Summary of the day
Speaking at an event commemorating the 1956 revolution, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán said that “Moscow was a tragedy, Brussels is only a bad contemporary parody”. The Hungarian leader said that the EU can be fixed.
Thousands of opposition supporters, including many young people, marched in Budapest.
Members of the European parliament said that Hungary has not fulfilled promised judicial reforms needed to unlock the €13bn slated for regional development in the country that is currently frozen.
A senior Hungarian official said that while there are still some pending issues, “we are pretty close to the end” of negotiations to unlock Hungary’s broader frozen EU funding.
Asked about the impact of the Polish election on the Hungarian ruling party’s position on the European stage, Orbán ally Judit Varga said “Fidesz’s alliances remain strong and flourishing”.
Péter Krekó, the director of the Budapest-based Political Capital research institute, said that Orbán’s foreign policy is increasingly driven by “antagonism towards western alliances”.
Daniel Berg, a vice-president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and deputy mayor of Budapest’s second district, said “the spirit of ‘56 is sadly more alive today in Kyiv than in Budapest”.
Members of Momentum, a centrist opposition party, threw red paint outside Orbán’s office in protest against his relationship with the Kremlin.
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More photos from the opposition event underway now in Budapest. Many young people are marching to commemorate the 1956 revolution and express their opposition to Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán. Many are yelling anti-government slogans.
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Thousands of opposition supporters march in Budapest
Thousands of Hungarians, including students, teachers and union members, are now marching in the streets of Budapest.
The mayor of Budapest will soon address the anti-government crowd.
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Turkey moves on Sweden's Nato membership, putting pressure on Hungary
Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan submitted a bill on approving Sweden’s Nato membership to his country’s parliament, putting Stockholm one step closer to joining the defensive alliance and piling more pressure on the Hungarian parliament to ratify.
Turkey and Hungary are the only two countries whose legislatures have yet to sign off on Sweden’s accession.
The Hungarian leadership, which is closely aligned with Ankara and also maintains a relationship with Moscow, has sent mixed signals about why it has dragged it feet. At times, the Hungarian government argued that it’s only a “technical” issue, but on other occasions it brought up complaints that Sweden had – in Budapest’s view, unfairly – criticised the state of Hungarian democracy.
Officials within Nato have said that Hungary has repeatedly reassured them it will not wait to be last to ratify. The Hungarian parliament had earlier also delayed its ratification of Finland’s membership, moving quickly once it became apparent that Turkey would sign off as well.
But the issue of Sweden’s membership has fuelled frustration in western capitals already concerned about Budapest’s friendly links to Moscow and Beijing.
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Photos from Budapest today, as Hungarians commemorate the 1956 revolution.
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“We can never forget that the heroes of '56 fought for the same thing, which is still the greatest desire of Hungarians: independence and belonging to the west,” Hungary’s former prime minister and now opposition politician Ferenc Gyurcsány said today.
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Viktor Orbán declares Brussels can be fixed, poking fun at EU's rule of law measures
Speaking in Veszprém, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán poked fun at the EU’s rule of law measures against Hungary and called Brussels a bad parody.
Fortunately, Brussels is not Moscow – Moscow was a tragedy, Brussels is only a bad contemporary parody. We had to dance as Moscow whistled. Even if Brussels whistles, we dance as we want, and if we don’t want to, we don’t dance.
But while the Soviet Union was hopeless, the EU is not, the prime minister said, pointing to next year’s European parliament election.
Moscow was beyond repair, but Brussels and the European Union can be repaired.
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Orbán says Hungary most stable country as he looks ahead to European election
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán tells a crowd in Veszprém that Hungary was the first to defend Europe from migration and the first to suggest peace instead of war.
Speaking on the anniversary of Hungary’s 1956 revolution, the nationalist prime minister called Hungary the safest and most stable country in all of Europe.
We returned to the European nations, he said, adding however that the place Hungary returned to was not the one it was cut off from.
Hungary sees freedom differently, Orbán said.
We longed finally to be able to be who we are. The thought of not being a man, not being Hungarian and not being a Christian is like tearing out our hearts. For us freedom is not an escape from ourselves.
