Posing as a Hungarian freedom fighter, Viktor Orbán has railed against his country's chief investors: Germany and the EU
Taking their cue from the late Václav Havel, who often used the word, the inhabitants of former Soviet satellites have frequently coined the term Absurdistan to describe the country in which they live.
Tellingly, Absurdistan is currently most commonly invoked these days to describe Viktor Orbán's populist rule in Hungary.
The quixotic nature of Mr Orbán's Fidesz party government is in some respects felt less in the field of politics – although he has loaded the electoral dice to ensure his party's declared goal of two decades in power – than in economics.
To compensate for the money it lost when it kicked out the IMF, the Orbán government has introduced more than two dozen new taxes. When it is not increasing the highest levy on banks in Europe, with plans to raise more money on wire transfers, corporate phone calls and mining royalties, it introduces new "fees"– such as mandatory membership of chambers for all businesses.
The effect on Hungary's tanking economy is not at all comic. Four million Hungarians live at subsistence level and a further 1.38 million live below it.
Posing as a Hungarian freedom fighter, Mr Orbán has railed against his country's chief investors: Germany and the EU. He has compared Angela Merkel's policies to the Nazi invasion ordered by Adolf Hitler and likened Brussels to the former Soviet Union.
This may seem diplomatic lunacy for a country as dependent as Hungary is on the German economy and EU structural funds.
Since 2009, 97% of all state investments were funded from EU cohesion funds. No road, railway track or school would have been built without them.
But Mr Orbán's "war of independence" against the club Hungary spent so much effort joining makes for excellent politics at home.
However, each fresh wave of condemnation – the latest being a report about fundamental rights by the Portuguese Green MEP Rui Tavares – provides fresh fuel for Mr Orbán's argument that the EU is acting as a proxy for liberal-leftist forces.
And yet his most vocal critic has been Viviane Reding, a conservative vice-president of the European commission and from the same EU group as Fidesz.
The attention Mr Orbán is getting may be becoming counterproductive. He is one of a small clique of law-school graduates, known as the Dorm boys, who have created the perfect political vehicle for capitalising on popular disgust at post-Soviet privatisations.
Like the Kaczynski twins who used to rule Poland, Fidesz claims to be on a mission to save its country from a foe that has long since collapsed. The west, says Mr Orbán, is dead and China is Hungary's new strategic partner.
All this is leading Hungary slowly down another cul-de-sac. It won't do Hungary any good, but neither can it do the EU much harm. Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.
Taking their cue from the late Václav Havel, who often used the word, the inhabitants of former Soviet satellites have frequently coined the term Absurdistan to describe the country in which they live.
Tellingly, Absurdistan is currently most commonly invoked these days to describe Viktor Orbán's populist rule in Hungary.
The quixotic nature of Mr Orbán's Fidesz party government is in some respects felt less in the field of politics – although he has loaded the electoral dice to ensure his party's declared goal of two decades in power – than in economics.
To compensate for the money it lost when it kicked out the IMF, the Orbán government has introduced more than two dozen new taxes. When it is not increasing the highest levy on banks in Europe, with plans to raise more money on wire transfers, corporate phone calls and mining royalties, it introduces new "fees"– such as mandatory membership of chambers for all businesses.
The effect on Hungary's tanking economy is not at all comic. Four million Hungarians live at subsistence level and a further 1.38 million live below it.
Posing as a Hungarian freedom fighter, Mr Orbán has railed against his country's chief investors: Germany and the EU. He has compared Angela Merkel's policies to the Nazi invasion ordered by Adolf Hitler and likened Brussels to the former Soviet Union.
This may seem diplomatic lunacy for a country as dependent as Hungary is on the German economy and EU structural funds.
Since 2009, 97% of all state investments were funded from EU cohesion funds. No road, railway track or school would have been built without them.
But Mr Orbán's "war of independence" against the club Hungary spent so much effort joining makes for excellent politics at home.
However, each fresh wave of condemnation – the latest being a report about fundamental rights by the Portuguese Green MEP Rui Tavares – provides fresh fuel for Mr Orbán's argument that the EU is acting as a proxy for liberal-leftist forces.
And yet his most vocal critic has been Viviane Reding, a conservative vice-president of the European commission and from the same EU group as Fidesz.
The attention Mr Orbán is getting may be becoming counterproductive. He is one of a small clique of law-school graduates, known as the Dorm boys, who have created the perfect political vehicle for capitalising on popular disgust at post-Soviet privatisations.
Like the Kaczynski twins who used to rule Poland, Fidesz claims to be on a mission to save its country from a foe that has long since collapsed. The west, says Mr Orbán, is dead and China is Hungary's new strategic partner.
All this is leading Hungary slowly down another cul-de-sac. It won't do Hungary any good, but neither can it do the EU much harm. Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.