For years, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, a champion of “illiberal democracy,” has taken swipes at the European Union and its officials.
And they have not been shy about criticizing him back.
On Wednesday, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, some members took that to a new level — in song. As Mr. Orban arrived at the Parliament to deliver a speech, progressives greeted him with a rendition of “Bella Ciao,” an Italian antifascist resistance song from the World War II-era.
Their musical taunt, which lasted for less than a minute, was shut down by the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, as other members more politically in tune with the conservative Mr. Orban chanted slogans supporting him.
“This is not the Eurovision,” Ms. Metsola told the chamber. She wryly noted that the song was more “Money Heist,” a Spanish television series about a bank heist that features the haunting music of “Bella Ciao,” than Abba, the Swedish pop group that was propelled to fame after winning Eurovision 50 years ago.
“Let’s respect the dignity of this house,” she said. (The last time lawmakers broke out into song in the European Parliament was in January 2020, when they sang “Auld Lang Syne,” after backing the terms of the agreement on Britain’s departure from the bloc.)
The European Union — which Hungary joined in 2004 — has long been at odds with Mr. Orban for his stance on minority rights, immigration, the rule of law and other issues, including what Brussels sees as his sympathetic stance toward President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Orban has often accused the E.U. of meddling in Hungary’s internal politics and promoting liberal values that he says differ from his country’s traditional conservative ones.
Relations between the bloc and Hungary, which on July 1 took on the six-month rotating E.U. presidency, a largely administrative role, have turned frostier in recent months.
Since assuming the presidency, Mr. Orban has visited Mr. Putin in Moscow and also went to Beijing for previously unannounced talks with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, prompting concerns that he was courting authoritarian leaders at odds with E.U. values.
In July, he went to the Mar-a-Lago home of former President Donald J. Trump, who has praised Mr. Orban as a “boss.” Both men are aligned in their anti-immigration views and their skepticism of NATO.
All that helped create a hostile atmosphere when Mr. Orban appeared in Parliament.
“You are not welcome here,” Terry Reintke, the co-leader of the Greens Party in the European Parliament, told Mr. Orban. “This is the house of European democracy.”
Mr. Orban has also sometimes complicated E.U. diplomacy on Ukraine. Hungary has blocked changes in sanction rules requested by Washington as the price for the United States joining an effort to loan $50 billion to Ukraine, but the European Union is moving forward.
On Wednesday evening, E.U. member states decided to move ahead with a $39 billion loan to Ukraine, which would be repaid using interest earned on some $300 billion of Russian assets that were frozen in 2022. Hungary did not raise any objections to the loan, according to a European diplomat. The proposal will be voted on by the European Parliament later this month.
In his speech to the Parliament on Wednesday, Mr. Orban said that E.U. policy needed to change and said that a failure to control the entry of migrants to the bloc could cause Europe’s internal system of border-free travel to “fall apart.”
At a nearly two-hour news conference on Tuesday, he said that there was no way Ukraine could win on the battlefield and that E.U. leaders should support a negotiated end to the war.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, speaking to the European Parliament after Mr. Orban, said the E.U. would back Ukraine as long as it takes.
“We Europeans may have different histories and different languages, but there is no European language in which peace is synonymous with surrender,” she said.
Ms. Von der Leyen said that a decision by Hungary to ease visa restrictions for Russian nationals without additional security checks, and another to allow Chinese police to operate within Hungary, had turned it into “a backdoor for foreign interference.”
Mr. Orban reiterated his support for Mr. Trump on Tuesday, the same day that a new book by the famed journalist Bob Woodward alleged that the former U.S. president had remained in contact with Mr. Putin even after leaving office. “We will open several bottles of Champagne if Trump is back,” Mr. Orban said at a news conference, showing no qualms about wading into the U.S. election.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump has often cited Mr. Orban as an example of his support globally. During the presidential debate last month, Mr. Trump called the Hungarian leader “one of the most respected men.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Orban concluded his speech with a call to “make Europe great again.”
The post ‘This Is Not the Eurovision.’ Orban Gets a Hostile Serenade appeared first on New York Times.
