Six months ago, many questioned whether Hungary could fulfil the role of ‘honest broker’ required for the EU Presidency. Now, as the semester concludes, it is evident that Budapest has delivered one of the most successful and memorable presidencies in the history of the European Union.
After rejecting his Christmas ceasefire proposal, Volodymyr Zelenskyy harshly criticized Viktor Orbán for his mediation efforts between Kyiv and Moscow. The Hungarian prime minister responded firmly: ‘We won’t respond to any provocation.’
The Justice and Home Affairs Council of the European Union, under the Hungarian presidency, has agreed on the general approach to have EU Member States better align their criminal laws on migrant smuggling. Out of the 380,00 illegal border crossings recorded in 2023, about 90 per cent were facilitated by smugglers, according to Europol.
The European Commission remains dissatisfied with Hungary’s legal amendments and continues to exclude Hungarian students and researchers from Erasmus+ and Horizon programmes. Hungary’s Minister for Culture and Innovation condemned the decision, while six universities have filed legal action against Brussels, alleging discrimination.
A video analysis by TLDR News EU suggests Viktor Orbán’s long tenure as Prime Minister of Hungary may be coming to an end in 2026 at last. However, our own, rebuttal analysis of polling and election data, as well as the cultural issues for Hungarian voters, purport that that is an unlikely outcome.
‘One of the key lessons of the exercise is that no situation is predetermined. Soldiers must respond to diverse scenarios with discipline, as every soldier is responsible not only for themselves but also for their comrades and the entire community,’ summarized Lieutenant Colonel Tibor Dancs, commander of the 31st rotation of the Hungarian KFOR contingent.
Hungary’s 2024 innovation strategy includes a 215 billion forint allocation for research and innovation, a reform of the research network, and increased funding for excellence programmes. The government aims to enhance scientific output and global collaboration.
‘Because this process will be so difficult, the sad but unavoidable truth may be that if Ukraine takes part in the talks from the start, progress towards a settlement will become completely impossible,’ British journalist and author Anatol Lieven writes in his recent opinion piece published on Foreign Policy.
Since the Budapest City Council did not elect a Deputy Mayor in their November session, Capital Government Commissioner Botond Sára is taking the municipal government to court for failing to comply with its legal obligations. Sára has also raised concerns over the city budget, saying that Budapest is ‘nearing bankruptcy’.
‘I believe that small countries have a big role to play in the current situation…In this kind of environment, I think that smaller countries that can maintain their neutrality are the ones that will win. But the ones that don’t have the willpower and the political autonomy to be neutral—the ones that are actually forced to take a stand—, well, I think, are going to lose the most.’
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.