The relationship between the EU and Orbans Hungary is tense. Orban is already looking for new allies.
Budapest – On Saturday (June 5th, 2021) thousands of people took to the streets against the planned construction of a Chinese campus in the Hungarian capital. Around 10,000 demonstrators protested against the plans of the right-wing conservative government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban to set up a branch of the Chinese Fudan University in Budapest.
“No Fudan!” Was the protest on the banners: inside. You accuse Orban of being too close to the government in China. The government of Hungary has agreed with the President of the University from Shanghai to build a huge university complex. The Fudan campus will measure 500,000 square meters when it is completed in 2024.
Demonstration against the university in Budapest – Orban is accused of proximity to China
The major project caused a sensation not only among the population of Hungary. In the EU, too, the planned construction is viewed with concern. Brussels fears Hungary’s slow departure from the EU. Under Orban, the country turned more and more to China.
A majority of people in Budapest are opposed to the campus plans, surveys show. Budapest’s mayor Gergely Karacsony is also against the building of the university. On Wednesday (June 2nd, 2021) he had streets around the planned location renamed. “Dalai Lama Street”, “Street of the Uyghur Martyrs” and “Hong Kong Freedom” have since been called streets in Hungary’s capital. The signs are clearly protest on issues for which China is heavily criticized abroad for human rights violations. The Chinese Foreign Ministry reacted indignantly and described the mayor’s move as “despicable”.
Orban is fighting on several fronts – in the EU and in Hungary itself
Prime Minister Orban is under political pressure. He has to argue why Hungary had one of the highest death rates in the world from the corona pandemic. Before the parliamentary elections in a year, the avowedly illiberal prime minister is struggling with falling polls. His Fidesz party is “only” 48 percent, while before the pandemic it is around 56 percent. In addition, an opposition is forming against him. Greens, liberals, commoners and the far-right Jobbik party have ended their feuds and forged an electoral alliance against Orban. The only common point on the program: “Overcoming the Orban System”.
At the same time, Orban’s relationship with the EU is strained. Most recently, his distance to the democratic center of Europe was shown in parliament: A few months ago, Orban withdrew his Fidesz party from the EU alliance of the European People’s Party (EPP). There is “no more difference between the EPP and the European left,” he commented on the withdrawal.
He then called for the establishment of a new European right that would stand up against multiculturalism, homosexuals and migrants. Christian values should be in the foreground. A little later, at the beginning of April, he met with Matteo Salvini, head of the Italian Lega, and the Polish head of government Mateusz Morawiecki, head of the PiS party. Both are to the right of the EPP, albeit in different political groups.
Under Orban, Hungary is distancing itself further and further from the EU
So Orban turns his gaze to the east. Orban is working with Vladimir Putin to drive the construction of new nuclear power plants. And when the corona pandemic threatened to escalate in Hungary, the government in Budapest bought Russian vaccine Sputnik V on a large scale – without waiting for approval in the EU. Orban also procured vaccine from China. He is trying to get on well with the country in the Far East anyway, so he vetoed an EU resolution critical of China. The construction of the Chinese university is another sign of where Orban could see his country’s political future. (Sebastian Richter)
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