Thread by @MilanN_inBerlin

Yday, 650km to the east from #MSC23 in Budapest’s fancy Várkert Bazár 🇭🇺 PM #Orbán delivered his grandiose state of the nation speech

Quick #Thread 🧵 on what caught my attention as I am reading it - buckle your seats 🎡🔍
1/16
hungarytoday.hu/viktor-orban-h…

Already the greetings: 2 ex-Presidents (the current one was at the MSC) w/ their wifes, Mr. Speaker & “leaders of Hungarian communities from beyond our borders”

State of the country speech also aimed at ethnic HU minorities around 🇭🇺? (even if many dual citizenships)

2/16

The initial 3-4 pages (!) of the speech -> PM Orban lamenting how external disruptions derailed his beautiful recovery plan for a new HU economy (covid, war, sanctions, inflation)
@dgapev @VisegradInsight

3/16

Major goals from from 2010 (when Fidesz returned to power) re-examined but not given up, only adjusting the means

+ re-framing foreign policy: no longer ‘Eastern opening’ just opportunistic ‘making friends’ w/ everyone (East & West, North & South)

4/16

Btw, foreign policy goals include ethnic #revisionism -> “national unification will continue” w/ ethnic Hungarians beyond 🇭🇺borders “because we are of the same blood”

Still nothing abt 🇪🇺

Other priorities: family policy, strategic sectors-> banking, energy, the media!

5/16

…reviving the food industry (national champions), developm’t plan for Eastern HU, building new power stations, pipelines, bridges - even w/out 🇪🇺 💶 (major source of public investment), however, no word on the alternative … Chinese loans?

@panyiszabolcs @mdunai

6/16

After cca 1/3 of the speech, Orban got to the war, which he calls ‘Russo-Ukrainian war’

HU shd stay out it; yes it’s part of NATO & EU. But as a free, sovereign state HU recognizes ‘no one but God above us’

Brussels is ‘the imperial center’

@jacopobarigazzi @Mij_Europe

7/16

Wait, it’s getting better…

Yes 🇺🇦 was attacked, therefore HU allows UA refugees in, also recognize UA right to self-defense.

But it’s their war, not ours!

It wldn’t be right to put UA interests before those of HU (defined in contrast to what he had agreed to at #EUCO)
8/16

Humanitarian support for UA doesn’t mean severing HU ties to #Russia

HU doesn’t want to isolate from RU; wants to keep econ ties & exceptions from 🇪🇺 sanctions on RU oil/gas/nuclear

HU viewpoint: an exception only in Europe but ‘the norm’ across the globe!
9/16

Also, HU not buying UA propaganda that after 🇺🇦 Russia would attack others (PL, Balts). In fact, RU wouldn’t stand a chance against NATO

Orban’s ‘pro-peace position’ = immediate ceasefire, accepting Putin’s pre-conditions (keeping occupied parts of UA)
@getmalyona

10/16

According to Orban, NATO in early 2022 shld have accepted Russia’s territorial gains in eastern Ukraine (Donetsk, Luhansk) to evade war - as it did in 2008 in Georgia, 2014 w/ Crimea

Orban’s hope is EU’s main worry: a Trumpist back in the WH after 2024

@ConStelz @cepa

11/16

So what has changed, in Orban’s view? Germany

Shift from supplying ‘only helmets’ no weapons’ 1 year ago to tanks he attributes only to external pressure! Points to 🇺🇸 & ignores Zeitenwende, major shift in public opinion, other factors

VO has lost touch w/ western Europe
12/16

Another example:

“And the other [EU] countries thought that if the Germans could not resist that kind of external pressure then they, too, would be unlikely to.”

@SylvieKauffmann @RosaBalfour

13/16

OK let me jump over a long passage on combating inflation, even the calculated ending of the speech on schools & against ‘gender propaganda’

To underline how Orban’s view on Ukraine is consistent w/ his cynical & ethno nationalist weltanschauung, I finish w/ few quotes

14/16

“Brusselites have not yet sacrificed their lives in this war, but [ethnic] Hungarians have.”

“While HU symbols are being taken down in Munkács/Mukachevo … many are dying heroes’ deaths on the front.”

@rumeliobserver

15/16

“The Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia does not deserve this”

“More respect for Hungarians from Munkács/Mukachevo in Kyiv/Kiev, Brussels and Washington!”

All in all, he thinks the lives of ethnic Hungarians are worth more than other Ukrainians /END

Oh, just to add: nothing in #Orban’s big speech on Saturday about why #Hungary 🇭🇺 continues to postpone ratification of #Sweden🇸🇪 #Finland 🇫🇮 membership in #NATO (as the last country before Turkey) or when it will go to parl agenda

@minna_alander @CarolineGruyter @AnnwieAnna

For those interested, here is the link to the EN version of Viktor Orbán’s speech (as always, promptly translated & distributed by HU gov’t service under @zoltanspox )

abouthungary.hu/speeches-and-r…

P. S. Today (Monday) PM Orbán met with #China’s highest ranked diplomat Wang Yi on the last leg of his Europe visit before he goes to Moscow

🎯 insight below 👇

https://twitter.com/bartekkowalski1/status/1627598158552354817