Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is no longer just a European revisionist in the EU as his manipulative actions on the geopolitical chessboard have turned into a systematic game against the interests of the West. In a game where China and Russia are Hungary’s main partners, and the EU and the US are just pawns Orban demonstrates a rare ability to extract maximum benefit from geopolitical tensions, while maintaining an outward facade of loyalty to the EU and the US, Russia and China.
Orban regards Brussels as a cash dispenser, and Washington, Beijing and Moscow as sources of uncontrolled support and tools for avoiding responsibility. Such a ‘hungarian feature’ poses a threat to the West. Orban clearly shows that being a member of the EU and NATO and at the same time systematic undermining their principles, while receiving billions in subsidies and investments from those you are working against is a possible thing.
Money from Brussels to the detriment of the EU
Over the past 15 years, Hungary has received more than €30 billion from European funds. This money should have been spent on reforms, infrastructure, and innovation. Instead, they finance 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.
Whenever Brussels tries to hold Budapest accountable, Orban blackmails it either by vetoing sanctions against Russia or blocking aid to Ukraine or delaying EU strategic decisions and gets new concessions from Brussels and new transfers as a consequence. At the end of 2023, despite loud statements about the ‘freezing’ of funds, the European Commission agreed to unblock more than €10 billion to stop Orban from blocking key decisions.
This is more than financial and political weakness – it is a diagnosis of the crisis of the West, which is funding the regime that is destroying it.
Orban’s game with Trump
Orban cynically exploits the US publicly talking about ‘shared values’, hosting American investors, and demonstrating closeness to the White House during the Trump administration. 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 US, 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 that enables him 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.
Playing with sanctions: profit on blood
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 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, Istvan 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 told that China poses a ‘strategic challenge’ that requires ‘vigilance, transparency and unity’ from Western natons. 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 US that 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 US 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 car 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 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 preparing 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 exploiting 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.
Orban 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.
