Viktor Orban Outwits Everyone in Brussels

The Bulgarian press continues to focus on the agreement reached between Viktor Orban and EU leaders at Thursday's EU summit. While the leftist-liberal press is loud about Viktor Orban being isolated, Georgi Markov, a former constitutional lawyer living in Hungary, refutes rumors discrediting the Hungarian prime minister and describes the outcome of the Brussels summit as a reasonable compromise.

Brüsszel, 2024. február 1. A Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda által közreadott képen Orbán Viktor miniszterelnök (b3), Olaf Scholz német kancellár (b2) és Klaus Iohannis román államfő (b) az Európai Unió tagországai állam- és kormányfőinek rendkívüli csúcstalálkozóján Brüsszelben 2024. február 1-jén. Jobbról Nikolai Denkov bolgár miniszterelnök (j2) és Luc Frieden luxemburgi miniszterelnök (j). MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Fischer Zoltán Fotó: Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Fischer Zoltán

Viktor Orban outwitted everyone

Markov recalled that the "great president, Donald Trump publicly addressed Viktor Orban on Truth Social: Thank you, Viktor! There will be peace! We will not lie to humanity!" The former US president's words were a response to Viktor Orban's earlier statement that peace has one name, and that name is Donald Trump.

According to Soros-linked Deutsche Welle, Orban suffered a defeat in Brussels by not vetoing the €50 billion aid package for Ukraine. Elon Musk is indeed right that the biggest stupidity is to believe our own propaganda. Orban is not obsessed with vetoing. Renowned law professor Andrew Tettenborn has said in The Spectator that Orban is much smarter than his colleagues,

the former constitutional lawyer wrote.

He highlighted that at the meeting with Macron, Scholz, Meloni, Von der Leyen and Michel before the EU summit, Orban achieved his goals: annually reviewing the spending of money sent to Ukraine and not spending it on weapons. He added that in two years there will be another vote and that meeting will be attended by Wilders instead of Rutte, Kickl instead of Nehammer and Babis instead of Fiala. "In other words, as the Washington Post put it, the political winds are still blowing in Viktor Orban's favor," he quoted the US daily as saying.

According to Markov, the Hungarian prime minister did not veto, preserved EU unity, had quite a few adjustments made to the decision and will soon have the minority rights of the Hungarian community in Ukraine restored.

The former constitutional lawyer commented on the "nonsense" said in Bulgaria's parliament by MP Yavor Bozhankov, a member of the Soros-tied parliamentary group, who stated that Viktor Orban's time is over.

Oh my! How far this Bulgarian parliament, the most miserable one since the regime change, has progressed. The truth is that Viktor Orban announced ten years ago in Baile Tusnad (Tusvanyos) that he was building an illiberal democracy. Orban's time is not over, but has just got into fashion, and this will become clear on the eve of the EP elections, when the parties protecting national sovereignty will win more than 200 seats,

he pointed out.

Finally, Georgi Markov touched on issues in Bulgaria's domestic politics. In his view, it is time to abolish machine voting in Bulgaria, which "was used to commit terrible fraud in the Sofia mayoral elections, as confirmed by irrefutable evidence presented in the Administrative Court".

"Down with the blah blah, Trump, Orbanism and freedom are coming," concluded Markov, whose piece has been read by more than 330 thousand people in 24 hours.

Washington shifts burden of war with Russia onto Europe

At the summit in Brussels, European Union leaders unanimously agreed to provide  €50 billion in aid to Ukraine. Hungary's resistance was overcome and Viktor Orban chose the 'right side' in the 'existential confrontation' between the West and Russia. The US can breathe a sigh of relief: it has managed to shift the burden of financing the war with Russia onto Europe, Pogled.info writes, citing Russian authors. 

The Brussels bureaucracy is destroying Europe, and the leaders of European countries are doing all this at the behest of Washington to the detriment of their own people, according to the article.

"One can only guess why Scholz, Macron, various von der Leyens and Pedro Sanchezes openly act against the interests of their countries. But the fact remains: fifty billion euros that Europeans themselves need will be thrown into the bottomless pit of the war in Ukraine. But the worst thing for Europe is that financing the war against Russia directly from the European Union's budget carries the risk that one or a group of EU member states will get involved not only indirectly but also directly in a conflict with Russia at some point. This in turn means that the whole of Europe is facing war with Russia," the Pogled.info news portal writes.

Cover photo: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (l3), German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (l2) and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis (l) at the extraordinary summit of EU heads of state and government in Brussels, February 1, 2024. From right: Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov (r2) and Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden (r) Photo: MTI/Hungarian PM's Press Office/Zoltan Fischer)