Tag Archives: U.S.-Hungarian relations

Good riddance, Mr. Ambassador

Below is my English translation of Viktor Orbán’s commendation on the occasion of awarding U.S. Ambassador David B. Cornstein the Middle Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit with Star, which the ambassador richly deserved. He has been a faithful supporter of the Hungarian autocrat’s illiberal regime.

♦ ♦ ♦

Dear David, dear Ambassador!

What the American ambassador is doing at this very moment, where he is going, whom he is meeting, is always of great interest in Hungary. Therefore, his departure is causing a minor earthquake. But before the assembly lines of the fake news factories started, he revealed his true reason: he wanted to go home to his grandson. This is something I can fully understand. Hungarian folk wisdom maintains that the English leave without saying goodbye while Hungarians say farewell but stay. Americans might fall between the two. Therefore, before he left us for good, we enticed him to return briefly in order to thank him for all the work he did in Hungary for the benefit of the Hungarian people. Thanks to his efforts, Hungarian-American relations have regained their former glitter.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen!

It is a rare gift for an adult to find a friend but even rarer when a country finds a friend. We received this extraordinary gift from Providence and President Donald Trump. In just over two years, Ambassador Cornstein managed to get Hungarian-American relations back on track. A few years ago, we wouldn’t have thought there would be extensive cooperation between Hungary and the United States in diplomatic and foreign policy matters. We did not think that the United States would help Hungary as a friend nor that Hungary would also act as a friend of the United States in international politics. To preserve our sense of reality, I recall here a joke from my childhood about the mouse that turned to the elephant, “Can you hear how we roar?” With the election of President Trump and then with your arrival, everything changed. We felt openness, honesty, and a friendly attitude on the part of the United States.

Dear David!

It’s no wonder therefore that we are rooting for another victory for the President. And from here, we also congratulate him on choosing Amy Coney Barrett. It hasn’t happened for time immemorial that there has been such a strong majority of traditional American values on the Supreme Court. I am convinced that President Trump has saved conservative America and become one of the greatest American presidents. We wish him, and ourselves, total success in his election.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen!

Experience tells us that, in difficult times, good patriots who have seen a lot, have been hardened in the rigors of business life are the ones who can set things right. This is the kind of man Hungarian-American relations needed. It needed an ambassador who bravely brushed aside those who, for whatever reason, were interested in tension between the United States and Hungary. That is what you did, and we are grateful to you for that. A good ambassador who knows us well and understands what we, Hungarians, think about Central Europe, the European Union, and the United States. And more importantly, he also understands how this seemingly complicated system comes together in our heads and lives. An ambassador who understands the spring of Hungarians’ minds and the key to their hearts. We know, dear David, that you also have Hungarian roots. However, we do not think of you as an honorary Hungarian. Because you treated us fairly and because you fell in love with Hungary, this country has taken you into its heart.

Dear Ambassador!

Please accept this award from us in recognition of your outstanding work in strengthening Hungarian-American diplomatic, economic, and trade relations and allow me, on behalf of the Hungarian people, to wish you good health, many happy moments with your family, and good luck with your future career! God bless the ambassador!

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Let me add a few comments from U.S. sources, including my own, about the disastrous tenure of David B. Cornstein between May 2018 and November 1, 2020, when he will  leave Budapest for good.

The modest Hungarian prime minister’s reference to the mouse and the elephant

Let me start with a 2019 article from The New York Times, describing a Fourth of July party for 800 guests, costing $300,000. The guest of honor was Viktor Orbán. “For many in the room, it was a bewildering spectacle: an American ambassador lavishing praise on a far-right leader whose party has methodically eroded Hungarian democracy and pushed anti-Semitic tropes.” When Cornstein was reminded of the lack of democracy in Orbán’s Hungary, he told Szombat, a Jewish weekly: “I am a committed promoter of democracy. I believe in the rule of law, individual freedoms, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and press.” He added that “had I witnessed that the freedom of any individual or institution was put in danger, I’d be the first one to raise concerns.”

