Julien Hoez, a political advisor and expert in EU affairs, said Orban’s latest shenanigans are aimed at scoring points at home after his Fidesz party notched its worst ever electoral performance in the EU elections in Hungary last month.
Although Orban’s party and allies got 44% of the vote, they lost ground to Peter Magyar, an insider-turned-rival widely described as a threat to Orban.
But that’s just one of the takeaways Orban wishes for. He also wants to present himself as a leader of a growing far-right in Europe and build an “illiberal axis” from the US to Europe, said Hoez.
“He is trying to position himself as a leader of those in Europe who are euroskeptic, more interested in relations with China or Russia, or don’t want to get involved and in general display isolationist tendencies of the kind you see in the US.”