Hungarian Conservative

Citing concerns over the delay of the ratification of Sweden’s NATO accession, approving additional aid to Ukraine, and the Sovereignty Protection Act, Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland has proposed the possibility of the United States imposing sanctions on Hungary as a punishment.

At the conclusion of his visit to Washington, D.C., Tristan Azbej, the state secretary responsible for the assistance programmes to aid persecuted Christians, noted that the Hungarian government shares practically identical values with the American right, conservative individuals, and organizations. He identified the importance of renewing the fight against anti-Semitism, something Hungarian and American conservatives also agree about, in response to the resurgence of violent anti-Semitism in the Western world, including the United States, following the events in Gaza.

The Biden administration has shifted its strategy in Ukraine; a Ukrainian victory is no longer a priority, and instead, Kyiv will be brought to the negotiating table. If, two years ago, the leaders in Washington and Brussels had heeded their common sense—or better yet, listened to the Hungarians—millions of lives could have been spared.

‘What should Hungarians do? The question—and Orbán’s visionary answer—has meaning beyond Hungary, in ways that Americans and other Westerners only dimly recognize now. And it goes back to the prime minister’s 2014 advocacy of “illiberal democracy” for Hungary.’

József Mindszenty is often commemorated as one of the first victims of the Rákosi regime. However, his 1949 arrest and show trial were not the last stage of his ‘white martyrdom’: he spent one and a half decades as an asylee at the US Embassy in Budapest, only to be exiled from the country for good in 1971.

‘While establishing the Coalition in the early 1990s, I often tried to look at issues through the “other lens”. If something works in the US, why not try it in Hungary? And if it works in Hungary, why not try it in the US?’

Recent Nobel laureate Katalin Karikó, a Hungarian biochemist living in the United States and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Szeged, stressed to Hungarian news agency MTI that it is not awards that serve as motivation for her research but rather the awareness that people are suffering and solutions must be found to help them.

‘And here we come. Our time has come because by becoming the meeting point of Eastern and Western investments, we provide a life insurance for Hungary, we provide a guarantee that in the coming years, Hungary will be the winner of the big global economic transformation that the automotive revolution dictates,’ Péter Szijjártó said.

The Kossuth Foundation, the organiser of the 20 August event, joined the ‘Bread of Hungarians’ programme this year, through which wheat from various parts of the Carpathian Basin made their way to the American capital, symbolising the unity of Hungarians wherever they live.

‘In fairness, to say that Washington, Brussels, and Budapest have some pre-existing policy disagreements is a laughable understatement. Nonetheless, the question remains: Why is Hungary growing closer to China as the West grows further away? The short answer is: it’s complicated.’

The Hungarian foreign minister announced that Budapest will not consent to further arms shipments to Ukraine as long as Kyiv fails to remove OTP Bank from its list of international war sponsors.

Gergely Gulyás emphasised that ‘if there is a political change in the United States, which, of course, depends on the decision of the Americans, then it is certain that Hungarian–American relations can greatly improve with a conservative American administration.’

Last year, the US terminated the 1979 double taxation avoidance agreement with Hungary. According to Szijjártó, the USG took this step in response to the Hungarian government not giving its consent to the introduction of the global minimum tax.

The Japan-Korea reconciliation is good news for both countries, the USA and the free world, and bad news for China, whose aggressive and threatening behaviour and wolf warrior diplomacy helped catalyse the process. Strengthening the trilateral security and military cooperation between the USA, Japan and Korea is definitely not something Beijing wanted to achieve with its aggressive posture. What we can expect from Beijing is now to try to drive a wedge between the newly found friends.

Last April, the overwhelming majority of Hungarian people voted against the left-wing opposition in favour of the current government party, conscious that it promised to protect Hungary’s peace and security above all—even if the excisemen of the war would have it otherwise.

It is difficult not to interpret the visit of Samantha Power, the current head of USAID, to Budapest last Thursday and Friday as an American telling-off.

Poland’s efforts to turn its growing military power into political influence may be hampered by criticism of its alleged rule of law issues and concerns over its arms purchases from non-NATO countries outside Europe.