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Post by Admin on Apr 3, 2022 22:14:20 GMT
 Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared victory in Sunday’s nationwide election, with partial results showing his Fidesz party leading the vote by a wide margin. With Orban seeking a fourth consecutive term in office, preliminary results showed his party was set to control 135 seats of the 199-seat Parliament. This was comfortably ahead of the opposition alliance United for Hungary, which was set to gain 57 seats after 80% of the votes had been counted. The election had been predicted to be closer than in previous years, but Fidesz still held a 5-6 percentage point lead in the polls leading up to Sunday’s vote. Orban, widely regarded as the most pro-Kremlin leader of the 27 nations of the European Union, has spent 12 years in power in Budapest. He is the country’s longest-serving leader since the fall of communism in 1989 and has long been a thorn in the side of the EU. Addressing his supporters after the vote on Sunday night, Orban said: “We won a victory so big that you can see it from the moon, and you can certainly see it from Brussels,” according to a translation by The Associated Press. Opposition leader Peter Marki-Zay admitted defeat shortly after Orban’s speech. Kremlin links 58-year-old Orban has often boasted of his close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and it’s that link that became a major challenge for the electoral campaign of his ruling Fidesz party. There have been commercial and energy deals between the two nations. Over the last decade, Hungary has increased its share of imports of Russian natural gas, from 9.070 million cubic meters in 2010 to a high of 17.715 million cubic meters in 2019, according to Eurostat. Hungary now gets close to 85% of its gas from Russia, and 64% of its oil. Hungary also became the first EU nation to buy a Russian-made Covid-19 vaccine — even though it wasn’t approved by European regulators. But Orban has remained loyal to the European Union in the wake of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and has sought to downplay his ties to Putin. His messaging over previous weeks has been a “Hungary must stay out of this conflict” approach. |
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Post by Admin on Apr 4, 2022 0:50:06 GMT
 Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared victory in Sunday’s national elections, claiming a mandate for a fourth term as a still incomplete vote count showed a strong lead for his right-wing party. In a 10-minute speech to Fidesz party officials and supporters at an election night event in Budapest, Orban addressed a crowd cheering “Viktor!” and declared it was a “huge victory” for his party. “We won a victory so big that you can see it from the moon, and you can certainly see it from Brussels,” said Orban, who has often been condemned by the European Union for overseeing democratic backsliding and alleged corruption. While votes were still being tallied, it appeared clear that the question was not whether Orban’s Fidesz party would take the election, but by how much. With around 91% of votes tallied, Orban’s Fidesz-led coalition had won 53%, while a pro-European opposition coalition, United for Hungary, had just over 34%, according to the National Election Office. It appeared possible that Fidesz would win another constitutional majority, allowing it to continue making deep unilateral changes to the Central European nation. “The whole world has seen tonight in Budapest that Christian democratic politics, conservative civic politics and patriotic politics have won. We are telling Europe that this is not the past, this is the future,” Orban said. As Fidesz party officials gathered at an election night event on the Danube river in Budapest, state secretary Zoltan Kovacs pointed to the participation of so many parties in the election as a testament to the strength of Hungary’s democracy. “We have heard a lot of nonsense recently about whether there is democracy in Hungary,” Kovacs said. “Hungarian democracy in the last 12 years has not weakened, but been strengthened.” |
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Post by Admin on Dec 15, 2023 13:43:09 GMT
BUDAPEST/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Wednesday vetoed a large-scale European Union aid package for Ukraine.
The EU agreed at its summit the day before to begin accession negotiations with Ukraine, but Orbán said it was still possible to block Ukraine's accession.
The EU has decided to reconsider plans to direct 50 billion euros ($54.94 billion) to Ukraine and allocate funds to other priorities such as immigration management.
Orbán told state radio that he blocked the aid package for Ukraine so that Hungary could get the amount it wanted from the EU budget.
