German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) published an article on Saturday, dealing with the tense American-Hungarian relations, which have been fired up recently by senator John McCain’s harsh remarks. According the prestigious German journal, the important aspects are not the former US presidential candidate’s words on PM Viktor Orbán’s character but the fact that the Hungarian PM has been accused of “bedding up with Putin”. That remark does have serious geopolitical meaning, FAZ says.
McCain delivered the stormy address in the Senate before the vote on Colleen Bell’s candidacy to head the US Embassy in Budapest. According to the republican senator Colleen Bell is totally unsuitable for the job and will be unable to protect US interests in Budapest, where “very bad things going on”, since Hungary has been “on the verge of ceding its sovereignty.” Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán refused resolutely McCain’s words in a radio interview on Friday, insisting that he would never be a proconsul of superpowers.
According to the FAZ journalist Viktor Orbán does not want to set back Hungary’s EU intergration, his economic and foreign policies are rather based on the intention of expanding and diversifying Hungary’s economic and trade relations. That policy should not be questioned by anyone, the article says. However, by his philosophical speculations Viktor Orbán also provokes his opponents, speaking for instance about Western capitalism as “colonisation” and the “decline of the liberal democracy”. The article also mentioned the controversial cases of the Paks nuclear plant and the South Stream pipeline project.
source: Stephan Löwenstein – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung photo: washingtonpost.com