Cornstein was supposed to save the American Central European University, but “Cornstein’s sympathy for the university didn’t prove to be terribly deep. He didn’t see himself as an advocate for the U.S. chartered school so much as an honest broker, bringing two sides together, each with a valid case. ‘It is not Viktor Orbán and the government of Hungary alone that caused this to happen.’” He even felt some sympathy for Orbán: “If you see what has been said by Soros regarding Orbán, you would say, ‘I don’t want this guy near me. I don’t want anything to do with him.’”

I loved the article about Cornstein which appeared in November 2019 in The Lafayette, the student paper of Cornstein’s alma mater, Lafayette College. A senior, the president of the College Democrats, said that the way “one of our most high-profile alums is behaving, in my view, is utterly disgraceful, anti-democratic, anti-academic freedom. Given his ties to the college, it is really quite shameful.” The student continued: “He’s been participating in covering up suppression of academic freedom, the erosion of democracy.”

And finally, here is a quotation from one of my many articles on Trump’s ambassador to Hungary. “Cornstein, who spends as little time as possible in Hungary, could be hired as Orbán’s P.R. man, if he weren’t past retirement age (he’s 81). Hungary has had many mediocre American ambassadors, but Cornstein takes the cake.”

Good riddance, Mr. Ambassador. Let’s hope that the new American administration will appoint a replacement quickly, someone who has the interests of the United States and the Hungarian people in mind, instead of those of an illiberal state, which Cornstein has repeatedly defended.

October 28, 2020

Following up on some current issues

I am covering three topics today, all follow-ups to earlier unfinished threads. The first continues the case of László Rovó, the government-appointed rector of the University of Szeged. Rovó, after returning from a ski trip in Southern Tyrol, didn’t quarantine himself as he was supposed to but instead showed up in the operating room. A couple of days later, he was diagnosed with COVID-19. Once the case became known, MOK, the Hungarian Medical Association, began an investigation of the case, which started with the Szeged chapter of MOK and concluded in Győr because of conflict of interest issues. A few months later, the original investigator of the case, Professor Szatmár Horváth, a professor at the university, was fired, allegedly for incompetence and unworthy behavior.

It seems that this disgraceful affair did have some adverse consequences, unfortunately not for Rector Rovó but for the University of Szeged’s medical school. For several years, the medical school at the University of Nebraska had a fruitful cooperation with the Szeged medical establishment. The contact person between the two universities was Károly Mirnics, a Hungarian-American professor of psychiatry, biochemistry, molecular biology, and pharmacology, who over the years welcomed several young Hungarian researchers in his laboratory. He also taught at the University of Szeged as a guest lecturer.

Upon hearing the story, he wrote a letter of resignation to the department head of the University of Szeged’s psychiatric clinic. Here are the main points of his letter. “(1) A powerful academic leader breaks the national rules for his pleasure, lies about it, gets COVID-19 and endangers patients by operating on them while potentially COVID-19 positive; (2) an ethics committee chair, who should investigate his alleged transgressions, is abruptly fired by the powerful leader who allegedly broke the rules.” Under the circumstances, “with a heavy heart,” the professor from Nebraska announced the discontinuation of all ties to the University of Szeged.

The second topic about which I would like to say a few words is the latest public opinion polling on the standing of Hungarian political parties. Yesterday, we were discussing the loss of popular support of the Slovak and Czech governments because of the severity of the “second wave” of the pandemic. Both Igor Matovič and Andrej Babiš were overly confident of their ability to handle the medical emergency and, by now, both politicians have lost the trust of their people. As a result, their parties, OĽaNO and ANO 2011, which in the early spring showed some modest gains, began losing support. At this point, I suggested that a similar development might take place in Hungary, given the chaotic handling of the pandemic by the government and the population’s decreasing trust in the veracity of Viktor Orbán and his regime.

We now have an answer to this question thanks to Závecz Research Institute’s poll, released today. The Hungarian medical situation is very similar to that in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but since the governments of Babiš and Matovič are coalition governments, as opposed to the rock solid two-thirds parliamentary majority of Fidesz, the Hungarian party, unlike the other two, is not threatened with collapse any time soon.

Fidesz, like OĽaNO and ANO 2011, gained five percentage points between March and August, but since then it has lost four percentage points. Among committed voters, Fidesz still leads with 49% against DK’s 17%, Jobbik and Momentum each at 10%, MSZP at 6%, and Mi Hazánk, LMP, Two-Tailed Dog, and Párbeszéd each at 2%.

