The main question now is how quickly Rogán can be removed from the US sanctions list

Although there have been rumours in diplomatic circles for years that Washington might sanction even some of the highest-ranking officials of the Orbán government, it came as a surprise to many that the current US administration sanctioned one of Viktor Orbán’s most powerful ministers, Antán Rogán, citing corruption charges just days before US President Joe Biden's departure from office. The Hungarian government had an almost immediate response to the unprecedented move. Prime Minister Gergely Gulyás called it the "petty revenge" of US Ambassador David Pressman and the Democratic administration.

The move may also have come as a surprise to the government, because for a long time it appeared that US officials ( with Ambassador David Pressman at the helm), who have long lobbied for the sanctioning of Antal Rogán (among others), would not succeed. Although there was a similar case in 2023, when the United States placed the International Investment Bank – dubbed the Russian spy bank by the independent press, and at the time based in Hungary – and its three executives, including Imre Laszlóczki, the bank's vice-president, on the sanctions list, that move was not followed by a negative response from the Hungarian administration. On the contrary, Orbán complied, and Hungary withdrew from the bank almost immediately.

Even immediately preceding the spy-bank sanctions, there were those who expected that it would not be a figure of Laszlóczki's calibre, but a high-ranking government official who would find themselves in the crosshairs of Washington, but that was not what happened. Later, there was a rumour that a government bigwig would be put on the sanctions list following the 2024 EP elections, but still ahead of the US presidential elections. This did not happen either. Then the US presidential elections were held, and the government was quick to regard the matter as a done deal: As soon as Trump's victory was certain, Orbán and the pro-government pundits sighed with relief and immediately started dispatching Ambassador Pressman to the airport and back to the US.

Although government communications had all along blamed Pressman for the political pressure coming from Washington and had portrayed him as the architect of it all, in reality he simply represented the message the Democratic administration wanted to send to Budapest. The decision itself was made by the US government. It is also worth noting that in the past, it wasn't just the Democratic administration that sent warnings to Budapest, but even Republican politicians who had occasionally travelled here.

One of the most powerful ministers in the Orbán government has now been put on the sanctions list on grounds of corruption, even though the root of the conflict between the two countries is essentially of a geopolitical nature. For some time now, Hungary, which has been a member of NATO for decades, has been seen as moving away from the Western political and military alliance system and towards Russia (and China), and has been 'breaking ranks'.

Just like about corruption, Pressman has also openly talked about this geopolitical conflict on several occasions, stressing that the Orbán government is making a huge mistake by treating it as a partisan issue. To this day, the Orbán government still believes that the conflict between the two countries, which is actually of a geopolitical nature, will all of a sudden disappear with the arrival of Trump.

It is not clear why the Orbán government is so confident about this. It may be because they have already discussed this with the future president through informal channels, or because they have been given the green light by the future president to pursue the foreign policy that the Biden administration has always been critical of. However, as of yet, there is practically nothing known about the content of these informal talks, and Hungary has not become a bigger country just because Trump won. Based on its size alone, Hungary has the same geopolitical weight as it did before the recent presidential elections in the United States. Thus, much will depend on what Trump's America will look like – but that is yet to be seen.

The sanctions against Rogán do not technically pose a threat to Viktor Orbán's most powerful minister, and there is no way they could bring about his downfall – even if the opposition follows the expected scenario, calling for him and the entire government to resign. Although it could obviously inconvenience him, for example when using various credit cards or if he wishes to subscribe to a service in the US. It won't look good in his CV either, but we have seen similar stories without much consequence: although the background was different, but the then chairwoman of the National Tax Authority (NAV), Ildikó Vida was banned from the US in 2014, and at the same time Árpád Habony, Orbán’s advisor and strategist was supposedly also banned from the country, while the leader of MOL, Zsolt Hernádi was wanted by Interpol, and just recently, Hungary granted political asylum to a wanted Polish politician.

Rogán, on the other hand, has no US (business) interests, and on paper he doesn't even have any business clients or partners who would be affected by such a sanction, so it is unlikely that this move caused serious damage to anyone. Additionally, it is clear from the OFAC statement that the decision was made based on publicly available information, rather than information gathered by the intelligence services. This means that Rogán probably has no reason to fear that information he would rather keep to himself would come to light if he were to take legal action.

The justification for sanctioning him is rather general, and can be summarised as follows: according to Washington, Hungary is a corrupt country, and Rogán is the engine of this corruption, standing at the centre of the web of corruption. Although there are no specifics mentioned, it is clear from the text that he is blamed for distributing EU funds during various public procurement contracts to companies that are part of the NER-system. It is clear that Rogán is just the 'brand', the message itself is for the NER political elite.

It is nothing new that Washington sees the Hungarian political elite as corrupt. Pressman has spoken about this openly on several occasions. But Washington is also aware that the growth of the NER elite's wealth over the past 14-15 years is a strategic decision made at the very top, and that Viktor Orbán, not Rogán, is the key player. Rogán is at most only one of the most powerful coordinators, and since he is Orbán's most powerful minister, there's considerable power in his hands. If he can be sanctioned, anyone can be sanctioned – this is most probably the political message the Biden administration wanted to send to Budapest.

