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If asked thoughts on Julius Caesar, Viktor Orbán just might quip, “I came to the Carpathian Basin, I saw, I conquered.” Gazing north of late, however, he might drop the hackneyed “Et tu, Brute?”
Poland’s ruling Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) has had enough of Orbán’s amoral kowtowing to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki last month acknowledged as much in an interview at the DC-based Atlantic Council. Morawiecki explained that Warsaw-Budapest relations have “changed a lot” due to Hungary’s “position… towards Ukraine and Russia.” Poland is now upping its cooperation with Bucharest and Baltic state capitals – a key step towards further consolidating our transatlantic security.
What brought about the break-up? Geo-strategically, Orbán oddly appears to have forgotten that Russophobia is for multiple reasons standard throughout Polish society. PiS leadership stomached Hungary’s reliance on Russian gas and nuclear energy, as well as Budapest’s Russian intel roost - the International Investment Bank (now shuttered). Orbán’s refusal to bite the Russian hand-that-feeds
despite its war on Ukraine appears to have been simply too much, especially given the existential risks Poland’s security.
The Hungary-Poland parting of ways, however, is about something deeper than diverging geopolitical allegiances. It’s about shared values. For all of the – regrettably too often – justified criticism of PiS flirtations with autocratic practices, the current government in Warsaw has never advocated something as hair-brained as Viktor’s “illiberal democracy.” Amoral political animals such as Orbán know no alliances, only quid pro quo dealings with foreign governments. Genuine alliances are grounded in shared values coupled with shared interests, E.G. see the preamble to the North Atlantic Treaty. Orbán lost sight of that somewhere along the way. The sooner “good riddance”, the better.
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