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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. I'm Toby Gillis, joined by Alex Dibble. During the Second World War, after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, the Soviets formed an alliance with the UK and, later, the US. By 1945, they had lost more soldiers and far more people in total, 24 million, than any other nation.
It partly explains the huge scale and revelry with which modern-day Russia greets Victory in Europe Day. This year, the 80th anniversary, is no different. Today, Russia's relationship with the rest of Europe is, of course, almost non-existent, bar a couple of eastern nations. Belarus, of course, is a genuine ally. Hungary has also been pro-Putin under the 15-year stewardship of Viktor Orban, a vital friend for Putin within the EU.
So how damaging would it be for the Russian president to lose Orban's influence? Orban is facing the biggest challenge to his authority yet with the emergence of a centrist, pro-European rival, Peter Magyar. He's managed to force a national referendum on whether Hungary should support Ukraine in its bid to join the EU.
Our guest today is Armida Van Rye, head of the Europe program at Chatham House, the think tank. Armida, Hungary ending up with a referendum on Ukraine joining the EU seems surprising. Orban doesn't want that to happen. So why is he asking Hungarians for their views?
Within the recent years, we've seen a challenger to Viktor Orban, someone called Peter Mangiar, who used to be a part of Orban's party Fidesz. So I wouldn't say that he's an evolution rather than a revolution. But his party did exceptionally well in the European parliamentary elections of June last year.
where Viktor Orban's party, Fidesz, had never performed quite as badly, whereas TISA, out of nowhere, got 29% of the votes. Before that, it hadn't been in the European parliamentary election, so it came out of nowhere. And at the moment, TISA is actually polling ahead of Viktor Orban's party. It almost seems like there's a bit of a question that Orban wants to put to the people of how they feel about Ukraine and trying to force them in deciding on this issue today.
Viktor Orban has particular historical grievances and will constantly highlight Hungary's historical grievances with Ukraine as an issue for why it shouldn't be voted on. Whereas Peter Magyar, this challenger, is presenting himself more as being pro-EU, pro-support for Ukraine, pro-NATO and basically being willing to work within the institutions. So this referendum is coming at an interesting time. Even though it's non-binding for the prime minister, allowing this referendum does seem a risk.
So Orban's position on Ukraine has not moved an inch. It would clearly be embarrassing and just a kind of losing face for the government if the Ukrainian people were to support this motion after three years of the Hungarian government telling them that it would be bad for Hungary and they should not support this. So there's an element of the symbolics of this. So it's more of a just a sense check for the government, really.
But given that how much political capital Orbán has put into trying to keep Ukraine at bay and continue to maintain its very close relationship with Russia and with Vladimir Putin in particular, it would just be embarrassing for the government. Amida, what's your sense on whether Hungarians will vote in support of Ukraine joining the EU and strike that embarrassing blow against Orbán?
So this is an interesting question. When I last looked at the Eurobarometer, but this is not the most recent one, it's one from a couple of months ago, 64% of Hungarians agreed that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was a threat to European security, and 52% of respondents in Hungary supported economic sanctions on Russia. So that's just a small majority, but it's still majority and it's out of line with Hungary's government policy on this.
62% also agree that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a threat to Hungarian security, more clearly. So those numbers do seem to suggest that the Hungarian population is perhaps a little bit more friendly towards Ukraine than the government has been so far, which would have implications also for this motion, this referendum.
Armida, can we jump forward a little bit now beyond the referendum? What chance is there of Peter Magyar winning the next election early next year? Is it going to be a free and fair election or will Orban or indeed will Putin be meddling in it? Yeah.
I mean, the question of free and fair elections across Europe at the moment is one that's really difficult, in particular because we know that Russia's disinformation and foreign interference campaigns ahead of elections and during elections have ramped up over recent years. We saw that very clearly in the run-up to the European parliamentary elections, in the Moldovan elections. There were lots of campaigns in France as well and across Europe, really. So,
If there is a risk that Orban could lose, we will certainly see Putin or Russia as a state trying to ramp up actions to ensure that that's not the case. So that will make those elections very difficult. Yeah.
Is it fair to say Orban also has power to influence or alter the election result in Hungary himself in a Putin-like way? I mean, there are suggestions he's grabbed so much power across the nation that his influence is now similar to Putin's in Russia. No, so I mean, as you say, the state capture by Orban and his allies in Hungary has really shot through the roof during the time that he's been in power. And that has implications for
how easy it is for any opponent to try and compete fairly in Hungarian elections, of course. But what's been quite interesting also is the way in which Magyar is very much running, campaigning on a platform to fight corruption and to fight state capture and to, you know, he would ensure that Hungary becomes a member of the
the EU's anti-fraud office, for example. So this is really quite a popular platform as per the polls in a country that has really struggled with high levels of inflation, very slow economic growth. So it's clearly not doing particularly well economically. And of course, the population feels this directly in their own pockets as well. So this platform seems to be resonating with voters.
Hungary is an EU member state. Things would kick into action were it looked like there wouldn't be a peaceful transition of power were Magyar to win. I think the bigger question is, I don't really have doubts about that, and I do think that Orban would step aside.
I think the bigger question potentially is, as we've seen in Poland as well, is how difficult it will be to undo all the damage that 14, 15 years, by that point 16 years of having Viktor Orban in power in Hungary. You know, reinstating an independent judiciary, bringing genuine free press and free media, revisiting, I guess, women's rights and LGBTQI rights.
Those things are really, really difficult to do. And couple that with Hungary's economic performance and, of course, the external security environment as well. There is a kind of a broader question of whether if Viktor Orban were to lose power and someone else comes in, can they actually successfully make progress on addressing some of these big challenges?
And of course, beyond even that, I imagine it would be difficult to distance Hungary from Putin. How much of a blow to the Russian president, therefore, would it be to lose his main EU member-ally?
So I think we shouldn't blow Hungary's influence within the EU or NATO out of proportion. I think especially in the US, Trump's allies and Trump himself, they like to think of Viktor Orban as this person with lots of influence and lots of power, and that just isn't really the case. But...
And where, of course, he is important is when it comes to positions on security policy and defence policy. And that, of course, at the moment matters hugely to Russia. So if they were to lose how they would look at it, their ally, quote unquote, within the EU, that would be very significant, in part because it is not just Hungary. And I really do want to make that very clear. It's not just Hungary who has these
positions within the European Council, Slovakia does too. But I think there is this sense that Hungary is the leader of this kind of set of illiberal democracies in Europe or of leaders who are more friendly towards Putin and Russians actions in Ukraine. And without that kind of leadership from Orbán,
it would be interesting to see to what extent that falls away in some other European countries as well. So this is why it's a bit like the domino effect. If Hungary falls, would others fall as well in that regard when it comes to specifically security policy and support for Ukraine?
But ultimately, for Putin, it would be significant if he were to lose his quote-unquote ally again in the EU and in NATO. Also just because of its kind of strategic location of Hungary and where it sits in Europe, just geographically, that matters for proximity to the conflict in Ukraine, proximity to Belarus, to Russia and others.
Okay, Armida Van Rye, thank you very much for joining us. So Vladimir Putin is keeping an eye on his ally in the EU at the moment and of course is a staunch opponent of NATO too. Last month we looked into how the Under Threat Alliance is trying to strengthen from within under new Secretary General Mark Rutter. Scroll back to April the 4th for a really good listen.
For now, thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. We'll see you tomorrow. Breaking news coming in from Bet365, and it's no surprise.
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