohesion and agricultural policies and solving demographic problems.
Furthermore, Budapest intends to promote integration processes mainly in the Western Balkan countries and deepen relations with China.
However, given that EU decisions on foreign policy require a unanimous vote, Orbán is not expected to be able to intensify ties with Beijing, as the independent portal Telex.hu recalled today.
On the other hand, political opponents see Orbán’s provocation in the slogan chosen for the Hungarian presidency – “Let’s make Europe great again” –, since it is a reference to the slogan used by former US President Donald Trump in his 2016 election campaign and which was revived this year.
“Not very original, is it?” asked Vera Jourová, the outgoing vice-president of the European Commission, ironically, as quoted by the Hungarian press.
Another provocation for many is the announcement made by Orbán on Sunday, the day before taking over the EU presidency, about the formation of a new right-wing nationalist and Eurosceptic group in the European Parliament.
Orbán spoke to the press yesterday in Vienna alongside Herbert Kickl, leader of the Austrian nationalist party FPÖ, and Andrej Babis, president of the Czech Alliance of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO), to present the new political family, dubbed Patriots for Europe.
The three parties together have 24 MEPs (11 from Fidesz, seven from ANO and six from the FPÖ), one more than the minimum of 23 needed to create a bench in the European Parliament.
However, the formation of a new group in the European Parliament also requires a minimum of seven countries to be represented, which is why the new family needs to accommodate parties from four other states.
In this sense, the Portuguese Chega party announced this Monday its intention to join them, which would increase the number of seats in the group to 26.