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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   1526 thread views

Transnational Thursday for February 1, 2024

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Hungary and Friends

A follow up to last week’s post about Turkey finally approving Sweden’s NATO membership (in theory in exchange for American shipments of F-16s, which have not been approved for delivery by Congress yet). Hungary is the only remaining holdout keeping Sweden from NATO membership and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has now agreed to meet with Viktor Orban. Hungary has responded in a characteristically confusing manner:

In a post on X on the same day, Orban wrote that his country supports Sweden’s membership and said he would urge lawmakers to approve its accession quickly.

But on Thursday, Hungary’s parliamentary speaker, Laszlo Kover, said there was no urgency in backing Sweden’s NATO membership bid.

“I do not feel any particular urgency. Moreover, I do not think there is an extraordinary situation,” Kover said.

The US Ambassador to Hungary sounds increasingly exasperated with their ostensible ally.

Hungary is also holding up a $54 billion European Union aid package for Ukraine, so basically everyone in Europe loves Hungary right now. Ostensibly the conflict is over the minority rights of ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine, but given Orban’s relative friendliness with Putin there are a lot of accusations thrown about the move being pro-Russian (functionally or intentionally). The Foreign Ministers of Hungary and Ukraine met to try to hash things out but apparently still no luck.

Monday’s meeting was Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto’s first visit to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, and the only official bilateral meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, in the last two years.

Szijjarto said that modifications Ukraine made late last year to its education and language laws had “doubtlessly stopped a negative spiral” that had restricted the rights of ethnic Hungarians in the western Ukrainian region of Zakarpattia to study in their native language.

But, he said, those changes were not enough to resolve the dispute over the language rights of the Hungarian minority that has dominated the two countries’ poor relations for years.

The EU has been blocking funds for Hungary in response to democratic backsliding in Hungary; probably what it would really take to get them on board is to reverse this and effectively pay them off. Supposedly it’s possible that a meeting will happen directly between Orban and Zelensky but it remains to be seen.

Edit: Update: @Ioper flagged that today there was actually a breakthrough on the Ukraine funding:

After weeks of standoff, European Union leaders brought Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary on board and agreed on Thursday to create a 50-billion-euro fund for Ukraine, providing a critical lifeline to a country at risk of financial meltdown in the midst of war with Russia...

Before Thursday’s meeting, Mr. Orban had been demanding an annual chance to veto the disbursement of money to Ukraine, which is to be dispensed in the form of loans and grants over the next four years. But that demand was rejected. Instead, leaders agreed to a regular review of the way the money was being spent to assuage concerns about diversion or corruption, E.U. officials said.

Under the agreement reached on Thursday, the European Commission, the E.U. executive arm, will draft an annual report on how the Ukraine fund is being used. European leaders will have a chance to debate its performance and raise any concerns about it...

It appeared that Mr. Orban did not receive anything material in exchange for giving up his veto for the fund, valued at about $54 billion.

It seems this is now resolved?

Thanks for catching!

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