European Security: Hungarian Interpretations, Perceptions and Foreign Policy

Abstract

In Hungary, debate on the forms and substance of European security; on questions of alliance; on international security; and on the distinctions between ‘common’, ‘mutual’, ‘equal’, and ‘cooperative’ security, is effectively non-existent, whilst alternative notions such as non-offensive defence have yet to acquire real intellectual currency. Nor is there public discussion by the various social or political groups of alternative security policies. It is nonetheless possible to piece together a specifically Hungarian approach to European security, and to security in general, from the history of Hungary’s relation to Europe, from the shifting perception revealed by opinion polls of the image of the adversary, and not least from Hungarian foreign policy itself, in which considerations of security are paramount. Clearly, the homogenising effect of systems of alliance is felt predominantly in the military sphere. The specificity of the Hungarian approach to European security is thus best sought in the non-military sphere.