PM Orbán as a European power player?
October 5th, 2015A moderate and a pro-government analyst think that PM Orbán has become an important reference point in European politics due to the migration crisis. A left-wing columnist thinks that PM Orbán has only earned an evil reputation and he is seen as a symbol of inhumane anti-immigrant policies.
According to a survey by Index.hu, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was the third most mentioned politician on English language social media sites in September. These statistics suggest the PM Orbán dominates political discourse not only in Hungary, but makes an impact on the international level as well, Index.hu writes.
“PM Orbán is the new international point of reference,” political scientists Gábor Török and Ágoston Sámul Mráz agree in Heti Válasz. In the migration crisis, PM Orbán has sent clear messages and made important points, Ágoston Sámul Mráz thinks. The conservative analyst adds that PM Orbán ‘won’ the migration dispute because he saw from the beginning that the public will not want uncontrolled migration to continue forever, and thus they will demand that the flow of undocumented migrants is stopped even if this requires tough measures.
In 168 Óra, Tamás Mészáros admits that PM Orbán has indeed become an important reference point in European politics – the symbol of border fences and anti-immigration politics. But the left-wing columnist adds that this has been achieved at the cost of what Mészáros calls ‘inhumane acts’, designed to keep migrants out at any price. He goes on to speculate that Mr Orbán’s evil reputation will harm the Hungarian economy, since the government’s anti-immigrant acts will frighten away potential investors.