PM Orbán as a pole of attraction in Europe?
December 4th, 2015A conservative columnist quotes international analyses which claim that the Hungarian Prime Minister has an increasing influence throughout Europe. He describes Mr Orbán’s emergence as an international player as an unprecedented phenomenon in Hungarian history.
On Válasz, István Dévényi suggests that for better or worse, Viktor Orbán is the first Prime Minister in Hungarian history who exerts a significant international influence. He draws this conclusion from two articles which are equally critical of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s stance on virtually all controversial issues, but identify him as an important factor in today’s debates on the future of the continent. Politico/Europe ranks him first among the 28 personalities who are “shaping, shaking and stirring Europe”. In the Financial Times, Ivan Krastev, a liberal Bulgarian political scientist suggests that Mr Orbán is the second most influential politician in Europe and represents an alternative to the number one, Chancellor Merkel of Germany. Mr Orbán’s alternative, Krastev writes, attracts the most disparate quarters in European politics, from the radical leftist Podemos in Spain to the governing national conservative PiS in Poland.
Neither of the two articles portray Mr Orbán in a favourable light, Dévényi concludes, but certainly no Hungarian prime minister has ever become a factor in international politics before him.