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Post by Admin on Dec 15, 2023 19:59:59 GMT
BRUSSELS — The coffee break that saved Ukraine’s EU accession bid had been planned all along.
Speaking to reporters after a summit where European leaders successfully bypassed Viktor Orbán’s resistance to Ukraine’s membership of the bloc, French President Emmanuel Macron said the idea behind the Hungarian prime minister’s dramatic exit from the leaders’ room was a collective effort.
In the run-up to the summit, European leaders coordinated a multi-pronged diplomatic effort to get Orbán to back down on his veto threat. According to several EU diplomats, Macron was coaxed into agreeing to leading the charm offensive on Orbán by his fellow leaders. He met Orbán for a private dinner in Paris last week and then on Thursday Orbán was treated to a breakfast with several EU leaders including Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and a separate reported bilateral with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Macron said he worked ahead of the summit with European Council President Charles Michel, Meloni, Scholz and “other leaders including [Dutch Prime Minister] Mark Rutte” to find a way to move forward without Orbán.
“In the end, we managed to suggest a solution,” Macron said, hinting that the leaders had gotten the idea from Orbán himself.
In an interview given to French weekly Le Point last week, the Hungarian prime minister had signaled that he would not use his veto to block a decision on enlargement for Ukraine.
“Legally speaking, it’s not exactly a veto. Let’s say I’m not contributing to make a decision that I think is bad,” he said at that point.
Orbán’s signal did not fall on deaf ears, Macron said.
“[Orbán] said exactly what we did. There was no surprise,” the French president explained.
By momentarily leaving the room, Orbán allowed the other 26 leaders to make the historic decision to open accession talks with Ukraine. Because such a move requires unanimous support, it would not have been possible with the Hungarian prime minister present.
This highly unusual method came as a major surprise, in an institution like the European Council where summits are regularly deadlocked by the need to reach a unanimous decision between leaders whose interests are at times opposed.
But it also brought a much-needed glimmer of hope to Ukraine, at a time when support for Kyiv appears to be dwindling among its Western allies and its military forces stall on the battlefield.
Prior to Macron’s statements, Scholz had explained that several leaders had been involved in the making of Orbán’s walkout — adding he was the one who presented the idea to the Hungarian leader.
“It was my plan that we had to manage to make a decision of this kind,” Scholz said.
“In the spirit of pro-Union behavior, I suggested to the Hungarian prime minister that we make it possible for us to take this decision in his absence,” the chancellor added, explaining that Orbán then took some time to consider the proposal before accepting the offer.
Yet, it doesn’t mean that EU leaders are willing to do it again.
“Most of the time, we should come to a decision together,” Scholz said. “That’s not something you should do every time.”
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Post by Admin on Jan 9, 2024 18:07:08 GMT
Viktor Orbán’s opposition to sanctions against Russia has led to calls for Hungary to be expelled from the European Union. But would this really serve the EU’s interests? Derrick Wyatt argues that while there is a need to put pressure on member states that defy the rule of law and violate human rights, the EU has no power to expel a member state, and probably wouldn’t want to even if it could. National sentiments and national governments change, and the EU is in it for the long haul.
Hungary’s harsh treatment of refugees led to calls by Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister for legal changes so that Hungary could be expelled from the EU. Hungary’s adoption of policies widely seen as anti-LGBT led to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte denouncing Hungary as unfit to be a member of the EU. The perception that Hungary’s reaction to the invasion of Ukraine has been half-hearted has provoked a torrent of criticism, and fresh calls from commentators for Hungary to be expelled from the EU.
But would this really be in the EU’s interests? At present, the EU does not have the power to expel a member state, and treaty changes to acquire that power could be blocked by the government of any member state that thought this mechanism might be used against it. Marine Le Pen’s relative success in the recent French presidential elections (runner-up with 42% of the popular vote) should warn us that Hungary’s particular case is not necessarily the best guide to the wisdom of including an expulsion clause in the EU’s toolkit for dealing with member states that defy EU law.
