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The US Treasury has imposed sanctions on Antal Rogan, one of the most powerful men in the Fidesz government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the minister in charge of his cabinet.
It’s an unusual move among the Nato allies, and reflects the depths to which US-Hungary relations have sunk since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago.
“Antal Rogan is the main architect, founder and beneficiary of the corruption scheme,” read the statement, which was issued by US Ambassador David Pressman.
Pressman will leave Budapest next week, after two and a half years as an active diplomat, traveling the country and criticizing Orban’s government.
His departure comes days before Donald Trump’s return to the White House, and the president-elect has a more favorable opinion of Viktor Orban than Biden’s administration, seeing him as a political ally.
“While Minister Rogan’s megaphones have tried to make this a political issue or an insult to authority, today’s opinion is different,” Pressman told reporters in Budapest on Tuesday.
“It is not the United States that threatens the Hungarian regime, but rather the kleptocratic ecosystem minister Rogan has helped build and control and that he has personally benefited from.”
The ambassador’s statement was immediately attacked by Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.
“This is a personal revenge for the ambassador who was sent to Hungary by the US authorities who failed, but was left without success and in shame,” Szijjarto wrote on Facebook.
“How wonderful that in a few days the United States will be led by people who see our country as a friend and not an enemy.”
The former US ambassador to Hungary, David Cornstein, also came to Rogan’s defense: “The move by outgoing ambassador David Pressman is an example of how the US government hates Hungary, until the last hour.”
The question of President Trump, and his chosen ambassador in Budapest, Matt Whitaker, is whether they will immediately change the sanctions against Antal Rogan.
The answer is not as obvious as it may seem.
Rogan is also in charge of the domestic secret service, and there have been indications from several Nato countries that Hungary is no longer trusted by popular intelligence because of the Orban government’s close relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
And for all the voices of anger at the decision to impose sanctions on the head of Orban’s cabinet, several officials in the Fidesz organization have long been frustrated with the life of Rogan and others, with the power they wield, and the distance from the conservative and Christian beliefs of the party it announces very loudly.
