For months, it was rumoured that Hungary planned to use a reworked version of Donald Trump’s slogan for its upcoming EU presidency: Make Europe Great Again. That idea “sounded so lame and ridiculous that we refrained from reporting it”, Szabolcs Panyi, one of Hungary’s leading investigative journalists, wrote on X this month. “We were wrong.”
On 1 July, under that Trumpian banner, Hungary will take on the six-month rotating presidency of the EU council of ministers. As well as a spell in the diplomatic limelight, Viktor Orbán’s government will be setting the EU agenda for the rest of the year.
EU diplomats are downbeat, but resigned to Hungary’s six months in charge. Since Orbán returned to power in 2010, going on to win four consecutive terms, democratic values, the rule of law and press freedom in Hungary have withered, according to numerous independent bodies. » | Jennifer Rankin in Brussels | Sunday, June 30, 2024
I wish I could hibernate (and wake up when it’s all over)! The thought of Trump trying to make “America Great Again” Stateside and Orbán trying to make Europe great again this side of the Pond is enough to send shivers down anyone’s spine. What is Orbán going to try and do, I wonder? Ape Trump? – © Mark Alexander
