US Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat representing the state of Maryland, issued a public statement on the future of US–Hungarian relations. Senator Cardin is the Chair of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, and within that competence, he has recently hosted US Ambassador David Pressman to Hungary for a meeting.
Unsurprisingly, Ambassador Pressman, an avid critic of the Orbán administration,
did not paint a flattering picture of Hungary.
Consequently, Senator Cardin wrote in his public statement, released on 1 February:
‘I have deep concerns over the direction of the current Hungarian government, whose officials have repeatedly attacked President Biden and Ambassador Pressman in ways that should be unthinkable for an American ally. The Biden Administration should be examining whether Hungary truly is a trusted partner deserving of participating in the Visa Waiver Program—and given the level of corruption, whether it is appropriate to initiate sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act.’
There had been some developments as regards this issue already. In August 2023, the US Embassy announced it is reducing the validity period for Hungarian citizens participating in the US Department of Homeland Security’s ESTA programme.
The Magnitsky Act was passed by the US Congress in 2012 and was signed into law by President Barack Obama to empower the US government to issue sanctions on foreign countries for supposed human rights violations. It is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian tax advisor and lawyer who died in a Russian prison in 2009.
And what are these supposed violations by the Hungarian government that Senator Cardin wants to punish so severely?
One of the infractions he names is the delay of the ratification of Sweden’s NATO accession. Hungary remains the last outstanding NATO state not to approve the newest member of the military alliance. However, as a full-right member of the alliance itself, Hungary has every right to exercise its discretion to ratify the new addition or not—punishing the country for ‘human rights violations’ for that would be unthinkable. Prime Minister Orbán and President Katalin Novák of Hungary have already expressed their support for Sweden’s NATO accession at times. However, the National Assembly of Hungary has refused to ratify it so far, citing concerns over the Swedish government’s rhetoric about the state of democracy in Hungary.
Similarly, Senator Cardin also condemns the Orbán government for ‘unnecessarily delaying, until today, the European Union’s effort to provide much-needed economic assistance to Ukraine,’ another issue which Hungary has the right to decide on based on its own national interests.
The American lawmaker also strongly condemned the Sovereignty Protection Act recently passed by the Hungarian parliament, writing:
‘The ongoing erosion of democratic norms in Hungary continues to be alarming. The recently enacted ”Sovereignty Protection Act”—which goes into effect today with the launching of the so-called “Sovereignty Protection Authority”—is a direct assault on the rights of journalists, civil society, political figures, and anyone who criticizes the Orban regime, directing the state's intelligence agencies and law enforcement to surveil, detain, depose and imprison those who voice dissent. It’s nothing short of draconian and unlike anything we’ve seen in a modern democracy.’
The Sovereignty Protection Act aims to guard against foreign influence in domestic Hungarian politics by criminalizing political actors soliciting or receiving large donations from foreign nationals. Civil organizations and media outlets supporting the left-wing opposition alliance have been proven to obtain large amounts of funding from abroad, particularly the United States, in the previous parliamentary election campaign.
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