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Zsolt Enyedi: Orban’s Great Power Politics

“The specific statements he made on Ukraine, Brussels, Berlin and on the Balkans should be interpreted not as campaign slogans but as indications of how Orban actually sees the world,” Zsolt Enyedi, lead researcher of our De-/Re-Democratization Workgroup writes in his post on LSE’s EUROPP blog.

The post reflects on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s recent ‘state of the nation’ speech, which kicked off the 2022 election campaign and shed light on how he views Hungary’s position within Europe and the world. “He has a more open-ended approach to the future of the EU than most of his compatriots. Brussels was mentioned seventeen times, and every single time in a negative context,” Zsolt Enyedi writes.

“What the speech did clearly demonstrate, however, is Orbán’s new-found obsession with the Balkans. His latest project, the support of the separatist Bosnian Serb politician, Milorad Dodik, opened a new front with the EU in 2021,” he continues, adding that “Orban is known as someone who likes to exaggerate his own influence, but his words have some undeniable relevance in the context of the Balkans.”

Read the full post here.

Photo: Annika Haas (EU2017EE) / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0
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