To join forces with her Czech Republic and Slovakia to form an alliance in the EU to oppose Ukraine, the Hungaryas a top political adviser to the Hungarian prime minister told Politico, Viktor Orban.

Orban hopes to work with tAndrey Babis, whose right-wing populist party won the recent parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic, as well as with the Slovak prime minister Robert Fitzo to align their positions ahead of meetings of EU leaders, including holding pre-summit meetings, Orbán’s political adviser said.

While a stable political alliance still remains a long way off, its formation could significantly hamper EU efforts to financially and militarily support Ukraine.

“I think it will come — and it will be more and more visible,” he said the prime minister’s political director, Balazs Orban, when asked about the possibility of an alliance opposed to Ukraine starting to function as a bloc in the European Council.

“It worked very well during the migration crisis. That’s how we were able to resist,” he said of the so-called Visegrad 4 grouping of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland at a time when the Eurosceptic Law and Justice Party was in power in Warsaw after 2015.

Then-Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki led the charge, with the “V4” group promoting pro-family policies as well as strong external borders for the EU, and opposing any mandatory resettlement of migrants between member countries. The Visegrad 4 alliance fell apart after Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, as Poland took hard lines against Moscow and Hungary took the opposite stance.

A new Visegrad alliance would number three instead of four members. Poland’s current center-right prime minister, Donald Tusk, is staunchly pro-Ukrainian and unlikely to forge any alliance with Orban.

However, Fico and Babis share the Hungarian leader’s views on Ukraine, calling for dialogue with Moscow instead of economic pressure. Babis has been criticized for his public skepticism about supporting further European aid to Kiev, with the current Czech foreign minister warning in an interview with Politico that Babis will act as Orban’s “puppet”. at the table of the European Council.

But even so, it may take some time to reform any version of the Visegrad alliance, Politico notes. While re-elected prime minister of Slovakia in 2023, Ficho has not yet formally allied himself with the Hungarian leader in certain policy areas and Babis has yet to form a government following his party’s recent electoral victory.

Beyond Visegrad 3

Hungary’s pressure for political alliances in Brussels goes beyond the European Council, Balazs Orban said.

The Hungarian prime minister’s Fidesz party could expand its partnerships in the European Parliament, he said, such as with the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group, the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations group and “some left-wing groups” as possible allies.

Mainstream parties like the center-right European People’s Party could also sooner or later turn against European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

“So this reconstruction of it [Visegrad 4] is in progress. We have the third largest parliamentary group in the European Parliament. We have a think tank network, which is widespread here [στις Βρυξέλλες]and it also has a transatlantic leg. And we are looking for partners, allies in every issue” said Balazs Orban.

The Hungarian prime minister, who has been in power for the past 15 years, faces a re-election battle next year. Opposition leader Péter Magyar’s Tisza party is currently more popular than Orban’s Fidesz party, according to a Politico poll.

Asked about the upcoming election campaign, the Hungarian prime minister’s political adviser said it would be “difficult, as always”, accusing Brussels of what he described as an “organised, coordinated effort to oust the Hungarian government”, which included “political support for the opposition”.

Asked whether Budapest continues to support Hungary’s health commissioner, Oliver Varchey, who has been accused in media reports of leading the recruitment of spies into EU institutions when he was working as an EU diplomat, Balazs Orban said the commissioner was “doing an excellent job”.

“They are just… issues that are used to present Hungary as some country that is not loyal to the institutions,” he added. “We want to be in. We are part of the club.”