Hungary said on Thursday that it would pull out of the International Criminal Court, announcing its decision just hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel arrived there for a visit despite facing an international arrest warrant.
The government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban had made clear that it would ignore its obligations to act on the I.C.C. warrant. Instead of arresting Mr. Netanyahu upon his arrival in Budapest on Thursday morning, Hungary rolled out the red carpet and welcomed him with a military honor band at Buda Castle overlooking the Danube River.
The withdrawal announcement makes Hungary the sole E.U. country to say it wants out of the international court. The move cemented Mr. Orban’s position as Europe’s odd man out — a role he relishes largely for domestic political reasons — and showcased his desire to align with the Trump administration, which shares Hungary’s contempt for key international bodies.
In a message on Facebook, Gergely Gulyas, Mr. Orban’s chief of staff, said that Hungary would begin the process of withdrawing from the I.C.C. “in accordance with constitutional and international law frameworks.”
A withdrawal would not take effect for at least a year, however, meaning that Hungary — by declining to arrest the Israeli leader — breached its obligations under the 1998 treaty that established the court.
“Hungary remains under a duty to cooperate with the I.C.C.,” the court’s spokesman, Fadi El Abdallah, said in a statement after the withdrawal announcement.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in November for Mr. Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
Mr. Netanyahu’s trip to Hungary was his first since then to a country that recognized the court’s jurisdiction, raising the possibility, at least in theory, that he could be arrested. Although he visited Washington in February, the United States is not a member of the court.
Several other European countries, including France, have expressed reservations about enforcing the warrant against Mr. Netanyahu should he visit. But Mr. Orban, who in November denounced the court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant and responded by inviting the Israeli prime minister to visit, went further and stated categorically that Mr. Netanyahu would not be arrested.
Mr. Gulyas, the Hungarian prime minister’s chief of staff, had floated the idea of withdrawing from the I.C.C. in February but said at the time that no decision had been made.
Only two countries have pulled out of the 125-member court: Burundi and the Philippines. Both did so in response to the I.C.C. prosecutor’s opening criminal investigations into their heads of government. Venezuela has said that it might withdraw but has yet to make a decision.
Mr. Orban has long reveled in positioning Hungary, a member of both NATO and the European Union, as an opposition force within Europe. He has denounced fellow leaders as “warmongers” because of their support for Ukraine, moved closer to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in defiance of efforts to isolate him, and characterized demands from Brussels that he follow the rules as attacks on Hungarian sovereignty. He also stalled for more than a year in giving Hungary’s assent to NATO’s accepting Sweden as a member.
Welcoming Israel’s prime minister in defiance of the international court offered Mr. Orban another opportunity to put himself in the spotlight and lure Washington’s attention.
Over his 15 years in power, Mr. Orban has reshaped Hungary’s once vibrant democracy into what he calls an “illiberal democracy,” a transformation that some American conservatives hail as a future model for the United States but which his domestic opponents and many fellow E.U. leaders see as an increasingly authoritarian system adrift from Europe’s core values.
The Hungarian prime minister faces a host of problems domestically, including the highest inflation rate in the European Union and surging support for the country’s upstart opposition movement, which is led by a former Orban loyalist.
The second Trump administration has appeared to show little interest in Hungary, even though the president has previously praised Mr. Orban as a “great leader.”
Mr. Orban was not invited to Mr. Trump’s second inauguration, a decision that Hungary said was because no foreign leaders had been invited. However, several did attend, including Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, a rival to Mr. Orban for leadership of the European right wing.
While Mr. Orban delights in breaking ranks with fellow European leaders, Ms. Meloni has sought to narrow divisions, making her potentially more useful to the White House than Mr. Orban. The Hungarian leader is aligned ideologically with the MAGA movement but has diverged from Mr. Trump’s agenda by embracing China as an economic and diplomatic partner.
Mr. Trump, a fierce critic of the I.C.C., signed an executive order placing sanctions on the court in February, vowing to impose “tangible and significant consequences” on people who work on investigations deemed to threaten the national security of the United States and Israel.
Mr. Netanyahu has denounced bribery, fraud and other charges against him in Israel as an effort by the judiciary to derail the will of voters. Similarly, Mr. Orban has frequently condemned what he sees as judicial overreach by European courts that have ruled against Hungary over its violations of European Union rules.
“We have always revolted against judicial activism,” Mr. Orban said at a November summit of European leaders in Budapest.
In 2001, Hungary ratified the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court during Mr. Orban’s first stint as prime minister, but its Parliament has never incorporated its terms into the country’s domestic legal code. That omission, Mr. Gulyas suggested in February, gave Hungary wiggle room to avoid enforcing the arrest warrant against Mr. Netanyahu.