After the by-election in Borsod County, I found it significant that the common, less-than-ideal opposition candidate won in Tiszaújváros, the largest town in the district. Even in smaller Szerencs, the hometown of Zsófia Koncz, the two candidates shared the votes in about equal measure. Závecz’s poll confirms the loss of Fidesz support not just in Budapest but also in provincial towns. Fidesz’s loss in these cities is substantial, eight percentage points. On the other hand, villages are still Fidesz strongholds. Fidesz’s loss among university graduates is huge, 16 percentage points, followed by high school graduates with a 6 percentage point decline. The number of Fidesz supporters with a grade eight education has grown by 7 percentage points. Among respondents under the age of 40, Fidesz’s popularity is at an all-time low, only 25%. However, I doubt that the Hungarian football hooligans will march out and engage in a violent demonstration against the government as happened in Bratislava and Prague, because the football-loving prime minister, ignoring the pandemic, hasn’t closed the football stadiums. Just this weekend there will be three NBI games in Budapest. No reason to riot.

Source: Financial Times

And finally, a few days ago we contemplated the possible ramifications of a Biden-Harris victory on U.S.-Hungarian relations. Yesterday, a fascinating report written by Senator Bob Menendez, the ranking member of the committee on foreign relations, appeared, titled “The Cost of Trump’s Foreign Policy: Damage and Consequences for U.S. and Global Security.” Menendez, hoping to be the next chairman of this powerful committee, is a fierce critic of the Orbán regime. The 73-page report has 52 references to Hungary and 36 to Viktor Orbán.

Hungary is described as a threat to NATO and democratic principles, a free press, and democracy. In fact, Menendez devotes a whole subchapter to the country, titled “Hungary: Embraced in the White House.” Most of this subchapter is devoted to Hungary’s “Eastern Opening,” where the senator writes about “the movement of Russian money into Hungary, intelligence sharing, increasing commercial ties and a decision to move the Moscow-based International Investment Bank to Budapest.” A roughly equal amount of space is devoted to Hungarian-Chinese relations and the Chinese-built railroad between Budapest and Belgrade. I must say that it is a very professional summary of U.S. foreign policy under President Trump, with more than 350 lengthy footnotes.

At the end of the pamphlet, Menendez summarizes his recommendations, among which we find: “Autocratic leaders should be put on notice that the United States will hold them accountable for violation of human rights and efforts to repress their citizens” and “Effectively competing against Russia and China should be one of the United States’ central foreign policy goals.” If Menendez has his way, the White House and the Democrat-led committee on foreign relations will give the Orbán regime a very hard time.

October 22, 2020

The Fidesz media rails against Biden, the Democratic Party, and Blacks

The Hungarian media in general is paying a lot of attention to the American presidential campaign as well as the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that have been taking place in several major U.S. cities. Here I will focus on the government media’s view of American domestic politics.

The Orbán government is of course hoping that Donald Trump will win in November over his Democratic rival, Joe Biden. Viktor Orbán’s dealings with the Obama administration were anything but cordial. Orbán especially disliked Hillary Clinton and was greatly relieved when Donald Trump defeated her to become the next president of the United States. It took a long time for Trump to notice Orbán, despite the Hungarian prime minister’s early support of him, which he publicly announced even before the 2016 election. His support was based on Trump’s policies concerning immigration and multiculturalism. The long-sought meeting of the two like-minded politicians took place on May 13, 2019 and was apparently a roaring success.

I have read most of the opinion pieces that appeared in Magyar Nemzet on this year’s American election campaign. Most of the analyses are taken over from Breitbart News Network, so they reflect the pro-Trump internet site’s optimism. For example, although an opinion piece published on June 16 admitted that “Joe Biden’s advantage over Trump is growing,” because of the peculiarities of the American electoral system the author predicted that Trump will most likely win. And, in any case, “Joe Biden would be unable to deliver peace” to the nation.

A few days later, Magyar Nemzet quoted from Red November, the latest book by Joel Pollak, Breitbart’s senior-editor-at-large, in which he claims that “the Democratic Party is preparing for a socialist revolution.” In the book he describes the street demonstrations and disturbances as “the radical electoral campaign by the Democrats whose final goal is the dismantling of the institutional system of the United States.”

