Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s close ally and minister Antal Rogán was sanctioned by the US Treasury last week for alleged corruption.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday that sanctions issued by the US last week against his cabinet chief Antal Rogán have only “strengthened” his position.
Rogán, a senior government minister who oversees the secret service, is suspected by the US Treasury Department of using his position to broker favourable business deals with government-aligned businesspeople.
The sanctions are a rare move between the two NATO allies, and a symbol of the poor state of US-Hungarian relations just before US President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House for a second term.
“He is the minister responsible for the national security services, the number one guardian of Hungarian national sovereignty, and being punished by a great power means that he is doing his job well,” Orbán said on state radio in response to the sanctions.
Known by critics in Hungary as the “propaganda minister”, Rogán oversees the engineering of wide-reaching government communication campaigns that are credited with being instrumental in maintaining Orbán’s grip on power since 2010.
Outgoing US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman said Rogán was “a primary architect, implementer and beneficiary” of systemic corruption in Hungary on Tuesday.
“While Minister Rogan’s media megaphones will try to make this a story about partisan politics or an affront to sovereignty, today’s decision is actually the reverse,” Pressman told reporters in Budapest on Tuesday, adding that Rogán had helped to build a “kleptocratic ecosystem” in the country.
Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto hit back against Pressman’s claims, calling the sanctions the, “personal revenge of the ambassador who was sent to Hungary by the failed US administration, but left without success and in disgrace” in a post on Facebook.
“How good it is that in a few days’ time the United States will be led by people who see our country as a friend and not as an enemy,” he wrote.
However, it is not currently clear whether the incoming Trump administration and its next ambassador to Budapest will immediately overturn the sanctions against Rogán, who is privately disliked by several senior members of Orbán’s ruling Fidesz government.
Orbán, who supported Trump during his election campaign and is a regular visitor to his Florida headquarters, Mar-a-Lago, predicted on Friday that the incoming US president would usher in a “golden age” in US-Hungary relations.
Hungary’s steeply contracting economy would also get a boost from Trump’s presidency, Orbán said, owing to the prospect of him putting an end to the war in neighbouring Ukraine.
A harsh critic of Ukraine, Orbán is widely seen has having the closest relationship with the Kremlin of any EU leader. He has vocally opposed economic and military aid to Kyiv and argued against placing sanctions on Moscow for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
On Friday, he argued that during the Trump presidency the EU must “throw sanctions out the window and establish a sanctions-free relationship with Russia.”
He also said a post-war Ukraine would pose “a serious threat to the European economy,” and that Ukraine ultimately achieving its goal of joining the EU would force farmers from all over the bloc out of business.
“Economic cooperation with Ukrainians raises many issues, and so far I see far more dangers than opportunities,” he said.
Additional sources • AP
