HUNGARY AND THE EU - WHAT WENT WRONG

APRIL 7:

HUNGARY and the EU – what went wrong ?

Hungary became – like several countries in Central and Eastern Europe – a full member of the EU from 2004 – with all rights and duties linked to being a member.  The country is very happy with the rights.  Less so with the duties…

Hungary has a surface of 93.000 sq.km and has 10 mill. inhabitants.  The Hungarian language belongs to the Finno-Ugrian language family.  Finnish and Estonia are part of the same family. A Hungarian taxi driver once explained to me that while Finnish has a lot of ee sounds, Hungarian has a lot of ö sounds.  They do not understand each other’s language. But the rest of us can hear that they are part of the same family – at least when we know it.

The long-lasting Hungarian prime minister is – as most people know Viktor Orbán.  See photo below.  He was born in 1963 and was many years ago active in the movement of young communists.  With his impressive instinct to know how the political wind blows he used the fall of communism in 1989 to get a grant from the Hungarian-American billionaire and philanthropist George Soros ( see  photo ) to study at Oxford University in England. He did not stay for long, though. He went back to Budapest to be part of the fight against the communists. He was one of the founders of a democratic student movement and became prime minister from 1998 to 2002.  This was the years when Hungary became a member of NATO ( in 1999 ) and negotiated membership of the EU.  As time went on Orban soon became one of the leading politicians in the country. And he has been prime minister since 2010.  His party is in Europe a member of the European Peoples’ Party, the organisation of conservative parties, the biggest in the European Parliament.

Mr. Orban’s political success is built on several facts:

His ability to initiate and organise systematic communication, propaganda, is enormous. He is able to arrange that the whole country in a very short span of time is filled up with his messages, his posters, etc.   His control of the media is also more and more evident, esp. the state media such as TV and radio.  Step by step, but in an efficient way. There are, though, still independent media such as RTL and a range of smaller newspapers and magazines. He has also managed to reorganise the independent courts, so that it is easier for the authorities to influence them. Corruption also plays a role.  He and his family seem to profit well from economic subsidies from European programmes. The EU is checking all that out for the moment.   He does not like too much freedom in education either. In 2019 the Soros supported Central European University moved from Budapest to Vienna, because Orban wanted to decide what its researcher should work on.  And a new school reform is under way in Hungary. Serious media claim that textbooks and the teaching have to concentrate more on nationalism and national pride, promote anti-semitism, present a mix of facts and fake news, and describe authoritarian leaders in a positive light. 

These illiberal Hungarian initiatives have been monitored by the EU for years, and the European Parliament as well as the Commission have taken initiatives to stop these obvious breaches of the fundamental rights in the EU.  But so far without much success.

During that last few years Viktor Orban has taken two very important initiatives, which might well be game-changers. The first one was linked to the refugee crisis from 2015. He refused to receive any refugees with the argument that Hungary is the defender of Christianity in Europe!  He built a 4 meter high border fence along Hungary’s frontier with Serbia, Croatia and Romania – altogether 523 km.  See photo.  And the few illegal refugees and other migrants who still managed to enter Hungary were treated in a way, which has strongly criticized by UN’s refugee agency.

At the same time he initiated a big media campaign against the then president of the EU Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and against his old supporter, George Soros. He claimed that they were in charge of a campaign against Hungary.  See photo of a poster from the campaign.  Very recently Hungary – together with Poland – was sentenced by EU’s highest court, because its refusal to take refugees was according to the court a breach of EU legislation.

Just as Mr. Orban in this way used the refugee crisis to strengthen his grip on his country he has in 2020 done the same in a more direct way:  with reference to the corona crisis he managed to get approval from the Hungarian parliament ( where his party holds a majority ) that he from now on and without any end date may rule the country by decrees – without going through parliament.  Many autocratic rulers would be very envious!  A state of emergency without any end date.  This is clearly a pretext. Hungary is so far not very seriously hit by the corona. By April 6, altogether 744 people in Hungary have been infected and 38 have died.  No, it is evident that it is a way to introduce an even more autocratic government – with new possibilities to fight political opponents and also media not following the “guidelines” of the government.

The reactions from abroad have arrived from many sides.  In the EPP family 13 political parties have demanded that Orban’s party FIDESZ now must be excluded.  And the Commission is also planning to act.  Politically, this serious non-obedience to fundamental EU rules will beyond any doubt be one of the determining factors, when the allocation of EU’s budget for the coming seven years will be decided by the member states and the European Parliament later this year.

Inside Hungary the opinion polls show that about 75 % of the population is satisfied with Orban’s handling of the present crisis.   Yes, I am tempted to think:  They probably think what they have been told to think!

Perhaps a new Hungarian revolution against autocratic rulers will come about again.