The Fidesz propaganda machine is still absorbed by the alleged corruption case against Joe Biden’s son. One of the “analysts” of the XXI-century Institute, under the leadership of Mária Schmidt, wrote a long article attempting to prove that “the Democratic presidential candidate intervened in the domestic affairs of Ukraine.” In it, we learn that Petro Poroshenko was a puppet of the Americans and that Ukraine became “an Obama colony.” Since few people read the Institute’s analyses, Magyar Nemzet made sure that the wider public knows that “Biden was guilty of what Trump was accused of” in the case of U.S.-Ukrainian relations.

On the Fourth of July, Magyar Nemzet’s editorial ran under the headline “Culture war instead of a holiday.” The emphasis was on “the new far-left fascism,” as Trump described the anti-establishment demonstrations. Fairly lengthy quotations from Trump’s speech at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial followed. The Democratic position was by and large ignored, with only a single sentence quoted, in which Joe Biden insisted that “systemic racism must be radically eradicated” in the country.

Yesterday, Levente Sitkei, a regular Magyar Nemzet opinion writer, wrote an editorial about the American presidential campaign titled “Two worlds.” One of these is the world of football player and civil rights activist Colin Kaepernick, “a star on the virtual barricades who wants to break down old ideas, old customs, old traditions, and the old culture.” On the other hand, there is the real America, “the many million people who don’t want to judge the historical past on the basis of the morals of 2020.” Ignoring the increasing gap in support for the two candidates, Sitkei claimed that “Biden is not doing as well as is expected of him” and predicted that there is a good chance of Trump’s winning the election. “A strong alliance ties us to Washington, and we are systematically working to secure that alliance, expand our room for maneuver, and make cooperation more effective.” A Biden presidency would open an unwelcome chapter in U.S.-Hungarian relations, which wouldn’t bode well for the Orbán government.

These articles were what one might have expected from the pro-government press. But a Magyar Nemzet opinion piece by Gy. László Tóth, who calls himself a political scientist, went a step (or many steps) too far. The title of his article was “All Lives Matter.” I anticipated the usual argument. But no, he called the Black Lives Matter movement a sect whose real purpose is “to express their frustration-based sense of superiority and contempt for the existing world and whites.” In addition, in the short run, the movement is designed to help the Democrats in their war against Donald Trump. But, in Tóth’s opinion, members of this sect may have long-term plans. “The obliteration of white culture?” “Capture of political power?” “The complete rewriting of history from the perspective of the losers, the dispossessed, the oppressed, and the vulnerable?”

Tóth, a long-time political adviser of Viktor Orbán, would love to read works by significant African writers, dramatists, and philosophers of antiquity. He would love to admire the works of famous architects or listen to classical music composed by Africans. But “while traces of thousands of years of cultures and civilizations can be found on every other continent, there is no such trace in black-populated Africa.”

Tóth, who is unfamiliar with the English language, obviously missed the six-part PBS documentary “Africa’s Great Civilizations.” Instead, he gets his information from fellow right-wing journalists. One of his sources is István Gazdag, whose far-right writings appear in Demokrata, András Bencsik’s publication. After reading a few of Gazdag’s articles, I have no doubt that the former MIÉP politician is a white supremacist. And so is Gy. László Tóth, who finishes his piece with this call: “It’s time! Enough of the arson, the senseless toppling of statues. Since one of the defining elements of our identity is our culture, we must end these attacks. White, western civilization must take up the fight against the actions of racist groups of blacks. White lives matter!”

Viktor Orbán would be wise to put an end to this newly emerging naked racism that appears in government propaganda publications. It can easily backfire.

July 7, 2020

Hungary’s role in the possible impeachment of Donald Trump

Given my strenuous physical therapy routine three times a day, plus my occasional nodding off in front of the computer monitors (which I trust will be very temporary), I have less time to devote to reading and analyzing daily political affairs. Add to that the fact that my mind is not at its sharpest. Taking opioids is not exactly conducive to clear thought. So bear with me as today I simply add a few scattered thoughts on Hungarian involvement in the drama of Ukraine, a country that is fighting for its survival, and the possible impeachment of the American president, both with the active assistance of the U.S. ambassador to Hungary, David Cornstein.

