Magyar visits Poland to mark Hungary's return to the EU
Poland is Hungary's second-largest economic partner after Germany
Hungary's Peter Magyar arrived in Poland on Tuesday for his first official overseas trip as prime minister, hoping to mark his country's re-alignment with the European Union after turbulence under his predecessor, Viktor Orban.
Orban -- an ally of both US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin -- was in open conflict with Brussels over the rule of law and his closeness to Russia in its war against Ukraine.
Relations between Budapest and Warsaw have also been strained since the 2023 Polish parliamentary elections, which led to the formation of a centrist, pro-European government headed by staunch Kyiv ally Donald Tusk.
Magyar won a resounding victory in April, crushing Orban, a nationalist who had been in power for 16 years, while Tusk ended eight years in power of the nationalist populists Law and Justice (PiS) party.
Piotr Buras, from the European Council on Foreign Relations think-tank, told AFP that Magyar was "in a way following the same path as Tusk", to move away from "illiberal populism" and restore trust with Brussels.
A European Commission delegation is expected in Budapest this week.
Magyar is due in Brussels next week where he hopes to conclude a deal with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to recover billions of euros frozen over rule-of-law violations under Orban.
The new Hungarian leader is seeking the support of his Polish counterpart, whose chief of staff -- back when Tusk was president of the European Council between 2014 and 2019-- was Piotr Serafin, who is now the EU's budget commissioner.
King of Poland
Magyar arrived in the southern city of Krakow early on Tuesday afternoon to meet Archbishop Grzegorz Rys and lay wreaths at the monuments to Polish pope John Paul II and the former, 16th-century king of Poland, the Hungarian Stephen Bathory.
On Wednesday in Warsaw, Magyar is due to meet Tusk and the country's nationalist president, Karol Nawrocki.
That meeting is expected to be delicate as, in the final days of the election campaign in Hungary, Nawrocki travelled to Budapest to support Orban.
Also on Wednesday, Magyar will travel to Gdansk, the major Polish port city on the Baltic Sea, where he is due to meet the Nobel peace laureate and former president Lech Walesa -- a pivotal figure in the collapse of communism in the 1980s.
Six ministers are accompanying the new prime minister on his trip, including Foreign Minister Anita Orban (no relation to Viktor Orban).
On the economic front, the director of the Polish-Hungarian Chamber of Commerce, Anna Wisniewski, said she expected "momentum" on bilateral trade, which currently stands at 15 billion euros ($17.42 billion).
Poland is Hungary's second-largest economic partner after Germany.
On Wednesday evening, Magyar is expected in Austria, where economic cooperation and migration policy will be key topics.
"I would like to strengthen relations between Hungary and Austria for historical, but also cultural and economic reasons," he said.
The two countries are closely intertwined, both historically within the former Austro-Hungarian empire, and economically today.
Austria is the second-largest investor in Hungary after Germany, having ploughed in more than 11 billion euros.
Vienna has long sought to deepen its ties with Budapest and other states in the region.