Europe needs a revolution of common sense.

By Derimot*com - Ian Proud - 26, 2025

A revolution of common sense begins in Budapest. In a multipolar world, Europe must become internally multipolar, or we risk falling apart.

Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, delivered the opening speech at the Budapest Global Dialogue 2025, a forum that brings together academics and policy thinkers from Europe to Asia to discuss the pressing needs of our time. His theme, echoing Donald Trump’s inaugural address, is that Hungary should lead a revolution based on common sense.

Essentially, this means reclaiming sovereignty. The war in Ukraine, eager to engage in an emerging multipolar world, has reinforced the feeling in Budapest that its sovereignty has been under attack from Brussels.

Szijjártó was unwavering in his criticism of Brussels policymakers who had spent the past three years “lecturing” Hungary about its more moderate stance toward Russia in the war in Ukraine. He offered no praise for Russia, but rather a determination not to let Hungary be dragged into a war in its neighborhood.

Most forcefully, he commented on Hungary's bitter experience of being caught between one powerful bloc and another, a pointed reference to the Soviet Union's entry and occupation of Hungary in 1956. In a multipolar world, common sense demanded that Hungary, as a small sovereign nation, should function as a hub between East and West, not a battleground for the two. A choice between Europe and Russia, or between the West and Asia, was a wrong choice that would only destroy Hungarian growth and development.

It is understandable that Hungary does not want to play the role of a good corporate citizen in a Europe that is stagnating economically under self-imposed high energy prices, fueled by a war they do not want to be a part of.

By promoting a common sense approach, Szijjártó indirectly highlights a painful truth about Europe.

Europe cannot play a geopolitical role because of the inherent limitations of collective decision-making. Twenty-seven states cannot and will never be able to make geopolitical decisions with the clarity and speed needed to ensure decisive action at crucial moments.

The stubborn and inexorable demands for sovereignty will always get in the way. There is a huge and insurmountable gap between the declaratory and decision-making authority of the European institutions, which inevitably leads to weak and often self-destructive decisions, especially in foreign policy.

And because of this, sovereign states feel that their interests are being undermined. – Because they can see that the Brussels consensus produces the worst of all worlds.

European declarations, no matter how offensive, are no match for the unilateral actions of sovereign states like Russia. European decisions, when they finally happen, often seem to hurt member states more.

As an example, Szijjártó compared von der Leyen's call to cut Russian energy supplies to the reality that Europe is still importing Russian LNG at a hugely inflated price, which is driving up the bills for the Hungarian people.

There are other illustrations of this, such as Kaja Kallas.

Kaja Kallas was accused of overdoing her efforts in an attempt to persuade larger member states to significantly increase spending on arms production, while their domestic economies faced headwinds caused by the war.

Europe pledged to support Ukraine for as long as it took. Yet some member states, including Hungary, quickly came to the conclusion that the war had gone on too long and had to end.

And of course, countries trying to play a leading role without Brussels’s long screwdriver face the same challenge. Britain and France committed to sending peacekeeping troops to Ukraine. But then they were caught between insufficient enthusiasm from other European states like Italy to do the same, and a realization that they did not have enough troops of their own.

This goes straight to the heart of why Europe is failing. Decision-makers in Brussels, no matter how hard they try, can never bypass the sovereign needs and choices of individual member states.

Member states, acting alone, can never gain sufficient momentum to play a decisive role, without overwhelming support from others.

In subsequent sessions, one (often American) academic after another pointed out the need for Europe to step up and play a more prominent role in a time of unprecedented global conflict, but it seemed to largely miss the point.

The standard prescription of doubling European defense spending is irrelevant if Europe as a collective is not willing to defend itself.

Europe cannot play a geopolitical role in great power competition because Europe is not a great power, but rather a collection of medium-sized and smaller sovereign states.

The departure from common sense and the associated erosion of sovereignty in European member states will always make the challenge of becoming a credible geopolitical power impossible.

The only way Europe could even hope to play a geopolitical role would be to match its industry with cheap energy, which it has chosen not to do. Instead, the US is promoting internal division in Europe and an over-reliance on expensive American energy.

This point goes to the heart of Szijjártó’s message. Europe has seen a disastrous departure from common sense in its attempt to build a geopolitical identity for itself since the Lisbon Treaty was adopted and a High Representative for Foreign Affairs was created.

The outbreak of the Ukraine war has accelerated the Commission’s efforts to centralize control, as it faces resistance from skeptical member states like Hungary. Yet the resulting assault on national sovereignty has led states like Hungary to resist more. The work now underway to change the EU’s voting rules to circumvent dissent in Budapest and Bratislava will only serve to drive sovereign countries toward an exit from the EU.

The uncomfortable truth is that an increasingly multipolar world requires a multipolar Europe. That means a Europe of sovereign states cooperating within a single market, but with the stifling, centralizing institutions in Brussels radically scaled back and stripped of their undemocratic powers. It also means an uncomfortable reckoning with the need to be on good terms with Russia.

With the United States teetering on the brink of war in Iran for reasons few in Europe truly understand, there has never been a greater need for a revolution based on common sense. It must start today, here in Budapest.

Ian Proud was a member of HM Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. From July 2014 to February 2019, Ian Proud was seconded to the British Embassy in Moscow. He was also Director of the Diplomatic Academy for Eastern Europe and Central Asia and Deputy Chairman of the Board of the Anglo-American School of Moscow.

Retrieved from Strategic Culture Foundation
Translated by Southern Comfort from English.
Original article: Europe needs a revolution of common sense. And it starts in Hungary

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