Hungary’s nationalist leader Viktor Orbán has said he will open “several bottles of champagne” if Donald Trump returns to the White House next month, underscoring his differences with mainstream European leaders.
The Hungarian prime minister is due to host fellow EU leaders for a summit in Budapest a few days after the US presidential election on 5 November.
“We will open several bottles of champagne if Trump is back,” Orbán said on Tuesday, describing the EU’s November summit as a moment for the bloc to come together “to try to find a common voice”.
Orbán said that Trump, if elected president, would not wait until his inauguration but would act immediately “to manage a peace” between Ukraine and Russia “so we don’t have as European leaders any time to waste”. He added: “We have to react intellectually first, philosophically and then strategically.”
Trump has repeatedly claimed he could bring peace to Ukraine “very quickly”, without offering any details about how a durable settlement could be achieved. Orbán’s views on the Russian invasion closely mirror those of the former US president, who has been accused by the US vice-president and Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris, of echoing Vladimir Putin’s ideas.
Speaking to journalists in Brussels more than halfway through Hungary’s controversial EU presidency, Orbán was unrepentant about his so-called peace missions over the summer that included visits to Moscow, Beijing and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
The EU’s approach to Ukraine was “stupid”, he claimed, because the war could not be won on the battlefield and negotiations had to take place. “I am convinced personally, strongly that there is no solution on the battlefield and I think that the strategy what we follow as European Union is not good … what we are doing is just losing, losing, losing and losing,” he added.
Senior EU leaders have repeatedly said negotiations on Ukraine’s future can only take place with Kyiv’s participation.
Orbán has infuriated his EU counterparts by blocking EU military and financial aid for Ukraine, but on Tuesday he sidestepped a question on this point, claiming that his government had launched its “biggest ever humanitarian aid programme” and was sheltering tens of thousands of Ukrainians in Hungary.
The Hungarian leader is due to address MEPs in the Strasbourg parliament on Wednesday morning, when he can expect intense criticism from the pro-EU parliamentary groups over the widely documented decline in democratic standards and multiple reports of increased corruption since he returned to power in 2010.
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Despite a litany of legal disputes with the EU institutions and clashes with EU leaders, Orbán rejected claims of being isolated and said he had “a very friendly attitude towards the European Union”.
The European People’s party in the European parliament, the group Orbán quit in 2021 before being pushed, led criticism of the Hungarian prime minister ahead of his appearance in the Strasbourg chamber. “Today the Hungarian presidency is a presidency without impact,” said EPP leader Manfred Weber. “Orbán isolated himself, he plays no role at all.”