The biggest risk for the EU today would be to think that the danger has disappeared and the wave of reaction has died down. Without Moscow’s “Trojan horse” in Brussels, it will undoubtedly be easier to approve the twentieth package of sanctions against Russia and to unlock the 90 billion euro loan for Ukraine. But it remains absolutely necessary to take further steps towards the EU’s strategic autonomy. Since yesterday evening, European leaders can no longer hide behind the pretext of the Hungarian veto to justify their inaction.
By Eric JOSEF
Hungary is turning away from the West, or at least towards the European Union. On the eve of the most anticipated vote, Péter Magyar, leader of Tisza (Respect and Freedom Party), had clearly stated that the parliamentary elections of April 12 represented for his country a choice between “East and West”. On Sunday, his fellow citizens answered massively “no” to leaving Brussels and rejected Viktor Orbán’s increasingly visible rapprochement with Moscow.
Of course, the reasons for the illiberal leader’s defeat include the consumption of power, high inflation, and growing public discontent with widespread corruption. However, during a fierce election campaign, opponents of the seemingly invincible prime minister revived the old slogan of the 1956 anti-Soviet Budapest revolt: “Ruszkik haza,” Russians at home.
This time it is Viktor Orbán who returns home, after sixteen years of uninterrupted power. For the leaders of the European Union, this is a relief. But it should also be a broader lesson, of paramount importance for all EU citizens.
The first lesson to be learned is that the 2004 enlargement – the one that admitted ten new countries, including Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the three Baltic states – was far-sighted. Despite legitimate criticism and unacceptable violations of the rule of law by some populist governments in these new member states, the integration has undoubtedly averted the worst. Without this anchoring in the EU, Hungary today would probably be an authoritarian state similar to Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko, and Russian tanks could be much closer to the former Iron Curtain.
Budapest’s presence in the European Union has, therefore, enabled it to keep alive, albeit fragilely, a democratic and pro-European opposition – precisely the one that triumphed yesterday, just as Donald Tusk’s liberals won in Poland in June 2025.
The second message is that the sanctions imposed – albeit belatedly – have proven effective. After European funds for Hungary (18 billion euros, about 7% of GDP) were frozen in 2022 for rule of law violations, it became much more difficult for the Fidesz leader to buy social consensus.
The third lesson is that liberal and democratic Europe should be grateful to Volodymyr Zelensky’s soldiers. For a long time, Viktor Orbán moved carefully between Brussels and Moscow. Under his rule, without falling into open Russophilia, Hungary – a small Central European country with about 10 million inhabitants and only 1% of the EU’s GDP – thought it could maximize its benefits by taking as much as possible from both sides. This game worked until Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and faced unexpected resistance from the Ukrainians. This forced Viktor Orbán to come out and take a stand, ultimately choosing to support the Kremlin. The result was an ever-increasing isolation from Brussels and a growing rejection by many Hungarians who, while not necessarily pro-Ukrainian, saw Moscow as a greater threat than Kiev.
Finally, this vote shows that, although no election in Hungary had previously attracted such deep attention from so many Europeans, the time has come to look ahead: a common political space now exists and the citizens of the old continent understand well that their fate is linked to that of their neighbors.
This has been understood by both Viktor Orbán’s nationalist supporters (from Marine Le Pen to Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini, as well as Alice Weidel and Santiago Abascal), as well as by Europeanists who see in yesterday’s result an opportunity to send a message of resistance to the international reactionary wave.
Because Orbán was not just the leader of a small illiberal democracy. He was the founder of the third political group in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the “Patriots for Europe”, and a central figure in an anti-Enlightenment mindset that also inspires the Maga movement. His defeat – despite the support of the US administration, which sent Vice President JD Vance to try to save “soldier Orbán”, and the understanding of the Kremlin and Xi Jinping’s China – shows that the European Union model, based on democracy, the rule of law and the balance of power, is capable of resisting those who want to destroy it.
However, the biggest risk for the EU today would be to think that the danger has disappeared and the reactionary wave has died down. Without Moscow’s “Trojan horse” in Brussels, it will undoubtedly be easier to approve the twentieth package of sanctions against Russia and to unlock the 90 billion euro loan for Ukraine. But it remains absolutely necessary to take further steps towards the EU’s strategic autonomy. Since yesterday evening, European leaders can no longer hide behind the pretext of the Hungarian veto to justify their inaction. (La Stampa)