While Hungary has pushed back on European Union attempts to sanction Israel, the government of Viktor Orbán also maintains warm ties with Iran and has refused the demands of Orbán ally Donald Trump to stop purchasing Russian oil and natural gas.
It all makes for curious positioning by Budapest as it aligns its interests with those of some of the world’s most diplomatically isolated countries. But, as Trump touts an America First policy that produces seemingly contradictory and counterintuitive strategies, Hungary’s top diplomat tells JNS his country is simply doing the same.
“On many occasions, we are being stigmatized as carrying out a pro-Israel foreign policy, a pro-U.S. foreign policy, pro-Trump, pro-Putin. But the thing is that this is a pro-Hungarian policy. So we identify our national interest and we act according to our national interest,” Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs and trade, told JNS at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
He said that Washington shows more understanding “toward reality, toward rationality, toward geography, toward physics,” than does its European diplomatic and political counterparts.
“When the world was divided into blocs last time, we wasted 40 years of our lives because we’re losers of that system,” Szijjártó said. “What we want is that the world comes into the age of connectivity, meaning that mutual respect comes back as the basis of the system of international cooperation. We always support the rules which bring us closer to a respect-based global cooperation, and we always counter steps which bring us toward the world being divided into blocs again.”
That vision is on display in Hungary’s refusal to cede to European Union efforts to sanction Israel for its prosecution in its war against Hamas. Budapest, together with a few select allies, has put up persistent opposition to its European neighbors, giving the E.U. insufficient support to carry out penalties against Israel that require unanimous consent from the 27-member bloc.
“I do believe that sanction-based policies do not really make sense,” Szijjártó told JNS. “I can’t recall any sanction measure carried out by the European Union which would have been successful.
“My frustration comes from the fact that whenever the European Union faces an international challenge, the first thing is always to think about sanctions.”
A largely symbolic move
He said he sees no upside in the E.U. suspending its association agreement with Israel, which governs political, economic and trade relations between the parties.
Earlier this month, the European Commission ended bilateral financial support for Israel, in a largely symbolic move. An attempt to strip Israeli goods of their preferential access to European markets by temporarily halting certain trade-related provisions has thus far stalled, due to the opposition of Hungary and others.
“Have you looked at the sanctions against Russia? Those sanctions have caused more harm on the European economy than on the Russian economy,” Szijjártó argued. “Why would it make sense to, for example, to suspend the association agreement with Israel? Would that help? Why? What kind of forward progress would it mean if we put trade restrictions on Israel?”
He countered that the E.U. “should be much more innovative and much smarter than that. The problem is, I think, that European leaders are becoming frustrated, because Europe is losing weight, is losing significance, is losing economic performance.”
Asked whether Hungary’s policy against sanctions applied to those levied by the United Nations against Iran due to Tehran’s noncompliance with the 2015 nuclear accord, Szijjártó told JNS he looks at the situation through a different angle.
“Hungary is absolutely interested in countering the growth of the number of countries with nuclear weapons. So we don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. It’s so obvious,” he said, even as Budapest and Tehran signed an educational cooperation agreement last week and continue to expand economic ties.
Szijjártó complimented the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency and its director-general, Rafael Grossi, who has come under threats from Iran.
“I do hope that diplomacy will get some additional chance, and at the end of the day, this nuclear program will get back under control,” Szijjártó said of Tehran’s ambitions. “And we do hope that that somehow this whole turbulent situation can be resolved, because the security situation of the Middle East has a direct impact on the security situation of Central Europe, so we don’t want further fires to be blown from the Middle East.”