Jeopardizing Ukraine’s survival is, on the one hand, Vladimir Putin, who embraces the old Russian view that Ukrainians are just “little Russians” and who would like to see the country disappear from the face of the map. On the other hand is the current president of the United States, who cares not a hoot about Ukraine but fixes his gaze solely on his domestic political ambitions. These two people pose an extreme danger to this fragile young country.

Viktor Orbán was an active participant in this dirty game on the flimsy grounds that the tiny Hungarian minority is being oppressed. The exact numbers are not known, but at the 2001 census 156,600 Hungarians lived in Zakarpattia Oblast, especially in the Berehove region and in the city of Berehova. Since then, the size of the Hungarian community has shrunk to perhaps as low as 80,000 due to emigration, which was facilitated by the Hungarian government’s decision, once again for domestic political reasons, to grant Hungarian citizenship to native Hungarians living in Ukraine. For a number of years, Orbán’s Hungary has done its best to prevent closer relations between Ukraine and NATO and has stood in the way of Kiev’s having any meaningful ties to the European Union.

Hungary made Ukraine’s life difficult on the European stage, but it was not until David Cornstein was appointed U.S. ambassador to Hungary that Viktor Orbán was able to influence the American president’s views. Cornstein set out to facilitate closer relations between the United States and Hungary by arranging a meeting between Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán. The thread connecting the two men had nothing to do with Ukraine. Instead, it went through Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel. Cornstein, a devoted supporter of Israel, met David Friedman, U.S. ambassador to Israel, at the Hungarian Embassy in Washington before his departure to take over the embassy in Budapest in June 2018. Friedman told Cornstein that Orbán was a staunch friend of Israel. As Cornstein put it later, Orbán’s intimate relations with Netanyahu made a great impression on him.

Cornstein’s attachment to democratic ideals is not exactly firmly grounded. For example, he gave a lecture to a journalist of the Jewish weekly Szombat (Sabbath), in which he went on at some length about the problems a strong opposition can pose to the government in power. Miklós Ligeti, a former official at the ministry of justice and now legal director of Transparency International of Hungary, considers “Cornstein the worst, most detrimental of diplomats—not just of the United States, but of all the countries. He is actively working against the voices of anticorruption.”

Shortly after his arrival in Hungary, he called Orbán’s Hungary an “earthly paradise” where democratic institutions flourish and “everybody is satisfied.” As far as he was concerned, corruption cannot be a serious problem because he talked to 40 businessmen, and nobody complained. Although originally he seemed to be concerned about the fate of Central European University, soon enough he was callous about the university’s destiny.

Cornstein developed a close relationship with Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, who entertained Cornstein in his home. When the ambassador traveled to the United States in February 2019, allegedly for medical treatment, he was a guest on the government plane carrying Szijjártó to Washington. I suspect that it was at that time that the final touches were put on the White House meeting in May between Trump and Orbán. Further help may have come from Netanyahu, who could have called on his excellent relationship with Trump to promote Orbán’s determination to meet the American president. I suspected at the time that all of these arrangements were made without the knowledge of the State Department. In fact, as we have since learned, State Department officials were against the meeting. Mick Mulvaney, acting chief-of-staff, prevailed against them.

All in all, a bizarre chain of events. Because of Orbán’s ties to Netanyahu, David Cornstein pushes for a meeting between the prime minister of Hungary and the president of the United States. Because of Orbán’s ties to Russia, he badmouths Ukraine. Because of…. And on and on it goes, with Trump’s impeachment becoming an ever more likely outcome.

October 23, 2019

Orbán, the pocket dictator, wants to be a partner of the big boys

Thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, I was released from the hospital about 24 hours after surgery. Although an operation is never fun, the advances that have been made since the same surgeon replaced my right knee eight years ago are remarkable. Pain management has improved, so recovery will, I’m told, be much faster. Thanks very much to everyone who wished me well.

During my stay in the hospital I had a lot of time on my hands, and, predictably, I spent most of it reading the Hungarian and American press. The most important news came from The Washington Post and The New York Times. I was especially taken with “Hungary’s Orbán gave Trump harsh analysis of Ukraine before key meeting” and “In Hungary, a freewheeling Trump ambassador undermines U.S. diplomats,” the latter by Matt Apuzzo and Benjamin Novak. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see David Cornstein called before a congressional committee. In fact, I’m surprised that they seem to have missed him, since he was a key figure in this disgusting affair.

