Hungary in the centre of the Brexit endgame?

HUNGARY - In Brief 06 Oct 2019 by Istvan Racz

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In a rather unusual story, two British newspapers (Telegraph and Express) reported Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szíjjártó and Hungary's ambassador to the UK to have been spotted as leaving the building of the UK Cabinet Office on Friday morning, around the time when PM Boris Johnson reportedly held an emergency cabinet meeting over Brexit. Earlier last week, Mr. Szííjártó gave an interview to BBC, in which he said that Hungary was only following Brexit events but preferred to refrain from commenting, especially as the Hungarian government intended to stay away from the EU's typical style of lecturing the UK government over Brexit issues.In that context, it is a well-known fact that the Hungarian government maintains friendly relations with Mr. Johnson's cabinet, but that in itself could not explain how its high-ranking representatives got invited to a cabinet meeting in London, as it apparently happened. The British press now renewed earlier speculations that Mr. Johnson's cabinet may have struck a deal with Mr. Orbán's people that should the former initiate a further postponement of Brexit's date (currently October 31) as required by British law if no deal between the EU and the UK is reached within a few days, then the Hungarian government would veto the approval of that postponement on the EU side, thereby making sure that the UK leaves the EU at end-October, just as Mr. Johnson promised and apparently still intends to achieve.This story is highly speculative, of course, as no official or other credible-source confirming comments are available, but it is not necessarily a matter of pure phantasy. At this moment, the most we can do about this is to draw the reade...