Istvan Szent-Ivanyi

"Orban is intoxicated by his own success," sighs Istvan Szent-Ivanyi, a former Hungarian state secretary and ambassador, referring to the governing party's landslide election victory. "Frankly, given the current situation, I expect his rhetoric to get even sharper, with no signs of changing his pro-Russian and anti-EU line."

Orban led a high-level Hungarian delegation that visited to Dodik's hometown Laktasi in Bosnia's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity on Saturday. He said he intended to return a favour after Dodik's visit to Orban on September 24, yet details of the Bosnian visit remain sketchy.

But in an increasingly fractious Europe, officials from Visegrad Four (V4) states in Central Europe — Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — say they will champion the cause of EU enlargement within the new Commission.