These two articles and what follows in their wake will, I believe, have serious consequences for Orbán, whom Michelle Goldberg called a member of “the axis of autocrats,” together with Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

October 22,2019

American concerns over the International Investment Bank’s presence in Budapest: A timeline

Back on March 3, 2019, I first reported on the news that the International Investment Bank (IIB), headquartered in Moscow, was moving to Budapest. Once upon a time the bank was known as the Comecon (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) bank, but after the fall of the Soviet regime and its former satellites it died a slow death until, in 2012, Putin revived it. Two years later, Viktor Orbán decided to join it.

On February 5, 2019, Finance Minister Mihály Varga and Nikolai Kosov, the chairman of IIB, signed the agreement to make Budapest the new headquarters of IIB. Kosov considered this agreement “large-scale, historic, and unprecedented.” Varga was also delighted because, in his opinion, “from Budapest, IIB can network better with European financial institutions and other international development banks, allowing it to assume a significant role in supporting investments in Central Europe, in corporate lending, and in international financial affairs.” Several foreign governments, however, including the United States, were anything but thrilled at the prospect of having an investment bank under Russian control inside the European Union.

Nikolai Kosov and Mihály Varga sign the agreement, February 5, 2019

Right after the agreement was signed, all Hungarian opposition parties expressed their concern about having an investment bank under Russian supervision in Budapest. The suspicion that the bank might be a hub for Russian spies and/or money laundering surfaced immediately.

The alarm bell was rung in the United States on March 6 by two well-known politician scientists, Dalibor Rohac and Clay R. Fuller, of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. The authors called on “America’s Eastern European allies to withdraw from Putin’s fake multilateral bank” because “even under the most benign of scenarios, the move of IIB’s headquarters to Hungary plants the Kremlin’s flag in the heart of Europe.” A couple of weeks later The New York Times ran an article with the headline “Hungary Rolls Out Red Carpet for Obscure Russian Bank, Stoking Spy Fears.”

We don’t know when the U.S. State Department began to take an interest in the Russian-managed bank, but the Czech weekly Respect reported that, in early May, the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman, asked Prime Minister Andrej Babiš to quit IIB. Therefore, I assume that discussions between the American and Hungarian governments about the bank must have started by April. This timeline is pretty well confirmed by Szabolcs Panyi’s article today, which unraveled some details of the negotiations.

It was evident from the very beginning that the best the U.S. government could achieve at this late stage was to receive some assurances from the Hungarian government that it would keep a close eye on the activities of the Russian employees of the bank and restrict some of their privileges. Also, at one point there was talk about the bank moving to Szabadság tér, right across from the U.S. Embassy, against which the Americans naturally protested. Since the Russians apparently found the building too large for their needs and they didn’t want to share the space with anyone else, the building controversy resolved itself.

As for the other two requests, Ambassador David Cornstein, who was part of the delegation that accompanied Viktor Orbán to the White House on May 13, had the opportunity to discuss the questions that the American side found troubling on their way back to Budapest. The real stumbling block for the Americans was the full diplomatic immunity that Hungary planned to grant to the Russian staff. Cornstein, two days after his conversation with Orbán, told ATV that he had “received assurances from the government that [the bank employees] will not get diplomatic immunity.” At the beginning of July, an important congressional delegation headed by House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer visited Budapest. At that time Cornstein gave further details about his understanding of the situation. He claimed that he had been told that no special privileges and no immunity would be granted without a thorough vetting of each individual by the Hungarian secret services. He actually tried to portray the situation as a positive development because the Americans, with the help of the Hungarian secret service, will be able to collect information about the bank.

Although apparently Cornstein even today thinks that he received assurances from Orbán about the immunity issue, Gergely Gulyás, Orbán’s chief-of-staff, expressed his befuddlement at Cornstein’s interpretation of what transpired between him and Orbán on that plane. As far as he knows, the original agreement remains in place. No change in the text is contemplated.

The American side is still unhappy about the situation, and, at the beginning of August, Népszava received word that the topic of IIB’s status came up again during Péter Szijjártó’s visit to the United States in late July. Apparently, the Americans want to keep the issue on the agenda and convince the Hungarian government to reach some kind of compromise.

