Should, thanks to the friendly neighborhood United States, the situation in Ukraine escalate again, Hungary can of course be fully confident that the Americans will unwaveringly offer their financial assistance to solve the expected refugee problem, to compensate Hungary for the unavoidable trading losses and, if it comes to energy supply issues, to immediately rush in with appropriate replacements to help. The above is obviously a fiction. Should the EU also be hit by a wave of refugees from the east, the Ukrainian immigrants cannot count on more support from the US than the current refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, Libya or other countries being the victim of US resource, military basis or currency wars; pardon: being the lucky winners of US democracy bringing action. The Americans are world champions when it comes to destabilising and overthrowing governments, but the biggest losers when it comes to building new sustainable working systems on the ruins of the destroyed old regimes. Let’s not even mention compensating the indirectly affected countries or paying the slightest attention to the collateral damage of their actions. The Hungarian government knows all this of course and asks therefore the most reasonable thing in this situation: “It needs to be negotiated, negotiated and negotiated” (quote, PM Viktor Orbán).
With that approach the Hungarian government is more and more in line with an increasing number of EU politicians. After fulfilling the US request to start a trade war against Russia without any hesitation, they became more reasonable when the Americans have now the great idea of pacifying Ukraine by pouring more gunpowder on an already incendiary situation. Now all of a sudden their thoughts become very similar to Orbán’s negotiation quote mentioned above.
More and more politicians and media representatives are realising that the reality is a bit more complicated than the “good Americans” and “evil Russians” image communicated by transatlantic networks. Even the last backbencher is starting to understand that a civil war in a neighbouring country of the EU, with a potential to escalate into a NATO-Russia duel, is not such a desirable thing. At least not for the Europeans.
And more and more European politicians are starting to realise that in order to successfully negotiate a peace between Russia and Ukraine, the Americans – who have completely different interests – must be kept far from the negotiating tables. Or in other words: between Europeans – and Russians are mostly Europeans as well – a European solution must be found to resolve the conflict.
Hungary could play a leading role in this. After all, it can be taken as certain that Hungary – with its strong national minority in Ukraine – has a profound and sincere interest in a pacified Ukraine (the Prime Minister spoke about “200,000 Hungarian arguments” for a peace). Ukraine being a neighbour and a transit country of energy supplies is another reason for Hungary’s high interest to defuse the crisis. Oh, and by the way: neither does Hungary want to sell arms to Ukraine, nor does it plan to establish military bases there…
Instead of arrogantly sniffing at Orbán’s politics toward Russia, the West European politicians should rather be thinking about how to use the seemingly good connection between the Hungarian leader and Russian President Vladimir Putin to speed up the peace process. In a situation where Putin cannot be sure whether his European negotiating partners are following a European or, like so often, a US agenda, the participation of Hungary could prove to be an important confidence-building measure.
A lot can be said about the politics of Orbán and, yes, his understanding of democracy leaves plenty to be desired, but unlike some other European heads of government he cannot be accused of putting the American interests ahead of his own country’s.
I don’t think that the writer of this piece is in touch with reality. He writes that Western politicians should make good use the good relationship between Orbán and Putin to speed up the peace process?
The West don’t trust Orbán. Game is over for him…!
The West don’t trust Orbán Mrodek because he looks after Hungarian interests first, which some people in the West find difficult to understand because they usually put a foreigner’s interests first (and second and third in some cases). In case you didn’t know, politicians that look after their people’s interest usually have a high rating and vice versa. Just look at Hollande from France. One of the lowest ratings in Europe. Joke! The West, and particularly the EU, don’t like sovereign nations. They say they are for democracy but that is rubbish! They are only for democracy if it agrees with their agenda. And if it doesn’t agree with their agenda, then that person is bad, undemocratic, far right wing, etc, etc. The first step in bringing down someone they don’t like is to demonise them and that’s exactly what they are trying to do to Orbán at present. Keep it up Orbán, you have the support of us Hungarians, not some few thousand people who are organised and paid for by some foreign “NGOs”
Amen.
Very, very good !
Very very good indeed!
Hungary on a good path.