The center-right European People's Party gave Viktor Orbán the protection he needed to build his illiberal project inside the European Union. The EPP group in the European Parliament, which included Orbán's Fidesz alongside Angela Merkel's CDU and its Bavarian sister CSU, shielded the Hungarian leader from consequences for years.

Le Monde columnist Sylvie Kauffmann, writing in the Financial Times, traces how Orbán exploited this arrangement systematically, "Hvylya" reports. The EPP, Kauffmann argues, "hypocritically provided crucial protection" to the Hungarian leader until 2019, when it finally suspended Fidesz. Even then, the group refused to expel the party. The reason was blunt: it still needed Hungarian votes to elect Ursula von der Leyen as Commission president with a razor-thin majority.

That bargain had lasting consequences. While sheltered inside Europe's most powerful parliamentary group, Orbán coined the term "illiberal democracy" in 2014. Over the next decade, he systematically dismantled institutional checks at home. EU cohesion funds financed more than half of Hungary's public investments, accounting for over three percent of the country's GDP for more than a decade. Orbán's associates, meanwhile, scooped up public contracts funded by European taxpayers.

Fidesz eventually left the EPP in 2021, but by then the damage stretched far beyond Hungary. Orbán had established himself as the leader of Europe's illiberal camp, emboldening nationalist-populist movements across the continent. France's Emmanuel Macron tried a different approach - long intellectual dinners at the Elysee Palace - but charm proved no more effective than confrontation.

Orbán now faces his most serious electoral challenge on April 12 - consequential enough that Donald Trump dispatches Vice President JD Vance to campaign for him. In her memoir, Merkel recalls watching the 2014 World Cup final in Rio when Orbán, sitting in front of her, taunted: "One thing is clear. Here, you cannot be sure that you will win." Germany won 1-0 that day. Beating Orbán at his own game in Europe, Kauffmann notes, has proved far more difficult.

"Hvylya" previously reported on how Orbán's allies kept collecting EU contract money even after Brussels froze billions.