A recent article by POLITICO Brussels reveals yet another double standard against Hungary, as highlighted by Balázs Orbán, the political director of the Hungarian prime minister. ‘Double standards from the favourite liberal newspaper in #Brussels: criticizing Hungary for its economic relations, meanwhile BYD spotted as an official partner & sponsor of #euro2024,’ he wrote in a post on X.
Double standards from the favourite liberal newspaper in #Brussels: criticizing Hungary for its economic relations, meanwhile BYD spotted as an official partner & sponsor of #euro2024 https://t.co/WIYvQ3fyyJ pic.twitter.com/EE6DUSKN6f
— Balázs Orbán (@BalazsOrban_HU) June 26, 2024
In the article, titled ‘Hungary is flirting with China — at what cost to the EU?’ the authors discuss the increasingly close economic relations between Hungary and China in the context of the Hungarian EU Presidency, which starts on 1 July. Hungary’s explicit aim is to ease the increasingly strained EU–China relationship under the mandate of the European Commission led by Ursula von der Leyen, reflected in the recently announced EU punitive tariffs against Chinese EVs.
The article notes that several member states are speaking out against the commission’s tougher stance, but also stresses that Budapest cannot be relied upon to take a strong stance against China in the next six months. ‘Hungary has a golden opportunity to sabotage Europe’s economic security agenda, continuing its trend of playing spoiler,’ said Tobias Gehrke, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, to POLITICO.
According to the article, Hungary is a sort of entryway for China into the European Union—a goal that the Hungarian government has made no effort to conceal. Various officials have repeatedly stressed the importance of connectivity and interconnectivity, highlighting Hungary’s role as a bridge between East and West.
The conclusion of POLITICO’s article is clear:
during its presidency, Hungary is undermining the Commission’s efforts to disengage from the Chinese economy.
The article specifically notes that Hungary ‘is the beneficiary of a factory of Chinese electric vehicle-maker BYD, which is the target of a European Commission probe into electric cars.’
This is where the story gets interesting. BYD, constantly demonized in the Western media, is one of the main sponsors of the European Championship in Germany, as Balázs Orbán pointed out in his post. Just for the record, BYD overtook Tesla in 2024 to become the world’s number one electric vehicle manufacturer.
Of course, this is not mentioned in the article, nor is the fact that China was the number one trading partner of Germany, the host of the European Championship, in 2023. By comparison, China is Hungary’s ninth-largest trading partner. POLITICO also failed to mention
that Germany also spoke out against the European Commission’s punitive tariffs on Chinese EVs.
The German car industry association VDA, along with German Transport Minister Volker Wissing and German Economy Minister Robert Habeck, strongly criticized the EC’s punitive measures, as reported by Hungarian Conservative earlier.
POLITICO’s article is therefore yet another example of the double standards applied to Hungary. The same double standard applies to the sanctions against Russia, which are almost exclusively opposed by Hungary, while many member states secretly welcome that someone is attempting to defend the fundamental interests of the European economy with a voice of reason. Not to mention the Western companies that constantly circumvent these sanctions.
It is the same with China, with the difference that in this case, perhaps more people are daring to voice their dissent from the mainstream for the time being. The question is, how long?
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