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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is undermining Western unity at the NATO Summit | GZERO World
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is undermining Western unity at the NATO Summit
Is Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán undermining Europe and Western unity following this year’s critical NATO summit? Just days after Hungary’s nationalist leader met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, Orbán left the NATO 75th anniversary summit in Washington, DC to visit former president Donald Trump, a well-known critic of the alliance, at his Mar-A-Lago estate.
On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sat down with Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski on the sidelines of the summit to ask how NATO members deal with a renegade ally like Hungary and the challenges posed by Orbán’s coziness with authoritarian rulers. Orbán’s rogue trips are a sharp contrast with NATO’s unified stance, on full display at the summit, but Sikorski insists Orbán doesn’t represent the EU or NATO.
“Orbán is freelancing on behalf of Hungary, and that’s not a new thing,” Sikorski says, “He’s been denying Ukraine transit of defense goods, he’s also been vetoing the release of European money for Ukraine.”
Hungary also has a complicated history when it comes to its international borders, and Sikorski worries about any leader who is willing to redraw a border using force, rather than diplomacy. He says any negotiated settlement in Ukraine should be negotiated by the Ukrainians, and warns that thinking a partitioned Ukraine is inevitable is similar to the UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s strategy of appeasing Adolf Hitler in the lead-up to WWII.
“We can win this one,” Sikorski insists, “The Russians have advantage in tanks, but the Ukrainians have advantage in drones.”
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UK's new PM Starmer aims for closer EU ties
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from the Adriatic Sea.
How will the new UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer reset relations at home and abroad?
Well, I think overall there's going to be a lot of continuity in terms of foreign and security policies. They've already sent the defense secretary to Kyiv to say that if anything, it's going to be even stronger support. But in terms of Europe, it’s going to be a new nuance and new attempts. The new foreign secretary, David Lammy, has already been to Germany, he's been to Poland, he’s been to Sweden, and he's talked about a European pact, foreign and security issues, cooperating more closely. And he's been invited to a meeting with all of the foreign ministers. So that's where we are likely to see, some change in the months and perhaps years ahead.
How did Macron survive the snap election in France?
Yep, that remains to be seen. There was, of course, a surprise result in the sense that the extreme right came in third after first the left, which has some extreme element, and then President Macron's coalition. But it's a hung parliament. There's no clear answer who's going to govern. So, we'll have to wait and see what's going to be the governance of France. I think the emphasis has shifted from isolating the far right to isolating the far left and see some sort of stable government can be made out of that. Very much an open question.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Moldova's President Maia Sandu and President of the European Council Charles Michel attend a joint press conference, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine November 21, 2023.
Europe flirts with the East but won’t yet commit
The European Union has expanded to the East in recent years, but some would-be members remain in line to join the club.
On Tuesday, Ukraine and Moldova finally began talks to join the European Union after applying for membership within weeks of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. (Ironically, it was Ukrainian protests over their president’s failure to sign a trade agreement with Europe that triggered the uprising that led Vladimir Putin to invade Crimea in 2014.)
Eager to encourage them, the EU has “fast-tracked” their processes, but aligning with the union’s dozens of policy requirements takes time. (Just ask Turkey, now entering its 20th year of talks.) Ukraine must also contend with efforts by Hungary’s government, Russia’s best European friend, to block Kyiv’s bid to join both the EU and NATO.
But the EU isn’t the only club open for new memberships. The eurozone, a monetary union comprised of 20 member states, told EU members Bulgaria and Romania they haven’t yet cleared the hurdles needed to adopt the euro. Bulgaria is close; of all the needed economic criteria, its high inflation is the only remaining barrier to entry. Romania must do much more to tame inflation, bribery, money laundering, and Russian influence on its policymaking.
Macron's call for a snap election in France is a huge gamble
What happened in the European Parliament elections? Why is President Macron calling for a snap election in France? Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Berlin, Germany.
What happened in the European Parliament elections?
Well, there was a shift, no question, but not the fundamental shift to the far-right that quite a number of pundits have been speculating about. If you look at what's been the sort o, the governing coalition, if you might use that phrase, of the center-right DPP, the Social Democrats, and the liberals Renew, they used to have roughly 59% of the seats in the European Parliament. They now have 56% of the seats in the European Parliament. It is a shift, no question about that, but hardly a fundamental one. And I don't think you will see much of a shift in policies resulting out of that.
Why is President Macron calling for a snap election in France?