As for the timing, one possible explanation is that the Biden administration decided that it's all the same anyways, and chose to use this political weapon at the very end. Only, the timing has weakened the message, which is why the Hungarian government can now rightly portray it as the Democrats' petty revenge.

Such pressure could have caused serious uncertainty and cracks among the NER elite a year or two ago (for example, immediately after the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war), especially if it had affected more and more people and if names had been added to the list one after the other. But with Biden leaving office in a matter of days, and Trump, who is considered a political ally of Orbán, coming to power, the Hungarian administration need not fear that the NER elite would begin to waver at the news of Rogán being sanctioned.

Everyone expects the minister to be taken off the list sooner or later. Bryan E. Leib, whom Magyar Nemzet has touted as the potential next US ambassador to Hungary, took a swipe at Pressman in a scathing social media post. He writes that what the current ambassador did was "shameful" and, in his opinion, politically motivated.

Of course, the sanctions may still cause some degree of disturbance. Partly because Viktor Orbán himself recently upgraded the importance of US-Hungarian relations – naturally, only after Trump won. He even hinted that it could bring about the strengthening of the Hungarian economy.

One thing the Americans certainly achieved with this is that the Orbán administration will have to rebuild the relationship from the very bottom up, which is no small task even with Trump as president. It is also certain that there those who want to ask Trump for something as soon as he takes office are already forming a line at his door. It is hard to imagine that Antal Rogán's case would be the most important, the most urgent for Trump, but it is for the Orbán administration. And it is to the disadvantage of Hungarian diplomacy that the matter of Rogán's sanctioning is now becoming the number one priority instead of the economically and politically more crucial issues.

It is hard to imagine that US-Hungarian relations will improve one iota until this issue is resolved politically and/or legally in a way that the Orbán government finds satisfactory. Politically, Orbán cannot afford to talk about an improvement in relations between the two countries while his most important minister is on the US blacklist. How this will affect the relationship between the two countries' secret services is another question, given that the Hungarian secret services are politically overseen by Rogán. Incidentally, it is worth noting that this is precisely what was left out when listing Rogán's portfolio in the text about the sanctions.

The sanctioning has thus wittingly or unwittingly taken on another role beyond the weakened political message: it will act as litmus paper in the relationship between Orbán and Trump. Even if it does not end up determining the nature of the relationship between the two leaders, it will be the deciding factor in the eyes of the public, since this is what everyone will be looking to see: can the Orbán government succeed in having the Trump administration remove Rogán from the sanctions list, and if so, how long and at what cost? And what will happen while Rogán remains on the list?

The latter will also be the most significant in terms of domestic politics. If the Orbán administration is able to have Rogán quickly removed from the sanctions list, that will send a stronger political message than the original political message of the Biden administration's sanctions. If Orbán and his team manage to overwrite the message of the Biden administration, they can claim it as a political success story. But if they are unable to settle the issue, the political message of the sanctions will be much stronger than it is at present, and this could harm Orbán, since it is precisely his power and influence that will be fundamentally called into question.

These sanctions do not really change the perception of Fidesz or Antal Rogán in the country, and there are two main reasons for this. On the one hand, the opposition has always considered him to be one of the darkest, almost diabolical figures of the Orbán regime, a sort of factotum of the establishment. An already unattractive image like that can't be substantially tarnished by such sanctions.

On the other hand, the 2014 banning scandal did not hurt the Hungarian government in the 2018 elections, and Fidesz managed to win two thirds of the vote again in 2022, even though the US was already openly critical of Orbán and the EU was also expressing strong criticism. In fact, the regime was able to profit from these attacks and criticism, and it always turned external criticism into political advantage.

However, the developments of recent years have clearly shown that "foreign intervention" attempts are only truly successful if the government is politically "on board". A good example of this is the Russian-Hungarian or Chinese-Hungarian relationship, which does not stir up any particular disapproval in the Fidesz camp because it is not aimed at weakening the government.

As it has been proven time and time again, if they feel that their political community is under attack, Fidesz supporters are more likely to pull together than to become uncertain. Moreover, the current sanctions have actually provided the Rogán-led power factory with ammunition, as they can be presented as "proof" that what the government propaganda has been hammering home for years is not unfounded: namely, that the US Democratic leadership is trying to interfere in Hungarian domestic politics by any means necessary. It is clear that the administration will now amplify this narrative, as János Lázár, Minister of Construction and Transport already did on Wednesday, and with Pressman leaving, they don't need to fear that the US administration will launch a counter-attack on the communications front.

Sanctioning Rogán may provide ammunition for the opposition for a few weeks, and while it may bolster the corruption narrative, it is no political bombshell. By now, the opposition has more or less learnt that foreign 'help' given to the opposition in this form could well backfire. It is thus no wonder that on hearing the news about Rogán's sanctioning, the leader of the biggest opposition party, Péter Magyar, who is keen to attract Fidesz voters, said that holding Rogán to account was not up to foreign powers, but rather the responsibility of the Hungarian judiciary.