Allies of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, including current and former officials, could soon face fresh U.S. sanctions for alleged corruption, sources told RFE/RL's Hungarian Service, a possible further sign of worsening ties between Washington and Budapest.
U.S. officials familiar with the draft bill but who did not want to speak on the record because of the sensitivity of the matter, told RFE/RL that the draft legislation, if passed by Congress, would allow the Secretary of State to blacklist targeted individuals.
The sources did not specify which individuals could be sanctioned if the measures are approved. The United States has sanctioned individuals close to Orban before. In 2014, Washington banned several Hungarians from entering the United States.
"The move is long overdue. Though it is not the first time it is happening, the U.S. should have played a much rougher game when it comes to corruption [in Hungary] and this is a good move. It is probably the only language that the Orban government understands," Dalibor Rohac, a senior research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told RFE/RL.
The report by RFE/RL comes days after Washington imposed sanctions on three officials -- two Russians and a Hungarian -- from the Russian-controlled International Investment Bank (IIB), which is headquartered in Budapest.
In announcing the move on April 12, Washington said Budapest had ignored U.S. concerns raised over the “opaque Kremlin platform.”
Relations between Washington and Budapest, a member of both NATO and the European Union, are already strained due to Orban’s strengthening of ties with Russia and China and what Brussels sees as backsliding on democracy and freedoms.
On April 13, Orban’s government announced it would quit the IIB, which claims to fund development projects in Eastern Europe.
SEE ALSO: Hungary To Exit Russian-Controlled International Investment Bank After U.S. SanctionsRussia is the IIB’s largest shareholder, while Hungary was its second largest. Senior Hungarian officials had held major roles in the institution, including holding board seats. The bank moved its headquarters to Budapest in 2019.
Other Eastern European countries cut ties with the IIB after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
On April 14, Orban said Hungary had abandoned the institution because U.S. sanctions had “ruined” it, adding that Hungary would comply with sanctions on Russia but continue to speak out against them.
The United States had "not given up on its plan to squeeze everyone into a war alliance," a step Hungary -- which is not supplying weapons to Ukraine -- would resist, Orban said.
On April 13, U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman said the United States had raised concerns about the presence of the bank but that, unlike other NATO allies, the Hungarian government dismissed the concerns.
"We have concerns about the continued eagerness of Hungarian leaders to expand and deepen ties with the Russian Federation despite Russia’s ongoing brutal aggression against Ukraine and threat to transatlantic security," Pressman said.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto visited Moscow earlier this week for talks on gas and oil supplies. He also discussed an ongoing project by the Russian atomic power agency, Rosatom, to expand a nuclear plant in Hungary.