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Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán will speak shortly in Veszprém. Stay tuned.
Orbán driven by 'resentment' toward west, analyst says
Viktor Orbán’s meeting with Vladimir Putin last week added to growing frustrations with the Hungarian leader in western capitals.
The Hungarian prime minister “tries to keep up a role as the ‘bridgehead’ between the west and the east,” said Péter Krekó, the director of the Budapest-based Political Capital research institute.
Orbán wants to maximise “the benefits of relationships in both directions– despite increasingly obvious signs that it is impossible in the current geopolitical reality”, Krekó said, noting that the prime minister “also expects that Ukraine cannot win this war and hopes that he can be instrumental in a deal sooner or later”.
Orbán’s foreign policy is increasingly driven by his increasingly deep, emotional resentment and antagonism towards western alliances, and while he can mostly maintain his popularity at home with his pragmatic ‘peace’ rhetoric (in an almost-monopolised information space), this strategy is simply not working: Hungary suffers from increasing isolation in the EU and even in central and eastern Europe, and the economy is in a bad shape, in a recession, and with high inflation. Business deals with Russia and China brought more benefits to private than public interests, while it is too early to judge Orbán’s economic strategy to make Hungary a prime producer of Chinese batteries for the German electric car industry that can make this ‘bridgehead role’ more real.
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'Fidesz’s alliances remain strong,' Orbán ally says
The defeat of the conservative Law and Justice party in Poland has put a spotlight on the growing isolation of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party on the European stage.
Viktor Orbán has long held big aspirations for his party beyond Hungary, and he is already preparing for next year’s European parliament election.
Since leaving the mainstream European People’s party, Fidesz has invested more in relationships with nationalist and far-right forces around the continent, but it is unclear whether they would ultimately create their own political grouping on the European level – and if such an alliance would reduce Orbán’s diplomatic isolation.
Asked about Fidesz’s messaging in the upcoming race, Judit Varga, an MP in Hungary and former minister of justice who is expected to lead the Fidesz campaign in the European election, said that “the way of life of European people is under threat today”.
“If we continue like this, Europe won’t even be recognisable fifty years from now,” she said. “We must stop migration, end war, bring peace and cut inflation.
“We must put Europe back on the path of common sense to protect European prosperity, freedom and way of life.”
Asked about the impact of the Polish election on Fidesz’s position on the European stage, Varga said: “Fidesz’s alliances remain strong and flourishing.”
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The absolute minimum should be to wait until the elections for Hungary’s National Judicial Council before making a decision on the country’s EU funding, German Green MEP Daniel Freund says.
The parliamentarian also told reporters that since the reform list was formulated by the European Commission there has been additional damage to Hungarian democracy and that if this is not taken into account, the assessment of the situation would be skewed.
Finnish centre-right MEP Petri Sarvamaa also said that the situation was ever-evolving and that it was extremely clear that the Orbán government doesn’t seem to be moving forward in a substantial way.
Hungarian opposition MEP Katalin Cseh underscored the need to wait until the deadline for the National Judicial Council election, but also to continue observing whether the promised reforms deliver.
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We need maximum results before we disburse funds, Dutch MEP Thijs Reuten, a member of the Socialists and Democrats group, told reporters.
There are too many shortcomings at the moment to grant Hungary funding, he added.
Hungary’s government is not a good faith actor and guarantees need to be ironclad before EU funds are unfrozen, Hungarian MEP Katalin Cseh, a member of the opposition Momentum party, told reporters today.
Full implementation of the reforms the European Commission requested from Hungary’s government is a basic minimum, she said, underscoring like her colleagues from other leading European political groups that in her view the Hungarian government has yet to fully comply with promised measures to strengthen the independence of the judiciary.
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Hungarian reforms not complete yet, MEPs say
Members of the European parliament said today that Hungary has not fulfilled promised judicial reforms needed to unlock the €13bn slated for regional development in Hungary that are currently frozen.
It doesn’t look perfectly good yet, Finnish MEP Petri Sarvamaa, a member of the centre-right European People’s party, told reporters in a press conference with MEPs from three other political parties.
He said the European Commission should wait to see if Hungary is really fulfilling its promises on judicial reforms.
