The Guardian: How soulmates Hungary and Poland fell out over Ukraine war

In December 2021, Poland’s ultraconservative, nationalist government hosted some of the biggest names in European far-right politics, including France’s Marine Le Pen and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

At the close of the Warsaw gathering, the group issued a declaration against “social engineering” aimed at creating “a new European nation” and made promises, largely unfulfilled, to work together in the European Parliament, according to The Guardian.

Only a few months after the Warsaw summit, the governments of Poland and Hungary, who have been ideological soul mates in the EU for years, fell out over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While Warsaw has been one of Kyiv’s staunchest supporters, urging tougher sanctions, Hungary’s leader, Orbán, has described Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as his “opponent” and blamed the EU’s Russia policy for inflation and soaring energy prices. Despite a few tentative olive branches, Polish-Hungarian relations remain tense.

The rift became most obvious in April when Jarosław Kaczyński, Poland’s most powerful politician and chair of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), described Orbán’s stance on Ukraine as “very sad” and “disappointing”. In private, Polish diplomats have vented their dismay. “For me, this is the country of 1848-9, the country massacred by Russia,” one senior Polish diplomat said in May, referring to Imperial Austria’s call on the Russian tsar to quash the Hungarian Revolution.

“Frankly speaking, I cannot understand the logic [of Hungary’s position],” the diplomat said, adding that the Visegrád Group – the alliance of four central European countries, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – no longer existed.

More recently, an attempt from Warsaw to revive cooperation with Hungary appeared to go nowhere. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, told a pro-government weekly magazine last month that Poland would like to return to cooperation with the Visegrád Group (V4), in effect re-opening the door to better ties with Hungary. EU officials in Brussels took this as a sign that Poland’s government was disappointed it has so far failed to unlock €35.4bn (about £31bn) in EU Covid recovery funds, despite offering modest concessions in its dispute with Brussels over the rule of law.

Hungary has attempted to mend fences with its neighbours. Following her election in May, Hungary’s new president, Katalin Novák, made her first overseas trip to Warsaw in an attempt to shore up the alliance.

The Polish-Hungarian rift is only the latest sign of divergence between the central European quartet, whose politicians are less politically homogenous than in 2015-16 when they largely united against refugee quotas during the migration crisis.

Despite their differences on the war in Ukraine, Poland and Hungary share a common view on the rule of law and the role of the EU institutions. Last month, PiS MEPs joined other nationalist parties in voting against a European parliament resolution that labelled Hungary an “electoral autocracy”. The two sides could yet rediscover an interest in working together, as both risk being denied EU funds over concerns about corruption and a politicised judiciary.