The Habsburg empire strikes back

4 months ago 2

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Viktor Orbán is getting Europe’s oldest band back together.

Hardcore fans call the long-disbanded group “k. u. k.,” but it’s more widely known as the Habsburg Empire.

Amid the flurry of headlines surrounding the Hungarian leader’s machinations in recent days, the most revealing when it comes to Orbán’s relationship to power was a June 30 announcement in Vienna that he was forming the “Patriots for Europe,” a hard-right political group in the European Parliament.

Standing in central Vienna alongside fellow right-wing populists from Austria and the Czech Republic, a triumphant Orbán announced his new club (encompassing the core territories of the former Habsburg lands: Austria, Bohemia and Hungary), leaving no doubt about who would be in charge.

“We are creating a political formation that in my view will take off like a rocket and very quickly become the largest group of the European right,” Orbán said. “The sky is the limit.”

The group’s name is a textbook antiphrasis, i.e. opposite to its intended meaning, like calling a giant “tiny.” While the “patriots” are many things, being “for Europe” is not among them.

That aside, Orbán’s braggadocio wasn’t wholly empty. On Monday, France’s National Rally signed on to the Patriots, as did Italy’s Lega, joining a growing roster of prominent hard-right parties from Spain to the Netherlands.

While the French will have the largest delegation in the Patriots with 30 MEPs, Orbán and his Habsburg allies could end up dominating the group if they succeed in luring populist parties from Slovenia and Slovakia, as seems likely.

Given that it was the kind of nationalism the Patriots preach that led to the destruction of the Habsburg Empire in 1918, their deepening alliance comes as something of a surprise.

Until now, about the only thing that united the politicians behind the Patriots was mutual distrust. Austria’s Freedom Party, for example, spent decades seeking reparations from the Czechs for Austrians who were dispossessed and expelled from the former Czechoslovakia after World War II. Meanwhile, one of the few issues on which the Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians and Slovenes could agree was how overbearing the Austrians were.

So why are they suddenly locking arms? In a word: Orbán.

Though there’s still plenty of distrust beneath the surface, the region’s populists know a winning formula when they see one.

Whatever one makes of the wily Hungarian leader and his shuttle diplomacy over the past week, which took him from Kyiv to Moscow and Beijing, there’s no denying he punches above his weight. In right-wing circles across Central Europe, Orbán is viewed as the model.

Unlikely bedfellows

Upon hearing of Orbán’s trip to Moscow on Friday, Slovakia’s populist Prime Minister Robert Fico, who recently survived an assassination attempt, was full of praise and even confessed to a strong case of FOMO.

“I want to congratulate Hungary’s prime minister and express my admiration for his decision to visit Kyiv and Moscow without any hesitation,” said Fico, whose Smer party is considering jumping to the Patriots. “If my health had permitted it, I would gladly have joined him.”

Orbán and Fico are unlikely bedfellows. Lingering tensions between their countries over Hungary’s 800-year domination of the Slovak ethnic nation, which ended in 1918, have long complicated relations.

The pair also come from opposite sides of the political spectrum. While Orbán, a one-time dissident who opposed Soviet control, hails from the right, Fico is a former communist who became a social democrat after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Their growing bonhomie goes a long way toward explaining the appeal of Orbán’s Patriots in Central and Eastern Europe.

In addition to growing frustration over what they regard as Brussels’ heavy hand, the Patriots share a decidedly more charitable view of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his war on Ukraine.

With the exception of Austria, the far-right parties that have joined the Patriots so far come from NATO member countries. Even so, most make no secret of their respect for the Russian leader, ranging from grudging admiration to outright veneration.

“Putin can’t lose,” Orbán said in an interview Sunday with Axel Springer media outlets. (POLITICO is owned by Axel Springer.)

“The notion that Russia can be defeated is very difficult to fathom.”

Aside from their distrust of the EU and their enthusiasm for Russia, Orbán’s Habsburg coalition is united by its common resistance to migration from the Muslim world, which the Patriots regard as a civilizational struggle.

“We believe in a Europe determined to protect its borders, to stop illegal migration and to preserve its cultural identity, following the will of the vast majority of European citizens,” the group wrote in its founding manifesto.

A pan-European platform for Orbán

With Patriot affiliates already in power in Hungary and leading polls in the Czech Republic and Austria ahead of September elections in both countries, Orbán’s alliance could soon become a political juggernaut, both within the region and across the EU.

That would give him the very pan-European platform he’s been seeking since his Fidesz party — to avoid being booted — left the center-right European People’s Party, the largest group in the Parliament.

If things go Orbán’s way, the real impact of the Patriots will be felt closer to home.

After playing second fiddle to Austria for virtually all of the Habsburg Empire’s six-plus centuries of existence, Hungary may yet get to be top dog.

If need be, Orbán even has a bonafide Habsburg he can throw into the mix: Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen, the great-great grandson of 19th-century Emperor Franz Josef I. Eduard currently serves as Budapest’s emissary to the Holy See.

“If we’re ever needed we’re around,” he recently told an interviewer. It was only half in jest.

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