The United States on April 15 lifted sanctions imposed in January on the head of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's cabinet, Antal Rogan, over accusations of corruption and cronyism.
A statement posted on the Treasury Department website said Rogan had been deleted from the sanctions list.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on April 15 spoke with Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto and informed him of the move, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
Rubio told Szijjarto that Rogan had been removed from the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, Bruce said, noting that continued designation was inconsistent with US foreign policy interests.
The two also discussed strengthening US-Hungary alignment on critical issues and opportunities for economic cooperation, Bruce said.
Orban and his Fidesz party have been among US President Donald Trump's most vocal supporters in Europe.
Washington earlier this year announced sanctions against Rogan for alleged involvement in corruption, saying he had “used his role to enrich himself and those loyal to his party,” the department said in a news release on January 7.
Rogan “orchestrated schemes designed to control several strategic sectors of the Hungarian economy” and skimmed the proceeds from the sectors for himself and loyalists to the Fidesz party, the department said when it announced the sanctions.
The US ambassador to Hungary at the time, David Pressman, said the “systemic corruption...is affecting Hungary's decision-making on issues that impact the security of the United States of America and our allies."
Pressman stepped down before Trump was inaugurated on January 20.
Orban’s government, which had called the sanctions against Rogan a "personal revenge of the ambassador," hailed the April 15 announcement that sanctions had been lifted as a "clear sign that the winds have changed in Washington."
Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said on X that the change "confirms a shift in US policy with President Trump's return, undoing what Hungary sees as unjust actions taken out of spite."
The United States previously said that throughout Rogan's tenure as a government official, he had orchestrated Hungary’s system for distributing public contracts and resources to cronies loyal to himself and Fidesz.
He was designated under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuses and corruption around the world.
The department noted in January that public sector corruption in Hungary has been worsening for more than a decade, leading to Hungary receiving the lowest score of any European Union member state on Transparency International’s 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index for the second consecutive year.
It also said whistleblowers in Hungary have criticized the government for operating a kleptocracy with a notable lack of transparency and equity in public and private expenditure deals made between administrators such as Rogan and loyalist business leaders.
"Hungary’s failure to address transparency issues in its public procurement mechanisms has most recently led to a loss of over 1 billion Euros in future funding from the European Union, disadvantaging Hungarian citizens,” the department said in announcing the sanctions against Rogan.