Well, of course, even if there wasn't the major shift in European Parliament, there was a significant shift in individual countries. And, most dramatically, it was in France where President Macron suffered a very significant setback with the far-right, combined, getting roughly 40% of the electorate. Well, he decided this can't go on. So, he dissolved the National Assembly, called for new elections, got to be, sort of, in the early July, the decisive round. It’s a huge gamble. He might not have had much of a choice, but it’s a gamble anyhow. Will we end up with some sort of cohabitation between President Macron and elements of the nationalist right to France? Remains to be seen, but highly likely. Or will he succeed to mobilize those that are against this development in the country? That also remains to be seen. But that, of course, is going to have a fairly fundamental impact on what happened, not only in France but in the rest of Europe as well.
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- Kylian Mbappé attacks France’s far right before Euros kickoff - GZERO Media ›
- Macron's snap election gamble will have repercussions for France and EU - GZERO Media ›
European Union flags are seen outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels April 12, 2006.
How the EU Parliament elections work
We broke down how voters across the European Union’s 27 member states cast their ballots in European Parliament elections this weekend, but how exactly do these elections work, and why should you care?
The European Parliament is where the European Union writes bloc-wide laws. Members of the European Parliament, or MEPs, selected in this year’s election will determine Europe’s approach to everything from the war in Ukraine and immigration to the green energy transition for the next five years.
The basics: Each country is allocated a fixed number of seats proportional to its population, like the US House of Representatives. The number of MEPs ranges from six for the smallest countries, like Luxembourg or Malta, to 96 for Germany, totaling 720. Explaining the process is a bit daunting: Each country may hammer out just how it fills the seats allotted to it. Some use a closed party list, wherein voters don’t choose a particular candidate per se, while others allow voters more control, and Malta uses a single transferable vote system.
Once that is all sorted, national parties then organize themselves to form supranational political coalitions based on ideology, not nationality. There are seven right now, ranging from Identity & Democracy on the far right to Renew Europe and the European People’s Party in the center to The Left on – yep – the left.
What to watch: The far right did well, as we explained elsewhere, but their division into two rival supranational blocs will limit their cohesion. Plus, the centrist European People’s Party bloc remains the largest in Parliament, and it looks able to keep incumbent European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calling the shots in Brussels.
European Elections: What to expect
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm, Sweden.
What are the prospects for the European elections later this week?
Yep, it's going to be a big week for big elections. First, on Tuesday coming out the result from the world’s , by far, biggest democratic election, the Indian one. And then from Thursday onwards until Sunday, we have elections in the 27 countries of the European Union, 370 million people have the possibility to vote for the members of the European Parliament, 720 of those. Result remains to be seen. It's unlikely to be any revolutionary change, but we will see the Greens losing in some countries, the extreme right doing gains in Italy and France. But I think the major parties, the center-right European People's Party, the Social Democrats and the Liberals could probably retain the overall majority. But that remains to be seen. In addition, national elections in Belgium and Bulgaria. It's a big week for big elections ahead.
As Russia gains ground in Ukraine, Baltic states worry the war will spread west
In recent weeks, Russia has captured territory in the east and southeast of Ukraine at its fastest pace since the early days of the invasion. A six-month delay in the US sending critical military aid to Kyiv allowed Russia a window of opportunity to make significant advances. Now, military experts fear the war could spread westward to the Baltic states, bringing the specter of war to NATO’s backyard.
On GZERO World, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder joins Ian Bremmer from Tallinn, Estonia, for an update on the mood right now in the Baltic region. Government officials in Estonia say they are worried because it’s clear that Russia, by extension, Vladimir Putin, has realized that their survival depends on a permanent mobilization of the country for war, which the Russian economy is now dependent on for growth. Should Ukraine fall or take serious losses, the war could move past the border and into the Baltics, which are members of NATO. As a former Soviet country, Estonia keenly understands what it’s like to be dominated by Moscow and what it would mean for other NATO allies if Ukraine fell.
“Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, countries on the front line are saying, the United States and Germany need to wake up,” Daalder explains, “This war that you don’t want to fight, it’s right here, right now being fought in Ukraine.”
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Is the US aid to Ukraine too little, too late?
Former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder says the last six months of Ukraine's war with Russia may have been a critical juncture. He underscores Ukraine's urgent need for additional capabilities, especially manpower and ammunition, which the US has been slow to supply.
"[The Russians] just have more people, they have more guns, and they, importantly, it looks like they have more and better morale, which makes them willing to do things that otherwise people aren't willing to do."
Daalder calls for a serious discussion about the West's role in aiding Ukraine and the potential consequences of inaction. To put it simply, Daalder says there's much more that the US could be doing. "We have military power, we have capabilities; we could send in larger quantities. We have troops."