The EU’s prime establishment did not ”bat an eyelid” over Viktor Orbán’s newest antisemitic slur, in an indication of the Hungarian prime minister’s shrinking relevance in Europe.
Orbán’s Fidesz occasion unveiled billboards in Budapest on Monday (21 November) displaying European Fee president Ursula von der Leyen with a Jewish US philanthropist’s son referred to as Alex Soros.
”Let’s not dance to their tunes,” the billboards mentioned.
The Soros household is routinely vilified by antisemitic conspiracy theorists.
The billboards have been Orbán’s first antisemitic stunt for the reason that Gaza conflict started on 7 October — doubtlessly placing Jewish folks at higher danger in instances of already unprecedented ranges of hate crime.
The ad-campaign additionally represented Orbán’s first-ever private smear-campaign towards von der Leyen.
”Let’s be clear — we’ve zero tolerance for antisemitism,” her spokesman mentioned in Brussels on Monday.
The final time Orbán put up anti-Soros and anti-EU billboards, in 2019, the EU Fee revealed a riposte.
However this time, von der Leyen’s spokesman mentioned: ”I confirmed photos [of the billboards] to the president. She didn’t bat an eyelid. She did not increase an eyebrow — fully unfazed”.
”This [Orbán’s jibe] is not the primary time and possibly not the final time — we’ve severe enterprise to deal with,” the EU spokesman added, alluding to European diplomacy on the Gaza and Ukraine wars.
Orbán’s billboards have been accompanied by a nationwide questionnaire with inflammatory content material, akin to claims the EU was funding Hamas, a Palestinian group which murdered lots of of Israelis on 7 October.
However the EU spokesman dismissed this with an identical air of Orbán-fatigue.
”You recognize in addition to I do, these statements are fully unfaithful,” von der Leyen’s spokesman mentioned.
Orbán is threatening to veto EU assist for Ukraine, the opening of EU accession talks with Ukraine, additional EU sanctions on Russia, and letting Sweden be part of Nato.
However EU funds commissioner Johannes Hahn mentioned on 8 November ”we can’t be blackmailed” by Hungary on Ukraine.
”We will discover a answer, which is just together with 26 member states”, Hahn mentioned.
Orbán’s bark on Russia is worse than his chunk, Estonia’s prime minister Kaja Kallas indicated on the final EU summit in Brussels on 30 October.
”He [Orbán] has been vital of supporting Ukraine, however he has been a part of it,” Kallas mentioned after Hungary agreed to 11 rounds of Russia sanctions already regardless of Orbán’s exhibits of friendship with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
And Orbán’s Nato-Sweden veto is anticipated to soften away when Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says so, in an extra present of subservience to bigger powers.
”It is a disgrace and a joke,” mentioned Hungarian centre-left opposition MP Ágnes Vadai.
Orbán’s billboards have been put up within the identify of defending Hungarian sovereignty from exterior forces, she mentioned.
”However the Hungarian ruling occasion will not ratify Sweden’s Nato accession till Turkey does so — so what sort of sovereignty is that?”, Vadai mentioned.
Orbánism
The 60-year-old Hungarian chief has held workplace since 2010.
His intolerant and nationalist-populist rule has seen the EU withhold billions in funds for his nation and his MEPs march out of the European Parliament’s predominant group.
Orbán has additionally cultivated pleasant ties with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who used to show a blind eye to his Soros slurs.
However the Gaza state of affairs meant Orbán’s new billboards additionally risked burning bridges with Israelis.
Some 10,000 Jewish folks lived in Hungary and their ”major drawback” was ”the open antisemitism that the Orbán authorities has been partaking in for over a decade,” mentioned Hungarian liberal MEP Attila Ara-Kovács.
And even Hungarian far-right MEP Márton Gyöngyösi mentioned: ”The paradox is that whereas the [billboard] marketing campaign is clearly antisemitic, the Orbán authorities helps firmly Israel and the Netanyahu administration”.
For Vadai, Orbán was incoherent as a result of he lacked any private political imaginative and prescient.
”Solely enterprise pursuits and retaining energy [matter to him]. Nothing else. Do not search for any ideology,” she mentioned.
Orbán was bashing Soros extra as a logo of the ”liberal intelligentsia” than of evil Jewish cabals, mentioned Anton Shekhovtsov, a author on EU far-right politics and the director of the Centre for Democratic Integrity NGO in Vienna.
However in doing so, he nonetheless seemed like an outlier even in his personal political pond.
Neo-Nazis
”In Europe, antisemitism is usually related to neo-Nazis and the unreformed far left. The party-political far proper have moved away from this as they perceive the toxicity of antisemitism,” he mentioned.
”Israel, for them, is a right-wing anti-Muslim regime. I doubt that antisemitism is usually a vote-winner in Europe typically,” Shekhovtsov added, talking forward of subsequent yr’s EU Parliament elections.
Besides, if von der Leyen, a German politician who has championed Jewish rights in mild of Gaza, ”did not bat an eyelid” on Monday, then possibly she ought to have accomplished, Vadai indicated.
Even when the EU thought he was a ”joke”, then Orbán was nonetheless ”harmful”, Vadai mentioned.
”Von der Leyen is just too mushy on Orbán and the Hungarian authorities’s [antisemitic] behaviour,” Ara-Kovács additionally mentioned.
A Hungarian authorities spokesman did not reply to EUobserver’s questions on Monday.