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European leaders on Thursday made a strained show of unity in the wake of the US elections and the collapse of the German government at a summit hosted by Viktor Orbán, the continent’s most prominent supporter of Donald Trump.
The Hungarian prime minister has long been the black sheep of the EU for his pro-Russian views and for positioning himself as the illiberal antagonist to centrist leaders such as German chancellor Olaf Scholz and France’s Emmanuel Macron.
But as Scholz skipped the gathering to stay in Berlin and deal with the fallout of his shattered coalition, it was the Hungarian who gleefully welcomed his guests in Budapest.
“The situation in which Europe finds itself is difficult, complicated and dangerous,” Orban said at the start of the summit which he hosted as chair of the rotating presidency of the EU. He argued for a complete rethink of the “European model” given that the global economy is “faced with the frightening perspective of fragmentation”.
Orban has long been an advocate of Trump, making him an outlier in a continent fearful of the Republican’s “America First” trade policies, his brash treatment of Nato allies and his threats to cut off military aid to Ukraine.
But in Budapest, many European leaders were forced to congratulate Trump and vow to work closely with him, as Orban saw his geopolitical gamble paying out.
“Today we have to examine whether we see similarly the challenges before us,” Orban said, and whether Europe could formulate a coherent response.
“The recent American presidential election gives these questions a special relevance,” he added. “The future of our transatlantic relations is a core element of the European security architecture.”
Trump’s victory presents deep challenges to the EU. The president-elect has vowed to impose steep tariffs on its imports, and threatened to leave European countries at Russia’s mercy unless they pay more for their own defence.
He has also vowed to end Russia’s war in Ukraine as soon as he takes office in January, something the EU has said must only happen on Kyiv’s terms.
“I’m looking forward to working with [Trump] again, to strengthen the transatlantic bond,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, whom Orban has publicly vilified as part of his political campaigning, in Budapest.
“We have shown that Europe can stand together [before],” she added. “The future of Europe is in our hands, we have to act now.”
The collapse of Germany’s government hours after the results in the US election became clear made stark the deep concerns in European capitals over how united the continent can remain in the face of a second Trump administration and the dangers of political fragmentation undermining efforts to form an effective collective response.
“It’s important that Germany has elections soon because we need a strong Germany,” said Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo as he arrived at the summit.
The German opposition and business leaders on Thursday also pressured the chancellor to commit to a snap vote in January rather than March as he envisaged when he triggered the collapse of the three-way coalition.
Janka Oertel, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that after Trump’s re-election, “the EU will need to act decisively and quickly, on trade, on China, on defence”.
“The end of the German coalition could theoretically be a step towards a more active German role on all these matters,” she said in reference to the slow decision making process that has marred Scholz’s coalition.
“But the opposite could also be true,” Oertel said, given that the next German government will probably be another coalition.