{"id":7533,"date":"2026-03-20T13:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T13:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/7533\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T13:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T13:00:10","slug":"how-unacceptable-orban-defeated-the-eu-again-but-maybe-for-the-final-time-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/7533\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018unacceptable\u2019 Orb\u00e1n defeated the EU again \u2014 but maybe for the final time \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2266853544-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8140115\"  \/>Ukraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (on screen) speaks to EU leaders via video as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n watches from the distance (bottom) at the European Council summit in Brussels, March 19, 2026. | Pool photo by Geert Vanden Wijngaert\/OL \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>After 90 minutes, with Zelenskyy digging in and the Hungarian not budging, the leaders decided to shut down the debate, issuing a statement that \u201cthe European Council will revert to this issue at its next meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The bet is that one way or another, things will be different after Hungarians go to the polls on April 12. If Orb\u00e1n loses, then his successor could be motivated to lift Budapest\u2019s obstruction in exchange for the EU releasing cash.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrance and Germany were not willing to spend too much time\u201d or \u201cpolitical capital\u201d to persuade Orb\u00e1n at Thursday\u2019s summit, and had \u201cno willingness \u2026 to help his electoral campaign,\u201d the national official said.<\/p>\n<p>If Orb\u00e1n is reelected \u2014 which one EU official said many of the leaders in the summit room on Thursday believe is likely \u2014 then he may be more willing to approve the loan, once oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline again.<\/p>\n<p>But if he doesn\u2019t, several punishments will be on the table at a leaders\u2019 gathering in Cyprus on April 23-24, including freezing more funding, suing Hungary in the EU\u2019s top court, issuing fines, and even the so-called nuclear option, Article 7, which strips countries of their EU voting rights.<\/p>\n<p>Awkward silences<\/p>\n<p>The atmosphere during Thursday\u2019s discussion was \u201cicy\u201d at points, with \u201cawkward silences,\u201d Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (on screen) speaks to EU leaders via video as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5962,5963,5964,3833,602,353,286,5965,5966,533,590,534,3394,8,1819,801,1575,9,1234,5967,4358,5049,5968,5969,7,536,5970,1820,1826,806],"class_list":{"0":"post-7533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-antonio-costa","9":"tag-bart-de-wever","10":"tag-belgium","11":"tag-cooperation","12":"tag-cyprus","13":"tag-drones","14":"tag-elections","15":"tag-eu-funding","16":"tag-eu-summit","17":"tag-france","18":"tag-friedrich-merz","19":"tag-germany","20":"tag-giorgia-meloni","21":"tag-headlines","22":"tag-hungary","23":"tag-kremlin","24":"tag-missions","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-oil","27":"tag-peter-magyar","28":"tag-pipelines","29":"tag-rights","30":"tag-robert-fico","31":"tag-sweden","32":"tag-top-stories","33":"tag-ukraine","34":"tag-ulf-kristersson","35":"tag-viktor-orban","36":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy","37":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116261632261893676","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}