Thread by @DanielHegedus82

I had an interesting conversation on #Polish-#Hungarian relations yesterday under #ChathamHouse rule. I would like to share my key conclusion without further details. It will be highly disturbing from a #Polish perspective, but may contribute to a reflection process.
THREAD 1/15

2/15
#Polish foreign & security policy talks from an intellectual and moral high ground to previously more #Russia-friendly partners, especially #Germany, because PL & the Baltic states correctly predicted Russia's aggressive behaviour,

3/15
while #German & other Western European stakeholders were reluctant to give credit for their correct analysis. As disturbing this lessoning behaviour might be from a German perspective, history demonstrated that #Poland & Baltics have a better understanding of #Russia ...

4/15
... than Western European politics has and therefore 🇵🇱🇪🇪🇱🇻🇱🇹should play a more central role in shaping #EU & #NATO policy towards #Russia. All fine.
However, what #Polish stakeholders often forget while they lash out on #Hungary

5/15
due to the pro-#Russian policy of 🇭🇺 and lament on the ice age, loss of trust and historic deep in the 🇵🇱🇭🇺bilateral relations that they deeply & fundamentally misread #Orbán's #Hungary just on the same way as German foreign policy misread #Putin's #Russia.

6/15
#Orbán has played with open cards from the very beginning regarding his relationship to the #Kremlin, Polish stakeholders have had all evidences on their desks to correctly predict what to expect from #Hungary & they utterly failed. Why?

7/15
Because as German industry became addicted to cheap #Russian gas, #PiS stakeholders became addicted to the setup that they have practically free hands in dismantling #judicialindependence, #ruleoflaw at home & can proceed with domestic #autocratization,

8/15
as due to the mutual defence pact between #illiberal #Hungary & #Poland the European Union was not able to seriously punish their #authoritarian policies.
Polish EU policy was made dependent on Hungarian support, just as Germany was made dependent on Russian gas.

9/15
As consequence, #Polish #EUPolicy is stuck in a deep strategic crisis, entangled in a conflict with the @EU_Commission Poland can hardly win, while the Polish economy & citizens pay a high price for this political war every single day.

10/15
The question of Russia was deliberately & consciously sidelined between #Kaczynski and #Orbán right in 2015, one year after the Russian annexation of #Crimea, while previously it already led to an ice age between the PO GOVs in 🇵🇱 & PM #Orbán.

11/15
For many years, Orbán's pro-Kremlin orientation was simply not an issue of concern for #Kaczyński while he has tied #Poland's EU policy to #Hungary. A reckless negligence and a failure of strategic nature.

12/15
#Polish foreign policy on #Hungary was blinded by ideological bias, political cynicism, the primacy of domestic #autocratization over security considerations & simply poor analysis.

13/15
Apparently, #Warsaw completely failed to understand its most intimate regional partner, #Hungary. This happens if objective & thorough policy analysis is mixed up with the repetition of historical cliches.

14/15
While #Poland rightly demands from Germany, France, Italy & others to reflect on past policy failures & review their previous foreign policy approach to #Russia, 🇵🇱 foreign policy has its own homework too:

15/15
To reflect on the question how could #Polish foreign policy misread #Orbán's #Hungary just as fundamentally as #Germany misread #Putin's #Russia.

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