By Ishtwan Kamel
02/05/2025
The prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, is no longer just a European revisionist in the EU. His manipulative actions on the geo-political chessboard have turned into a systematic game against the interests of the West. A game in which Hungary’s main partners are China and Russia, and its main pawns the EU and US. Orbán shows a rare ability to maximise the benefits of geopolitical tensions while keeping up a facade of loyalty to the EU and the USA, Russia and China.
Orbán uses Brussels as a cash register to dispense money, and Washington, Beijing and Moscow as sources of unchecked support and tools to avoid responsibility. This ‘Hungarian characteristic’ is a threat to the West. Orban is showing that it is possible to be a member of the EU and NATO, but to systematically destroy their foundations, while at the same time receiving billions in subsidies and investments from those against whom you are working.
Getting paid by Brussels to undermine the EU
Hungary has received more than 30 billion euros in European funds over the past 15 years. This money should have been spent on reforms, infrastructure and innovation. Instead, it has financed the Orban regime: control over the media, the judiciary, oligarchs, controlled businessmen and party functionaries. EU money has become a tool to strengthen the anti-European system.
When Brussels tries to hold Budapest accountable, Orban blackmails it. He vetoes sanctions against Russia, blocks aid to Ukraine, delays EU strategic decisions. And every time he gets new concessions from Brussels and new transfers. At the end of 2023, despite loud statements about ‘freezing’ funds, the European Commission agreed to release more than €10 billion to prevent Orban from blocking key decisions.
This is more than financial and political weakness – it is a diagnosis of the West’s crisis, funding the regime that is destroying it.
Orban plays Trump
Orbán is no less cynical in his use of the United States. Publicly, he talks about ‘shared values’, hosts American investors, and during the Trump administration, he also demonstrates his closeness to the White House. In reality, however, his government has obstructed investigations into Chinese companies and helped weaken American influence in the region.
Orban openly supports Republicans in the United States, promotes MAGA narratives in Europe, and organises forums of the conservative movement. He plans to become a key mediator between the Trump administration and the EU. This will allow Orban to finally escape criticism for corruption, human rights violations and pressure on independent media.
His bet is on weakening American pressure on Russia and aligning interests between Washington, Moscow and Beijing through Budapest. To this end, Orban is establishing informal contacts with Trump’s entourage, promising new investments and loyalty.
Profiting from blood: gambling sanctions
Despite loud rhetoric about supporting European values, Orban’s Hungary remains economically tied to Russia.
Formally, Hungary has joined the EU sanctions, but Orban is blocking European sanctions against Russian banks and businessmen, appealing to the ‘national interest’. But this rhetoric is backed by concrete figures: OTP Bank’s branch in Russia earned more than $370 million in 2024 alone, 40% more than in 2023. This was made possible by servicing the accounts of companies such as the Okskaya Sudoverf (Oksk Shipyard), which produces pontoons for the Russian Armed Forces.
Despite this, Orban has successfully bargained for the bank’s exclusion from the sanctions list as a condition for the next tranches of EU funding.
At the same time, István Tiborcs is negotiating the purchase of Raiffeisen Bank’s assets in Russia, which are of strategic importance and could become a new channel for financing Russian businesses to circumvent sanctions. In this way, Orban not only supports the Putin regime, but also strengthens his own domestic financial vertical.
China is a true strategic ally
Budapest is even more interested in China.
U.S. Special Envoy Robert Palladino recently said that China is a ‘strategic challenge’ that requires ‘vigilance, transparency, and unity’ from Western countries. And the eldest son of the US president, Donald Trump Jr, has called on Hungary and other Eastern European countries with ties to China to choose the US as their main economic partner.
But despite Washington’s calls, the Hungarian government says it has no plans to abandon economic ties with China, despite its relations with the United States, which considers China its competitor. Amid the confrontation between Washington and Beijing, Orban is turning Hungary into China’s ‘friendly gateway’ to Europe. And when the United States is focused on the global confrontation with Beijing, Orban skilfully sells himself as a reliable ally in the fight against China while simultaneously accepting billions from the Middle Kingdom.
Today, among the largest new investors in the Hungarian market are Chinese battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. and global electric vehicle giant BYD Co. Under the guise of infrastructure development, the government is opening the door to Chinese giants: the Budapest-Belgrade railway, the giant CATL plant, and numerous 5G projects. Hungary has already provided more than €2.4 billion in subsidies to Chinese companies, and these investments are not just economic.
Hungary has also agreed to deepen its cooperation with Huawei Technologies Co. to develop a joint cloud services platform with 4iG Nyrt., a defence and telecommunications company that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is grooming to become a national leader. Moreover, it is through Budapest that Chinese investors have access to the sensitive infrastructure of Central Europe.
Risks for the US and the EU
Viktor Orban is not just an unpredictable ally.
He is an active participant in the erosion of Western unity. He is using the West to his advantage, squeezing billions of euros from the EU and the US, but at the same time implementing policies that directly contradict their strategic goals. His model is an instruction manual for other authoritarian leaders: how to be inside the West but play against it, how to be integrated into Western structures but at the same time work in the interests of authoritarian states.
Orbán is not building a neutral or pragmatic Hungary, but a tool to destabilise the West. His success is the result of the EU’s weakness and the US’s naivety. If Brussels and Washington do not find new ways to pressure and isolate the Hungarian regime, Budapest will finally turn from an ally into a battering ram of Moscow and Beijing in the heart of Europe.