For the event, Viktor Orban chose the Puskas Arena, the large stadium named after the legendary football player Ferenc Puskas (1927-2006), which this football enthusiast recently had built in Budapest. On Thursday, November 7, the Hungarian Prime Minister welcomed forty-two European heads of state and government, including his counterparts from the European Union (EU), on the occasion of the summit of the European Political Community (EPC).
In the aftermath of Donald Trump's large victory in the American presidential election and the fall of Olaf Scholz's coalition in Germany, most of the leaders present in Budapest had reason to be concerned. Especially since, as a senior European official sums it up, “There is no third country that divides Europeans more than the United States”. Caught up in the German political crisis, Mr. Scholz was not present at the CPE summit on Thursday and only returned to Budapest for the European Council in the evening.
In the entourage of the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, we also feared the provocations of Viktor Orban, who fervently supported the Republican candidate and many of whose supporters celebrated the fall of the German coalition, which they found too left. But the Hungarian leader finally played sobriety, under the laughing eyes of Edi Rama, the Albanian Prime Minister, who was amused to see “all of Europe gathered in the fold of its black sheep”.
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In his opening speech, Viktor Orban did not even mention the name of his « ami » Donald Trump. “The future of our ties with the United States is an essential aspect of the European security architecture”politely formulated the Hungarian Prime Minister. “We will talk about how to strengthen our strategic autonomy », He even added, taking up a notion dear to Emmanuel Macron.
“We need to examine whether we see the challenges before us in the same way, and whether we seek answers in similar directions”however, slipped Mr. Orban, who, since the start of the war in Ukraine, has displayed his closeness to President Vladimir Putin. Behind his vision of“strategic autonomy” he not only wants Europe to free itself from American interests, but also to move closer to those of China and Russia.
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