A BIT of Polish doggerel from the 18th century, when Polish and Hungarian nobles fought together against the Russian empire, maintains that Poles and Hungarians are “brothers, both of the sword and of the [wine] glass”. The Hungarians have a similar rhyme. Lately this friendship has experienced a revival that goes beyond a common interest in fighting and drinking. The two countries’ ruling parties, Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) and Hungary’s Fidesz, both disdain liberalism, disregard the independence of the judiciary and reject the European Union’s plans for resettling refugees from the Middle East. They also protect each other in Brussels, where their policies have drawn the ire of the European Commission.
On May 14th Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, visited Warsaw on his first foreign trip since winning re-election in April. It was a triumphal visit for Mr Orban, whom PiS has long admired. In 2011 Jaroslaw Kaczynski, PiS’s chairman and Poland’s de facto leader, said he was “convinced that the day will come when we will have Budapest in Warsaw”. Since coming to power in 2015, PiS has led Poland in the illiberal direction charted by Fidesz. It has packed the supreme court and turned the public media into a government propaganda channel, echoing earlier changes in Hungary.
Mr Orban has gone further...Continue reading
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