Viktor Orban’s Hungary is increasingly close to the United States of Donald Trump, for a propensity for anti -Europeanism and international institutions that unites many leaders of the world’s extreme right. Budapest, on the day in which the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosts, on which a setback of the International Criminal Court (CPI) hangs, announced the withdrawal from the international body.
The process for withdrawing from the CPI is underway
“The withdrawal process will begin today, in line with the constitutional and international legal obligations of Hungary,” said Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s head of the staff of Prime Minister, Gagely Gulyas. The decision was already in the air, but recognizes its official on the day when the Israeli leader for the first time has set foot on European soil since the international criminal court issued a stopping mandate against him for accusations of war crimes in Gaza.
The CPI “was a respectable initiative,” said Gulyas at the press conference, mentioned by local media, but in recent times it has become a political body, and the incrimination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the saddest example, he added. The minister stressed that the government considers all this unacceptable and therefore decided to leave the international body.
Gulyasha spoken of “series concerns” emerged internationally regarding court activities in recent times, remembering that the United States, China and Turkey have never been part of the CPI and that the United States congress has decided to sanction the court judges. Among the examples in Europe mentioned by the Minister, also Germany and Poland who guaranteed immunity to the Israeli Prime Minister if he went to the respective countries, despite the legal obligations deriving from the accession to the Statute of Rome. All this, he added, clearly shows that the CPI activities have “moved away from its original purpose” and since “politics has become a court”, Hungary no longer wants to be part of it, said Gulyas.
Netanyahu and Orban, the two “spiritual brothers”
We rewind the tape to understand how it has reached this point. The relations between Hungary and Israel have strengthened from the beginning of the war in Gaza, triggered by the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023. Orban, who defined Hungary “the safest country in Europe” for Jews, was the first leader to extend an invitation to Netanyahu, challenging the arrest warrant of the CPI. At the time of the court request, the Hungarian premier had assured that Netanyahu would never be arrested in Budapest and indeed invited him to visit the magic country. As a founding member of the CPI, Hungary would be theoretically obliged to arrest and deliver anyone who is the subject of a mandate of the Court. But Budapest, in addition to not wanting to perform the order, now wants to get out of the body completely.
The Mission in Hungary of the Israeli Premier will last until Sunday and various events are planned, including the visit to a Holocaust memorial. Second The Times of Israel In the meeting with Orban, the Hungarian support will also be discussed on the Trump plan for Gaza, and the de facto expulsion of the Palestinians from the strip. Just yesterday, Israel launched a vast “Potenza e Spada” operation, which presages territorial annexes of the Gaza Strip to Israel. Netanyahu’s latest visit to Hungary to meet Orban dates back to 2017, the first in almost 30 years. The following year the Israeli leader welcomed Orban to Jerusalem as a “true friend of Israel”. The two exponents of the right, who have in common the president of the United States Donald Trump as an ally and embrace their intransigent policies, seem to have a close personal friendship, so much so that the Hungarian media have described them as “spiritual brothers”. Netanyahu’s is the second visit abroad since the CPI has issued the arrest warrant last November. In February he had gone to Washington to meet the president of the United States, Donald Trump, his close ally, which does not recognize the international criminal court.
Hungary countercurrent also on the duties
While everyone attacks Donald Trump for the commercial war he triggered, Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto on X writes: “The economy of Europe and its population are once again paying the price of the incompetence of Brussels”.
According to the head of Budapest’s diplomacy, yesterday’s decision of the American president to impose, among other things, 20 percent rates for the products arriving from the EU makes a clear thing: “The European Commission should have negotiated, two and a half months ago” with Washington. But, he senses the Magyar Foreign Minister, “he did nothing”. According to him, the economic question has been transformed into an ideological battle and finally claims, “and continue to bring home thousands of euros every month”.
