JD Vance in Budapest, US at Orban's side (against the EU)

Handshakes, reciprocal congratulations, a joint press conference and then the afternoon's crowd bath at the Mtk Sportpark. US Vice-President JD Vance landed in Budapest yesterday to bring all his support - and that of Donald Trump - to sovereignist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who in five days' time will face the most difficult elections of all the sixteen years he has governed Hungary.

Vance mainly focused on the European dossier, launching harsh sentences against the EU institutions: 'The reason why the US president sent me here is because we believe that the amount of interference from the Brussels bureaucracy has been truly shameful,' he said yesterday during the press conference organised after the bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Orban. And again: 'What happened in Hungary is one of the worst examples of foreign electoral interference I have ever seen or read about'. Finally, the usual pats on the back to his friend the champion of the illiberal right: 'You are a true statesman. I would say one of the few true statesmen in Europe, one of the few people able to talk to people from all over the world, to play the role of peacemaker, to be a statesman in the economic field'.

In the afternoon, in front of the crowd gathered at the arena, Viktor Orban also cashed in on a supportive phone call from Trump himself: 'You are doing a great job,' he said of the premier, 'you have not allowed anyone to storm Hungary and invade it as others have done. We are with you all the way." Just a step away from Sunday's elections, for which the polls continue to give his rival Peter Magyar the lead, Orban thus also cashes in on the endorsement of the United States just a day after having collected Moscow's support. Just on Monday, in fact, the Kremlin had sided with Budapest in accusing Kiev of attempting to sabotage the Turkstream pipeline in order to interfere in the elections, with the aim of depriving the Hungarian population of the energy supply that has always been guaranteed by Russia.

With Washington on one side and Moscow on the other, Viktor Orban is banking on international support to influence the Hungarian electorate. During his election campaign, the premier often pointed his finger at Ukraine and waved the spectre of the conflict spreading to Hungary. 'We have been living in the shadow of a war for four years now,' Orban told Vance yesterday, 'and we are convinced that if President Trump had been president in 2022, there would not be a war now. And if the Europeans, particularly Brussels, did not block the president's peace efforts, peace would prevail and would have been restored in Ukraine long ago."

The US vice-president's words of endorsement for Prime Minister Orban were clear, yet many noticed a less emphatic tone during the joint press conference than on other occasions. 'Vance's language was not forceful,' explains Zsuzsanna Vegh, analyst at the German Marshall Fund, 'and no major announcement was made. Orban did not seem satisfied with the US vice-president's words. My impression is that the Trump administration has made a pragmatic assessment of what may happen on Sunday in the elections and is also interested in working with Tisza, the party of the challenger Magyar'. Vance himself hinted at this, in a way, when he told reporters yesterday that Washington would also work with another Hungarian government.