Hungary aligns with Russia

Western leaders often refer to the “international community” when claiming that there is a widespread support for isolating Russia. The term is best understood as referring to the United States and its friends.  If one refers to the global community as a whole the really is different. In addition to China, India, and countries in Central Asia and Latin America, who continue to cooperate with Russia, Hungary, an EU and NATO member state, also seeks closer ties with Russia.

Russia is Hungary's main trading partner outside the EU. The Russian embargo on food imports from the European Union has so far cost Hungary’s farm sector 80 million euros. Unsurprisingly Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has described EU sanctions against Russia as "shooting oneself in the foot".

Hungary is becoming rapidly disenchanted with the hawkish foreign policy of the EU. Orban has been at verbal war with the European Union since 2010. In March 2012 he told cheering supporters that Hungary would never be a “colony” of Brussels. Instead Hungary looks East. It has boosted trade links with Russia, China, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. In March 2014 Hungary signed a $14 billion loan agreement with Russia to expand and modernise Paks, a nuclear power station.

As this article in Foreign Affairs noted, Orban believes a global race for a new form of state has begun. As the EU deteriorate economically, China, Russia, Singapore, and Turkey are becoming Orban’s role models.