Viktor Orbán Persists with His Peace Initiative, Despite Freakout in Brussels
In his discussion at the Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio, Italy, on Sept. 6, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán revealed that he continues to pursue his peace effort, but no longer publicly, as he had done initially with his surprise visits in July to Kyiv, Moscow, Beijing and Washington (cf. SAS 28-31/24). He had sent reports to his EU colleagues “within 12 hours” of each meeting, but at one point these reports were leaked and published, he said, hinting at sabotage. Moreover, “As the EU is what it is, they did not take it seriously and did not act on it”.
Concerning the content of his peace initiative, Orbán said that, on the basis of his past experience in the Balkan wars and in the war in Georgia, the “first lesson is that if there is no communication, there is no chance to stop a war”. Communication comes first, he said, second comes a ceasefire, and “then start negotiations on a peace plan”. If you wait to have a peace plan before implementing a ceasefire, “there will never be peace”.
At the beginning of his mission, Orbán said he saw that neither the Ukrainian, nor the Russian side expressed the intention to establish peace, because both leaders said that time is on their side. That is why he subsequently went to Beijing, Washington and Mar-a-Lago (to meet U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump). “I think we should create an international context and surrounding which embodies and expresses, convincingly, that the whole world, not just the South, but the whole world, even Europe, would like to have a ceasefire as soon as we can.”
The Hungarian Prime Minister used the occasion to tear into several aspects of EU policy. He called for a “reconsideration” of the Green Deal, because “up to now the Green Deal has been run against the business community”. He also explained why he is against a political union: “On war, on gender, on migration and on the labor-based society issue, we have different approaches. If you force us to come together on issues we don’t agree with, you will disintegrate the European Union.” On migration, for instance, Orbán proposes to implement “opt-out” options for countries which do not follow the common policy.
On his meetings with and endorsement of Trump, he explained: “My understanding is that our answer to the loss of competitiveness of Europe is the formation of economic blocs and we have a political expression of that: democracy vs. autocracy. The approach of President Trump was different: it was a plan of deal-making”, rather than dividing the world into a western and an eastern economic bloc. “This does not mean that under a Trump presidency, there will be no difference of interest with Europe, but a deal-making approach is much better”, he explained.
The yearly Ambrosetti Forum is a sort of Italian “mini-Davos” summit of the Italian political, academic and business establishment that kicks off the post-summer political season. Regular speakers include the Italian Prime Minister and/or State President. This year, guest speakers were Victor Orbán, the Queen of Jordan and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
