The Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, believes that due to the crisis of the Western-centric order, which was allegedly accentuated by Russia's war against Ukraine, the West has started a new "cold war", in which Budapest should stand aside, maintain relations with Western competitors and claim the role of a regional leader.

As European Truth reports, Orban said this in a speech at the Christmas dinner of the Cella Kalman Foundation (Hungarian politician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries), the thesis of which was presented by his political adviser Baláš Orbán in an article for the Mandiner publication.

"Currently, it is clear that the biggest strategic challenge facing Hungary in the next decade is leaving the group of middle-income countries and catching up with developed countries, as well as achieving the status of a regional middle power in Central Europe," the article says.

According to the Hungarian Prime Minister, the neo-liberal model of globalization is becoming a thing of the past, and as a result, the United States has new rivals - partly because the liberal model has allowed such powers as China to become stronger.

Among the events that lead to the crisis of the neoliberal order, Orbán cites the migration crisis, Brexit, the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections, and the coronavirus pandemic.

The new world order, in Orbán's view, can be represented as a system of hierarchical networks in which all economic, political, and cultural interactions pass through the leading states of the formed blocs. And this, he believes, is especially bad for Hungary, which has a negative historical experience of existence in the bloc confrontation.

"Therefore, the initial step of the Hungarian strategy of catch-up development is the development of a country-specific logic of globalization to overcome the negative consequences," Orbán says, believing that such a strategy should be mediation between the West and the East and non-participation in a new "cold war".

In practice, this means that Budapest (within the system of hierarchical networks) must be on good terms with the states that are competitors of the West, dominated by the USA - because this way, the marginalization of the country can be avoided.

As you know, since the beginning of the full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine, Hungary has continued to maintain close ties with Russia and openly called for the review and relaxation of the European Union's sanctions against it, as well as developing relations with China and Iran, which the United States considers being part of the "axis of evil."