Commentary

ASEAN should be thankful it does not have a Viktor Orban problem

The region’s ‘friends to all’ instinct, reflected in the latest State of Southeast Asia survey, is its greatest asset in an age of upheaval.

As countries navigate today’s convulsive and ill-defined geopolitical landscape, ASEAN will urgently need to address its institutional dysfunctions and shore up its internal coherence, says the writer.

In the European Union, the election defeat of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been met with elation.

Long a spoiler of key collective foreign policy goals, the end of Mr Orban’s 16-year rule, at the hands of poll victor Peter Magyar, is being seen as a boon for Brussels.

He was viewed, in the words of one commentator, as waging “systematic blackmail” on the EU. He exploited the grouping’s requirement for unanimity on key issues to block assistance to Ukraine and to water down sanctions against Moscow.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen perhaps spoke for many across EU capitals when she said, following the result on April 12, that the bloc was stronger and more united.