Hungary provides an important directional indicator for European policy. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban appears to have moved far afield from the European mainstream. He declared May 23 that Russia could not be beaten military in Ukraine, and his foreign minister announced that Budapest would veto additional EU aide to Kiev. Hungary’s relations with China are strong, and developing rapidly.

As someone who has close ties to the country in question, this is patently false. Orbán has massively miscalculated with his trying to straddle two horses with one behind. The one significant intra-EU alliance he could use to further his goals in the EU has evaporated right as the other V4 leaders cancelled a meeting with him to meet Zelensky in Kyiv.

The country has been living off of EU subsidies for the past decade, and has not much to show for it, there are massive problems in basic public services, in particular education and healthcare. It’s fair to say the average Hungarian has no proper access to either of these things.

Inflation is insane, especially on foodstuffs, with average food inflation over 40%, some things over 200%. This is paired with insanely high interest rates, taxes being raised across the board, and wages of course not keeping up.

Further showing how much of a punching bag Orbán is right now is that EU money has stopped coming in to the country, with the EU demanding basic guarantees that it will not be stolen, as it spectacularly is the case right now. Orbán tried to keep the Russian-backed International Investment Bank in the country, it took one US visit for them to be immediately kicked out.

Orbán is weak in the EU, much weaker than he ever was, and his alt-right alliance completely fell apart.

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