Hungarian Foreign Policy

Nationality-based Policy Summary: The aim of this article is to analyze the most recent developments of the Hungarian policy towards the East in the post-Soviet space, mainly towards Russia and Ukraine. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union a new pattern of relationship has evolved between these actors. What’s new in this pattern after the EU enlargement? The Place of the Post-Soviet Space in the Hungarian Foreign Policy Concept after the Change of the Regime After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was only in 1999 that a new regional foreign policy strategy paper was elaborated, a certain part of which became public. The document prepared by the MFA entitled Hungary’s Relations with the Soviet Successor States adopted in November 1999 – the second document of this kind in a series of similar region strategies – Russia was acknowledged as a ‘potential big power ’ and ‘a strategic player’1, and Budapest’s policy toward Moscow was perceived as an active part of the EU’s course at that time. The strategy document departs from the fact Hungary’s membership in NATO and the ongoing negotiations with the EU “make it necessary an