Olivér Várhelyi has already served in the European Commission as Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy. In his past various assignments in Hungary: from the Ministry of Industry and Trade to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, passing through the role of chief of staff of the head of the ministry’s legal unit. Then the European adventure, first as a legal consultant and then head of the legal service until 2006, the year of Budapest’s accession. For two years Várhelyi was head of the EU law department at the Hungarian Ministry of Justice. From 2008 to 2011 he was briefly head of the European Commission unit responsible for industrial property rights in the Directorate-General for Internal Market and Services.
Várhelyi subsequently returned to the foreign service, first as deputy director and then as head of the Permanent Representation with the rank of ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary. Over the years he has cultivated a great relationship with Prime Minister Viktor Orban, despite not being part of his party. In 2019 the appointment as commissioner arrived after the European Parliament had rejected the first nominee, namely László Trócsányi. Over the last five years Hungarian has often been at the center of controversiesespecially on the left.
Another particularly controversial episode concerns a parliamentary debate on the Balkans. Visibly annoyed by the attacks he received, Várhelyi was filmed asking: “How many idiots are left?” in reference precisely to parliamentarians. The short video quickly went viral and sparked a furious reaction from MPs, who immediately called for his resignation. The Hungarian commissioner apologized, underlining that his polemical comment was linked to a “private conversation” with his chief of staff and “taken out of context”.
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