Flip, then flop: on Hungary’s opening to the East

Since its landslide victory at the general elections in 2010, Hungary’s governing Fidesz party and its leader, Viktor Orbán, have been pursuing an ‘opening to the East’. Behind this should lie a reasonable rapprochement with Russia and the resource-rich countries of the Caucasus and the Arab Peninsula. But petty political goals seem to play a more important role. The policy’s successes have been marginal, while its long-term cost looks frightening Given Hungary’s...