Szabolcs Panyi got hold of a document titled “Informal Aide-mémoire on the Matter of the International Investment Bank,” which Hungarian lobbyists have been passing out to the staffers of every Republican member of the House and Senate. The aim is to assure members of Congress that IIB is a perfectly respectable bank in which EU and NATO countries hold more than half of the shares. What the Hungarian government neglects to say is that the management of the bank is entirely in Russian hands. As for the sticky immunity question, “the Hungarian Government will facilitate the smooth entrance of employees, experts, counselors, but these persons are NOT immune from fulfilling conditions for lawful entry. Travel to Hungary, persons related to the IIB will be checked and registered.” This focus on entry, of course, skirts the issue of immunity and should not allay American fears.

The aide-mémoire touches on the subject of money laundering, a charge it indignantly rejects. After listing all the countries where Russian money laundering took place,  it notes that “these cases didn’t create such waves in The New York Times, in the Helsinki Commission or in the State Department…. One allegedly Russia friendly country, often dubbed as ‘the Trojan horse for Russian interests’ is notably missing from that list, Hungary.” The document further claims that “the false public narrative around the IIB issue originated in a well-definable circle of think tanks and mostly former Obama officials. The reason for the attack is clear. Both the Trump administration and the Orbán government are charged with Russia friendliness, as this issue has become one of the most potent political weapons in Washington, D.C.”

Just a few comments on these last few lines. Considering that the first hard-hitting article was written by Dalibor Rohac and Clay R. Fuller of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, it is hard to blame Obama officials for spreading a false narrative about the bank as a spy center. Moreover, as far as I know, the Helsinki Commission was in no way concerned with the case. But whoever is being blamed for calling the world’s attention to IIB, right now the U.S. government seems to be of one mind on the issue of IIB and its dangerous presence in the heart of Europe.

August 14, 2019

You cannot fool all the people all the time: U.S.-Hungarian relations

I’m returning to U.S.-Hungarians relations, focusing today on attempts by the Orbán administration to change the generally unfriendly attitude on the Hill and in the State Department toward the present regime in Budapest. I’m relying on information from 444’s new English-language site, InsightHungary. It got hold of two government documents that provide talking points to congressmen who are ready to do some campaigning on behalf of Viktor Orbán’s illiberal state.

In the past, relatively few legislators allowed their names to be associated with the Orbán regime. One of these was Dana Rohrabacher from California, who was an unabashed admirer of Vladimir Putin and, by extension, of Viktor Orbán. Thanks to the work of Connie Mack IV, a former congressman turned lobbyist, Rohrabacher, chairman of a subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, held a hearing on “The Future of U.S.-Hungary Relations” in May 2015. Rohrabacher was a member of the House of Representatives between 2008 and 2016, and since he came from a very conservative district his position seemed rock-solid. But in 2018 he lost his seat to a Democrat, and I understand he retired to Maine to write movie scripts. Orbán lost a friend.

Fidesz’s second supporter on the Hill was Steve King from Iowa, a Tea Party Republican, also from a very conservative district, who used to win elections with huge majorities. In 2018 he was reelected, but with the slightest majority. Perhaps his extremism was too much even for his constituents. He is known as a white nationalist who hates Jews, African Americans, Latinos, and immigrants in general. His comments after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting were too much even for his Republican colleagues, with whose help he was stripped of his committee memberships.

According to InsightHungary, the likely successor to these two is Paul Gosar, a dental surgeon turned politician from Arizona. At first his name didn’t ring a bell, but then I began reading the link Benjamin Novak, editor of 444’s English-language newsletter, provided for Gosar’s refusal to attend Pope Francis’s address to the joint meeting of Congress because the pope dared to talk about climate change. I then remembered that of Gosar’s nine brothers and sisters, six publicly endorsed his Democratic opponent because they consider their brother so much to the right that he should not be a member of Congress. In any case, Gosar seems to be the new patron of Hungary in Washington. Hungarian courting of the congressman has already begun. InsightHungary learned that Gosar’s chief-of staff enjoyed a free trip to Budapest at the invitation of the Hungarian government.

