Hungary and Poland will be a "special duo," Martonyi said, presenting his country’s presidency priorities in a packed Brussels press room on 20 December.
On a number of occasions, he came up with series of catchy wording, describing his country’s future role in steering the EU under the Lisbon Treaty rules.
"We would like to strike a healthy balance between stewardship and leadership," he said, adding that the Hungarians saw themselves at the EU’s helm as "honest brokers" or "diligent shepherds."
Stretching the metaphor, he described the job in a nutshell: "Keeping together the herd, that is diverse, that includes members states with sometimes diverging interests, institutions, public opinion, markets and so on."
He also described the Hungarian presidency with a series of words beginning with the letter "C": contribution, coordination, cooperation, compromise and consensus-building.
He insisted that for Budapest, what really mattered was "substance," and not the photo opportunities for its leaders. "Prestige and vanity will not be an issue […] we want to serve and listen," he said.
Martonyi also compared the presidency with a Spanish corrida, insisting however that Budapest would not play the bull, but the torero.
Two Eastern countries
For the first time, a new member state from Eastern Europe is followed at the EU’s helm by another one, both Hungary and Poland having joined in 2004. And their common interests in many areas mean they are likely to push common issues.
The country holding the EU presidency traditionally has to play a role of moderator and needs to hold back its national reflexes in order to seek a compromise between member states.
However, in the meantime, it can delegate to another member state the role of representing its national interest.
In the first half of 2009, the Czech EU Presidency had already been used by Poland for pushing forward certain common priorities, such as the Eastern Partnership with Ukraine and other countries as well as decreasing the EU's energy dependence on Russia.
As most of the Central and East European countries which joined the Union, Hungary and Poland have a number of priority areas in common: Energy security, preserving EU regional funding for deprived regions and a fairer distribution of subsidies to farmers. They also share the same views on the EU's enlargement to the Western Balkans and relations with Eastern countries such as Ukraine, Moldova or Georgia.
Poland has already taken leadership against a push to cap the next long-term budget of the Union, led by the UK.
Besides, Hungary and Poland have a long tradition of coordinating positions vis-à-vis the EU in the format of the Visegrad group, which also comprises the Czech Republic and Slovakia. At present, all four countries are led by centre-right governments, affiliated to the European People’s Party (EPP).
Will Poland represent Hungary?
Asked by EurActiv if one could call the forthcoming Hungarian Presidency Polish and vice versa, Martonyi sought to downplay the possible internal arrangements between Budapest and Warsaw.
"Thank you for associating us with such a big and important country of the EU," Martonyi said in reference to Poland's 38 million population, which makes it one of the Union's "big six" countries. Meanwhile, with its 10 million inhabitants, Hungary is a middle-size member of the Union.
But he added: "I don’t think all our priorities are exactly the same. The one thing in common is that these priorities are set up by the European agenda, and not the other way round".
Indeed, in spite of their many common interests, Poland and Hungary have been at odds on some issues such as how to account the cost of pension reform when calculating their public debt and deficit.
Both countries are outside the euro zone and struggle to reach the 3% Maastricht budget deficit criteria.
On 13 December, the European Commission reached an agreement with Poland on giving countries that have reformed their pension systems more leeway over fiscal policy. In the meantime, the parliament in Budapest voted to effectively dismantle pension reform.
