Hungary saw great business opportunities in Iran and the Orban government tried to strenghten relations through university scholarships and residence permits. Then the course of world politics and the coronavirus changed everything.

A Hungarian businessman close to the government has expanded his media empire to the Balkans. However, a high-value contract between his Slovenian and North Macedonian companies raised the attention of local authorities.

There is growing pressure on Hungary’s government to stop blocking high-level Ukraine-NATO meetings. They are accused of doing a favor to Russia, while Hungary says “we’re not blocking just for fun”.

American and British diplomacy are upset that the International Investment Bank has relocated its headquarters to Budapest. The bank’s employees were supposed to receive wide diplomatic immunities, but the Orban government seems to be backtracking on issuing them.

The Hungarian government started to rebuild its controversial trading house system on the Balkans – once again, with the old local partners that have good political connections.

Several influential U.S. government officials have stated in recent weeks that Viktor Orban was inciting Donald Trump against Ukraine. However, reality is more complex and there are tough diplomatic battles being fought in the background.

The Trump administration is nervous about the good relationship between the Orban government and Huawei. The Chinese giant has been involved in several Hungarian state developments in recent years, and their devices have even emerged with Hungarian security agencies.

Hungary’s government promised diplomatic immunities to the Russian-led, now Budapest-based International Investment Bank, but U.S. diplomacy had concerns over the bank’s alleged ties to Russian intelligence.

In addition to the Russians, several government-close people are also watching closely the project developments. The business partner of Árpád Habony has appeared in the company that signed the contract. The investment is likely to come up at the Orbán-Putin meeting.

Direkt36 tells the story of how the Hungarian and Israeli Right slowly found each other through the relationship of Viktor Orban and Benjamin Netanyahu.