Hungary’s Orban folds before the E.U. and reminds all of his weakness

For years, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban has loomed over Europe like a continental boogeyman. The long-ruling illiberal leader makes no secret of his distaste for the liberal underpinnings of the European Union’s political project. Orban rails against E.U. censure and criticism over the erosion of Hungarian democracy that’s taken place under his watch. And he has stymied the continental bloc’s ability to muster a robust, collective response to support Ukraine’s resistance to Russia — whose president is conspicuously close to Orban.

Yet events Thursday offered a reminder not of Orban’s outsize influence, but his...