On 15 February, 2024, the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs (HIIA) hosted a roundtable discussion entitled “Romanian politics”, with the participation of János T. Barabás, Senior Analyst of HIIA, Mátyás Szilágyi, Senior Research Fellow of HIIA, István Íjgyártó, Senior Advisor of HIIA and István Pataky, deputy editor-in-chief of Maszol.ro. In his introduction, the moderator of the event, Sándor Seremet, Senior Research Fellow of HIIA, stressed that Romania is an important economic and political partner for Hungary, as shown by bilateral trade exceeding 12 billion euros last year as well as the several joint infrastructure and ecological projects – but it is also a neighbour of key importance in terms of Hungary’s national and security policy.
At the beginning of the discussion, which was the first roundtable of HIIA’s Secure Neighbourhood Center, János T. Barabás expressed that the successful economic period of our neighbour was caused by its accession to the EU, noting that currently the GDP per capita is almost the same in Hungary and Romania. Romanian politics is sharply divided between the more rural, older, lower-educated left-wing and far-right voters, and the more urban, younger, higher-educated group, the latter being mostly right-wing, progressive-leaning – which explains a lot of domestic political movement in the 2024 election year. At the same time, there is a dual political power in our neighbourhood, with a secret network behind the official public one. István Pataky elaborated on Romanian domestic political power relations and on the factors of uncertainty that make public life not entirely predictable. Mátyás Szilágyi spoke about the relationship between politics, the church and the secret services, highlighting the corruption of the system. István Íjgyártó spoke about latent Ukrainian-Romanian tensions and Russia’s policy.