Daniel Freund, a German Green MEP, said the necessary reforms have not been made yet and called for the European Commission to wait until after the next elections for Hungary’s National Judicial Council before deciding on the fate of Hungary’s money. Freund also highlighted the need to see that Hungary has indeed strengthened the Kúria’s judicial independence.
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Oleksiy Goncharenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, has weighed in on the 1956 anniversary and recent controversial meeting between Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
“The Hungarian prime minister is betraying the memory of the students who were not afraid to speak out against the regime 67 years ago,” he said.
Today is a national holiday in Hungary. On this day in 1956, the anti-communist revolution began, which was suppressed by Soviet troops. At that time, the Hungarian students who started the uprising understood that the Soviet government was evil.
— Oleksiy Goncharenko (@GoncharenkoUa) October 23, 2023
But history does not teach… pic.twitter.com/ybN9s8qDbb
'We are pretty close', senior Hungarian official says as Budapest pushes to unfreeze EU funds
The EU and Hungary are close to an agreement that would unfreeze billions in EU funds, according to the Hungarian side.
Nearly €28bn in EU funds slated for Hungary are frozen, under three different instruments. To unlock the funds, Brussels has given Budapest a list of reforms to complete, from strengthening the judiciary to putting in place stronger anti-corruption and transparency measures.
A senior Hungarian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations, told the Guardian today that while there are still some pending issues, “we are pretty close to the end”.
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European parliament members representing the centre-right European People’s party, the Socialists and Democrats group, the centrists of Renew Europe and the Greens will speak today in Brussels about whether they believe Hungary has done enough for the EU to unfreeze billions in funding suspended over rule-of-law concerns.
They will be focusing on a €13bn pot of money earmarked for regional development and frozen until Budapest can show it has implemented reforms safeguarding judicial independence.
Stay tuned.
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Opposition pours red paint outside Orbán's office
Members of Momentum, a centrist opposition party, threw red paint this morning outside Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s office in protest against his relationship with the Kremlin.
Orbán “betrayed” the memory of the heroes of 1956, Momentum wrote online.
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Orbán a 'disgrace to memory of Hungarian freedom fighters', opposition politician says
Daniel Berg, the vice president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and deputy mayor of Budapest’s second district, has criticised the Hungarian government’s foreign policy.
“The spirit of '56 is sadly more alive today in Kyiv than in Budapest,” he told the Guardian this morning.
“Viktor Orbán kowtowing to dictators like Putin and Xi Jinping, undermining Ukraine and Nato, and drifting ever farther from the west is a disgrace to the memory of Hungarian freedom fighters, and counter to all they fought, bled and died for.”
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Here are photos from 1956. Today Hungary is marking the anniversary of its uprising, which was crushed by Soviet troops.
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'Big debates': Hungarian foreign minister gears up for arguments with EU partners
Hungary’s Péter Szijjártó arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg this morning pumped for arguments with European partners.
Szijjártó is known as Europe’s most Russia-friendly minister, and is one of the only senior figures within the EU who still travels to Moscow.
“Europe is surrounded by wars and conflicts,” the minister wrote on social media, noting that Israel, Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh and the Sahel are on the agenda.
While most EU ministers like to stress the bloc’s unity on key foreign policy issues, Szijjártó often underscores differences in opinion.
“Divided positions and big debates,” he said of today’s session.
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Welcome to the blog
Good morning and welcome back to the Europe blog.
We will be looking at the latest in Hungary, which today is marking the anniversary of the 1956 revolution, which was crushed by Soviet troops.
The anniversary comes at a tense time for Hungarian foreign policy, days after the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, controversially met with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and as the Hungarian government is working to seal a deal to unfreeze billions in EU funds that were suspended over rule-of-law concerns.
Orbán will be marking the anniversary with a speech this afternoon, while Budapest’s mayor, Gergely Karácsony, will address a crowd in the capital in the evening.
Members of the European parliament, meanwhile, are expected to hold a press conference in Brussels about Hungary’s recent reform attempts and whether the country has made sufficient progress on democratic standards to access European funding.
Send comments to lili.bayer@theguardian.com.
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