Realpolitik is on Emmanuel Macron's agenda this Monday.

The president will meet in Budapest the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, his adversary in the EU on the values ​​side but a potential ally on subjects such as investments, nuclear power or European defense.

This trip, the first by a French head of state since 2007, takes place within the framework of a summit of the countries of the Visegrad group (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia).

"He is a political opponent, but a European partner", acknowledged Thursday Emmanuel Macron, who thus completes his tour of the 26 other capitals of the European Union.

“Whatever our political sensitivities, our choices, we must work together for our Europe”.

Hungary challenges the supremacy of European law

"It is very clear that on the subject of the rule of law, there will be disagreements, but I think that on the subjects of sovereignty, on the subject of the growth model and on multiple subjects, there can also be an ability to find useful compromises, ”added the French president.

Viktor Orban has however often been cited by Emmanuel Macron as the leader of a nationalist and sovereignist camp in the EU, to which he opposes that of the “progressive” Europhiles.

With Poland, Hungary has adopted several laws contested in Brussels, in particular a text prohibiting the representation of homosexuality among those under 18.

And like Warsaw, it challenges the supremacy of European law over national law.

Border protection as common ground

But these subjects "are not necessarily linked" to the agreements that can be found on digital sovereignty, the strengthening of defense Europe, a European investment budget or even industrial alliances, argued the French presidency.

The two leaders had already found common ground when Emmanuel Macron received Viktor Orban in October 2019, in particular on border protection and the need for European defense.

The Elysee, however, assures that the French president will speak of points of disagreement and is "not in the habit of dodging", while the Hungarian LGBT + community called on him to raise the issue during his meeting with Viktor Orban, in an open letter to the French magazine

Têtu

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Meet the opposition

As soon as he arrives in Budapest, scheduled for 11:30 am, Emmanuel Macron will also go to the grave of the philosopher Agnes Heller, who died in 2019, an opposition figure he had received in Paris in 2018. He will also meet Gergely Karacsony, the mayor of Budapest, as well as other representatives of the anti-Orban parties including Peter Marki-Zay, the sole opposition candidate who hopes in the April 2022 legislative elections to overthrow the Hungarian Prime Minister, in power since 2010.

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