The event will be followed by a small snack. In the run-up to the December EU summit, there was huge concern that Hungary’s Viktor Orbán would veto the opening of EU accession talks with Ukraine while agreeing to endorse the midterm revision of the EU budget that included a €50 billion aid package for Kyiv. In the end, it worked the other way around. This unfinished business will be on the agenda of an extraordinary summit of EU leaders in Brussels on February 1.
On that evening, we will discuss how Orbán’s growing belligerence and transnationalism can be managed in 2024, a year in which a combination of factors – including the possibilities of a stronger presence of the Far Right in European Parliament after elections this June and a victory for Donald Trump in US elections this November – could change the political trajectory of Europe. Hungary’s prime minister will undoubtedly use 2024 as an opportunity to exploit the EU’s current crisis of leadership, a challenge that will become particularly acute in the second half of the year when his country assumes the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU. We will examine how Germany and other partners can limit and overcome further fragmentation and political paralysis at the EU level during this demanding period.
Speakers:
MP Anton Hofreiter, Chairman of the German Bundestag’s Committee on EU Affairs
Péter Krekó, Director of the Budapest-Based Think Tank Political Capital
Thu Nguyen, Deputy Director, Jacques Delors Centre; Member of the Franco-German Expert Group on EU Institutional Reform
Moderator:
Milan Nič, Senior Fellow, Center for Order and Governance in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia, DGAP
The event will be held in English. Please register here: events@dgap.org.
For any questions, please contact Yulia Loeva (events@dgap.org).