Christmas Came Early For Orbán. Will His Influence Last Longer Than Snow?

Viktor Orbán’s call with Vladimir Putin last week was billed as a push for a ‘Christmas ceasefire,’ but Kyiv denied being consulted – with the real focus likely on cheap Russian gas.

Orbán also wraps up Hungary’s EUCO presidency with a veto threat on sanctions against Georgia and receives more praise from Donald Trump ahead of his White House return. How long will his maverick influence last?

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• Eva Mihočková warns that Slovakia’s Fico government is echoing Viktor Orbán’s regime – a threat to both democracy and life along the Danube.
• Marcin Jerzewski explains why CEE countries should deepen ties with Taiwan amid uncertainty over US commitment to transatlantic security.
• Marzenna Guz-Vetter shows how rising authoritarianism in CEE threatens civil society, prompting calls for stronger EU support to protect democracy.

Hungary plans to veto EU sanctions on Georgia – while Poland prepares talks on European security  

GLOBAL/REGIONAL

• Polish PM Donald Tusk said on 10 December that peace talks on the war in Ukraine could begin this winter – as Poland prepares to host a series of meetings on ending the conflict in the run-up to its European Council (EUCO) presidency.
• Polish FM Radosław Sikorski reiterated that the presidency will focus primarily on security and expansion issues, adding that Warsaw intends to use its six-month turn at the helm to position itself as one of the bloc’s ‘Big Five’ member states.

• This started with French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Warsaw on 12 December, where the pair discussed the possibility of sending European troops for a peacekeeping mission to Ukraine once a ceasefire is reached.
• Macron also echoed Poland’s long-standing position that Ukraine must be allowed to decide what concessions it is prepared to make in a peace deal with Russia.
• Tusk said that Poland has no plans to send its troops to Ukraine but that Warsaw would work with Paris on a solution to protect Europe and Ukraine.

• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will also meet with the leaders from Poland, France, Germany, Italy, the UK, NATO and the EU in Brussels on 18 December.
• The gathering, hosted by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, will be held during the EU-Western Balkans summit in Brussels from 18-19 December.

• The frontrunner to become the next German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, also visited Warsaw last week on his route back from Kyiv. Merz reportedly wants to create a European contact group to prepare for Donald Trump’s return to the White House, including the Weimar Triangle but also partners like Denmark and the UK.
• Current German DM Boris Pistorius meanwhile acknowledged Polish criticism that Berlin needs to spend more on its military while reiterating his opposition to joint EU borrowing to fund defence spending – something Poland has encouraged under Tusk and which the Polish PM hopes Merz will be more keen on.

• The EU approved the 15th sanctions package against Russia, targeting entities within Russia and third countries aiding its military and technological capabilities. It will now be discussed further at the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) on 16 December.
• However, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda warned that the EU needs to have a clearer policy towards Russia. ‘I really don’t like this political navigation when, on the one hand, we impose sanctions, but on the other hand, we are making more and more exceptions to this sanctions policy ourselves,’ he said.
• Latvia and Lithuania previously refused to support the draft 15th EU sanctions package as it extended the provision allowing Western companies to continue operating in Russia despite current sanctions.

• EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas has argued that the toppling of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria shows the merits of a focus on Russia: ‘If you handle Russia then you could solve so many issues at the same time,’ she said, listing Russia’s malign influence in Ukraine, Georgia, Africa, Iran and the Middle East.
• FMs meeting in Brussels on 16 December will also discuss the situation in Syria — including how to assess the incoming authorities there.

• A number of countries have responded by halting Syrian asylum procedures – including Poland, Czechia, Austria, France, Germany, Italy and several others.
• Yet few went as far as Slovak Interior Minister and Hlas Party chief Matúš Šutaj Eštok, who in a social media post drew a connection between Islam and terrorism, cautioning that individuals ‘not representative of traditional European culture’ might now seek entry into countries such as Germany and Austria through Slovakia.
• ‘Many liberal politicians view the fall of Assad’s regime as a victory for democracy and an end to authoritarianism. But is that really the case?’ Eštok added.
• Refugee rights and aid organisations have raised concerns that capitals are rushing to stop processing asylum requests when the situation in Syria is still volatile.

• Georgian opposition parties have signed a joint appeal to the EU to impose sanctions on their country’s leadership, including influential Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, as mass anti-government protests move into a third week.
• On 14 December, Georgian Dream lawmakers elected former professional footballer and hardline critic of the West Mikheil Kavelashvili as the country’s new president. Opposition parties naturally argue his presidency is ‘illegitimate’ on account of inconsistencies during the earlier parliamentary elections.
• The situation in Georgia is also set to be discussed on 16 December, but reports suggest Hungary plans to veto any EU sanctions. Instead, FM Péter Szijjártó has criticised EU double standards, defending Georgia’s so-called national sovereignty.

• European Parliament (EP) groupings failed to reach a deal to greenlight four new committees during their Conference of Presidents on 11 December.
• MEPs had agreed to upgrade the junior health and defence committees and to create two new committees for democracy and the housing crisis. But the EPP later insisted that its negotiators should be the ones to take the lead on the democracy and housing committees. A final OK is expected during this week’s plenary session.

