Andras Simonyi is managing director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Paul Nitze School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Prior to that he served as Hungary’s ambassador to NATO (1995-2002) and the United States (2002-2007).

The Budapest Beacon’s Ben Novak interviewed former ambassador Simonyi at Johns Hopkins on 19 February 2015, the day after Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin visited Budapest. Calling it a “bad day” and “a turning point” for Hungary, Simonyi says it was “the strongest sign so far” that Hungary is “turning away” from the community he believes it should belong to.

It was the embrace of the Russian way of governance and a confirmation that “the Hungarian leader” today is looking at Putin as his role model. . . . While a war is being waged in a neighboring country, in which people are being killed by Russia at the will of the Russian President, a NATO and EU member that is supposed to embrace human rights, democracy, freedom, respect for minorities, is receiving with the loudest fanfare the leader of Russia in Budapest . . . a person who is a declared enemy of the United States. We are embracing that person. It is simply wrong.

Simonyi says a small country like Hungary can only do business with Russia if it is “solidly cemented into the Western institutions.”

You can do a lot of business with Russia if you know that your security and your economic prosperity is not entirely dependent on Russia. The balancing act is nonsense. A small country like Hungary cannot do a balancing act.

Simonyi says Hungary is making itself more dependent on Russia than it needs to be which, in turn, opens the way for Russia to have a much bigger influence in Europe than he would like to see.

Putin’s goal is to split the alliance and to split Europe. Hungary should not be part of this game. Hungary should not be one of the countries that is assisting in the division of Europe.

The former diplomat says that however they try to explain or spin it, “the bare fact is that we have made Hungary more vulnerable than it was before.”

He says that ten years ago Hungary in Washington “was at the top of its game,” and “in the league with countries like Denmark, Norway, Holland, and Belgium” in terms of “diplomatic relations, access and opportunity” and “the way the country was viewed in terms of investment.”

Hungary was considered one of the most solid allies that had a view, that had a position. It could make its position (known), even if it was in disagreement with the United States, it could say that with credibility. Because it was known in Washington that at the end of the day, Hungary does this to improve the trans-Atlantic relationship.

He says Hungary needs to “find a path to modernization” and could be “an incredibly prosperous country” if it “embraced modernism, social modernization, technology and if it spent money on education” and “exploited the brilliant minds” of its people. He says the best way to do this is to “embrace the way America does it.”

It does not mean you have to accept everything the Americans do. It is not importing the American way. It is embracing some of the mechanics of being successful that are best done in the United States. Mix it with what we Hungarians are about. We are a proud nation. We should have confidence in our abilities. And the best way to do this is to embrace a relationship with the West and with America. Embracing a country that is in decline . . . dependent on one source, which is its energy . . . is not the way ahead for Hungary.

Simonyi says Hungarian foreign policy today is “totally messy” and he bemoans the lack of clarity. “I don’t think they always know what they are doing,” opines the former diplomat, adding that “the only person who understands what this is about is [Hungarian Prime Minister] Mr. Orban himself.”

For his part, Simonyi would rather see Hungarian foreign policy based on the trans-Atlantic principles of “democracy, human rights, transparency, respect for minority rights, checks and balances. On that you can build a very solid foreign policy.”

Source: The Budapest Beacon

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