Fidesz reacts to Anita Orbán joining Tisza: She is a lobbyist and an agent

The introduction of Anita Orbán as the Tisza Party’s head of foreign affairs and diplomacy caused quite a stir in Fidesz circles over the weekend, as between 2010 and 2015, she served as ambassador-at-large for the Orbán government. On the day of the announcement about her joining Fidesz’s challenger ahead of the upcoming elections, she spoke briefly about her plans to RTL and at length with Péter Magyar, Tisza’s leader in an interview streamed on his social media page.

Fidesz reacted to the news by Máté Kocsis, Fidesz’ faction leader describing her as an agent, while Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó called her a lobbyist. Szijjártó added that he knows Anita Orbán because, according to him, she used to "pester him" about her alleged connections to the American Democrats. "She lobbied on behalf of large Western energy companies, trying to persuade us not to buy cheap Russian gas anymore," the minister wrote, without providing any evidence in support of his claim. "She's an ideal choice for Brussels and Kyiv," Szijjártó concluded.

Magyar responded to this by pointing out that five years ago, the government had backed her when she was in the running for one of the positions of Assistant Secretary General of NATO, and RTL has since obtained the foreign affairs correspondence documenting this.

According to RTL, the subject of the correspondence was the post of ASG ESC, i.e., the Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges. In the first letter, a Foreign Ministry employee wrote that "our minister supports the nomination of Anita Orbán for the post of Assistant Secretary General." Later, they added that Hungary’s NATO representation had started putting together a package for her, and then a month later, in reference to the status of the selection process at the time, they wrote: "Congratulations and good luck! From here on out, you can only leave in glory, regardless of whether you get the job or not."

RTL also contacted Péter Magyar, who told them that if Fidesz really considers Anita Orbán a globalist, a supporter of George Soros, and a friend of former left-wing Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai, then it is not clear why they asked her to apply for the position of Assistant Secretary General of NATO in the first place, and why she was prepared for the post by Szijjártó's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In its response, the Foreign Ministry told RTL that when Anita Orbán was applying for the position, the main question from their end was whether – as NATO’s ASG – she would be able to identify with the policies of Hungary’s sovereignist national government. "Her answer was a definite yes, thus her candidacy enjoyed the support of the Hungarian government," they wrote.

Anita Orbán responds to Szijjártó

Anita Orbán responded to Szijjártó in a Facebook post saying that between 2015 and 2020, she indeed worked for energy companies. However, she said that while Szijjártó was talking about Western companies, he failed to add that these were American companies in an industry that the United States now considers to be of strategic importance. "If any lobbying activity had indeed taken place in your direction, it would have had to happen between 2015 and 2020. It was after this that the Hungarian government supported my nomination for the post of NATO’s Assistant Secretary General in May 2020, and the process concluded in August 2020," the Tisza party's head of foreign affairs writes.

She added that this raises the question about why the Hungarian government would have supported a candidate for a position at NATO whose activities Szijjártó now objects to. "After the process with NATO was completed, I signed a contract with Vodafone in October 2020 and ended my professional career in the energy sector," Anita Orbán concluded. Our portrait of her, including how she envisions Hungarian foreign policy in the future may be found here.