• Former Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki was backed by Italian PM Giorgia Meloni to serve as the next president of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Party during a visit to Rome on 15 December.
• In his bid to lead, he repeated Viktor Orbán’s calls to ‘Make Europe great again.’ It remains to be seen whether this is an echo, or rebuke, of Orban’s vision.

• European Investment Bank President Nadia Calviño has said that she expects to announce a €1 billion programme to support small- and medium-sized businesses operating in security and defence. 
• Meanwhile, NATO plans to assign new concrete targets for how many more tanks, planes and other weapon systems member countries need to produce, which may require raising the alliance’s defence spending goal to as much as 3% of GDP.

• Young people are committed to human rights but sceptical of democracy, according to a recent survey by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.
• Of the 5,000 young people aged 16 to 24 in Poland, Hungary, Germany, France and the US who were questioned, only 62% said democracy is the best way to govern. Just 40% feel their own democratic systems are doing well.

• The practice of using lawsuits to silence journalists, activists and public watchdog organisations is on the rise in Europe, according to the annual report by the Coalition Against SLAPPs.
• Between 2010 and 2023, 1,049 strategic lawsuits against public participation known as SLAPPs, were filed across 41 European countries – with 166 filed in 2023 alone.

Orbán rounds off EUCO Presidency with ‘Peace Mission 2.0’ – as several V4 leaders weigh in on Ukraine

UKRAINE

• Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán held a phone call with Vladimir Putin last week, after which he claimed that he tried to reach an agreement for a ‘Christmas ceasefire’ but that Kyiv declined the offer.
• In reality, the meeting was more about convincing Moscow to continue its cheap gas supply – on which the Fidesz Party is heavily reliant – than negotiating peace. Kyiv has also denied that any consultation with Hungary even took place.
• ‘No one should boost (their) personal image at the expense of unity,’ Zelenskyy wrote on X after the Orbán-Putin call, appearing to mock the Hungarian’s self-styled attempts to launch a peace mission to end the war.
• Also last week, Orbán met with President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Mike Waltz, as well as Turkish PM Recep Erdoğan.

• Slovak PM Robert Fico said he ‘supports’ the joint peace proposal drawn up by China and Brazil during his visit to Brazil last week – the first-ever trip by a Slovak premier to the South American continent.
• He later expressed hope that Ukraine is in for a ‘nice Munich,’ referring to the Munich Agreement of 1938, which allowed Nazi Germany to annex the part of Czechoslovakia called Sudetenland in which mainly ethnic Germans lived.
• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has long criticised the Chinese-Brazilian plan, especially the fact the pair consulted Moscow but not Kyiv when drawing it up.
• Czech PM Petr Fiala also warned allies against ‘appeasement’ and ‘another Munich agreement,’ saying that only a show of strength would halt Russian aggression. 

• The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported that Russia’s large-scale strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on 13 December went ahead with the aim to freeze the country this winter and pressure Western nations into making politically advantageous decisions for the Kremlin.

• Zelenskyy also urged allies to provide 10-12 more Patriot air defence systems that he said would fully protect its skies after a Russian missile killed dozens of people in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia. ‘We repeat again and again that air defences should save lives, not gather dust at storage bases,’ he said.

• Kyiv has replaced the commander overseeing defences in the eastern Donetsk region where Russian forces are making swift advances, a military official said on 14 December. General Oleksandr Lutsenko had drawn criticism for failing to stop Russian troops’ relentless push toward the strategic Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk.
• The city is close to important supply routes and raw materials used for steel production, but others argue the offensive is meant to distract from Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk. Polish Lieutenant Colonel Maciej Korowaj says Putin does not want to go down as the first ruler of Russia in a long time to lose Russian land.

• Zelenskyy has disclosed evidence of North Korean soldiers participating in assaults against Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region, noting significant losses among these units and warning against their potential deployment on other fronts.
• Ukrainian military intelligence has also claimed that North Korean troops accidentally killed eight members of a Russian unit in a ‘friendly fire’ attack last week.

• Zelenskyy put the number of Ukrainian losses at 43,000 last week – in a rare admission of such statistics. The figure was an apparent response to Donald Trump’s claim after the pair met in Paris that there had been 400,000 Ukrainian losses. Trump also put Russian losses at 600,000 dead or wounded.

• Ukraine will soon receive €4.1 billion in funds after the EUCO greenlighted the second regular payment of grants and loans under the EU’s Ukraine Facility. 
• The US has also given $20bn to Ukraine, funded by the profits of seized Russian assets – as part of the $50bn package agreed by G7 member nations.
• The US State Department has further approved the potential sale to Ukraine of F-16 sustainment services and related equipment for $266m.

• However, the $895 billion defence bill passed by the House of Representatives last week did not include a provision to extend the lend-lease act for Ukraine. 
• The US passed the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act in May 2022, but it expired in September 2023 without ever being used. Ukrainian diplomats have been lobbying for its reintroduction as it allows the US president to loan or lease arms to Ukraine while cutting through congressional red tape.

Tusk looks to block unwanted bids for TVN and Polsat from hostile entities based in Hungary and Slovakia

CZECHIA