As you can see, past and current cheerleaders for the Orbán regime are not exactly the kinds of politicians one can be proud of. Some of the more mainstream Republican and Democratic supporters of the Hungarian government either quietly withdrew or, like Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), turned against the Orbán regime. In January 2017, Hungary awarded Kaptur the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit, presented to her by Ambassador Réka Szemerkényi. At that time, Szemerkényi called her “one of the greatest friends of Hungary.” Today Szemerkényi is no longer in the Hungarian diplomatic service, and Marcy Kaptur has become a critic of the regime, though she is still a great friend of the Hungarian people. As György Lázár reported in Hungarian Free Press in May 2019, she was one of the nine members of Congress who expressed their deep concern to Donald Trump about inviting Viktor Orbán to the White House.

Marcy Kaptur receives a high honor from the Orbán government in 2017

Marcy Kaptur was also one of the four representatives who, shortly after the Orbán visit, introduced a bipartisan resolution “supporting efforts to strengthen democracy in Hungary and its alliance with the United States.” In it, the signatories expressed their deep concern over Hungary’s weakening of democratic institutions, undermining free elections, and limiting civil society and a free press. They also brought up the matter of the establishment of the International Investment Bank in Budapest. They urged the secretary of state “to bolster efforts in Hungary to combat corruption, counter malign influence by the Russian Federation, strengthen independent media, encourage a vibrant civil society.” Finally, they wanted the United States to express “its support for the shared principles of democracy and collective security” and to remind Hungary that “the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an alliance meant above all to safeguard basic freedoms, democracy, and the rule of law.”

One of the two documents InsightHungary uncovered, titled “Allegations of H. RES. 400,” is an answer to this bipartisan resolution. In it, the authors devote almost two pages to a single sentence in the American resolution: “the Government of Hungary has rehabilitated fascist-era ideologies, facilitated or amplified anti-Semitic messages, and trivialized the Holocaust.” They vehemently deny the revival of any fascist era ideology. “Could you please name one such ideology? In Hungary, the far right is on the retreat, with Jobbik receiving 6.5% of the votes in the recent European Parliament Elections…. The same cannot be said for many Western European countries.”

The Hungarian document also vehemently denies the charge of anti-Semitism. It notes that while in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden there was an increase in anti-Semitism between 2012 and 2018 by 27%, 23%, and 22%, respectively, in Hungary the number decreased by 12% and is one of the lowest in the European Union. Moreover, Hungary is one of the staunchest allies of Israel and the United States. It also argues against the notion that the government has trivialized the Holocaust.

A great deal less space is given to the resolution’s claim of “attacks on the independence of the judiciary.” The answer to any and all such criticism is that “the European Commission closed the infringement procedure in 2013, being satisfied by the measures taken by Hungary.”

As for elections, it diffuses the charge of the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Election Observation Missions to Hungary that “the government party enjoyed an undue advantage because of restrictive campaign regulations, biased media coverage and campaign activities.” OSCE, it retorts, is critical of elections in all countries. “It criticized the 2018 U.S. elections too, citing diminished effectiveness of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in safeguarding against discrimination on racial or linguistic grounds.”

The document forcefully defends Hungary’s treatment of NGOs because they “are not elected by the voters, and they have benefited from the large and opaque financial contributions of foreign donors.” The Hungarians remind the American legislators, who are presumably the intended readers of this document, that “many of the same NGOs also criticize the U.S.”

The Hungarian government has a difficult time answering the resolution’s claim of inordinate media concentration, asserting falsely that “in Hungary media concentration is still lighter than in many of the European Countries.” It points out that “90% of the articles that appeared in U.S., preceding and following the Trump-Orbán meeting … were highly critical against Hungary, rehashing the old narrative as part of a concerted effort aimed at derailing the visit.”

In the paragraph on “the lack of agreement between the Hungarian Government and CEU” the document explains that CEU “purported to be an American University” but in fact was a “P.O. Box University.” It further asserts that “to move the American accredited educational activity to Austria was the decision of Rector Ignatieff. This also shows that CEU leadership is opting for an easier path.” The brazenness of this government knows no bounds.

The dissection of “U.S.-Hungarian relations” from the Hungarian government’s perspective is also a fascinating document which I don’t want to shortchange, and therefore I am postponing its discussion until tomorrow.

August 8, 2019