Part of Le Pen’s manifesto for France was to put the supremacy of EU law in France to a popular vote, give preference to French nationals in employment, social security and public housing, and unilaterally cut French contributions to the EU budget. All this would have been incompatible with France’s EU obligations. Even if a country could be expelled from the EU, that would hardly have provided a practical solution in the case of France if Le Pen had been elected President. If France left, it would seriously weaken the EU and perhaps destroy it.
Nor would the EU be likely to activate a hypothetical expulsion clause against Poland. Poland has been Hungary’s co-accused when it comes to serial infringements of the EU’s core values of the rule of law and human rights in recent years, but it has redeemed itself mightily by its support for Ukraine, both by supplying military hardware and providing assistance to over three million Ukrainian refugees. Poland is seen as a reliable partner in the EU’s stand-off with Russia.
Hungary, in contrast, is still viewed as a weak link in the EU’s response to Russia. Yet, despite Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s failure to respect the rule of law and human rights, and despite his now muted but no doubt lingering sympathies for Putin’s Russia, it would be a mistake to expel Hungary, even if it were possible to do so.
Hungary outside the EU might become more authoritarian and seek a closer relationship with Russia than it would inside the EU. It would likely become closer to next-door neighbour and already close partner and Putin sympathiser Serbia. Serbia has ambitions to join the EU which are perhaps cooling and which would probably continue to do so if Hungary left the EU. All this could be more troublesome for the EU than coping with Hungary as a rule-breaking and uncooperative insider, especially if the EU manages to suspend Hungary’s voting rights, including its right to veto sanctions against Russia.
There is also a dimension to this which transcends the particular case. The EU is half-way or more to becoming a federal Union. Its citizens enjoy the right to live and work anywhere in that Union, and the right to benefit from the Union’s core values of democracy, the rule of law, equality and human rights. The governments of Hungary and Poland are anti-Brussels, but they do not advocate EU withdrawal, and public opinion in those countries favours EU membership. Marine Le Pen improved her standing with French electors when she stopped calling for France to leave the EU and instead claimed she wanted to “reform” it.
The EU provides an exit-route for member states if they want to take it. But if a member state has not taken that route, then the EU should not push it out of the exit door and deprive its citizens of their Union citizenship, even if many of them are currently supporting a government that is a serial law breaker. National sentiments and national governments change, and the EU is in it for the long haul.
That said, the EU must be ready to impose sanctions if a member state opts for serious and serial law-breaking. If a national government gives itself a holiday from its EU obligations, it should know that its country will lose some of its rights as an EU member state. And the citizens of that state should know that too, so that they can make connections between the way they vote in elections and the relegation of their country to second-class economic and political status in the EU.
A Le Pen presidency would have placed France alongside Hungary and Poland in defying EU law with the added threat of undermining the EU’s financial stability. The likely response would have been for the EU and its member states to grapple with France’s new rejectionist policies in the best way they could with the tools at their disposal, while hoping French voters would change their mind next time round.
The EU has ways of putting pressure on rule-breaking EU member states. One is to impose a fine on a member state if it refuses to comply with a judgment of the EU’s Court of Justice. This happened when Poland was fined one million euros per day last year for failing to withdraw a Polish law intimidating the Polish judiciary. Another is loss of funding under the new so-called conditionality regulation if it breaches the rule of law in a way that affects the EU budget. In April 2022 the Commission launched proceedings under this regulation against Hungary.
This is another and potentially more hard-hitting weapon at the disposal of the EU – suspending some of the EU rights of a member state, including voting rights, for serious breaches of core values. Proceedings to suspend the rights of Poland and Hungary were started in 2017 and 2018 respectively but have not yet come to a vote in the Council. The European Parliament has accused the Council of a disorganised approach, but the voting rules to impose suspension have suggested the exercise was pointless.
Changing the voting rules would involve treaty change which would require Hungary’s consent even if it had had its votes suspended in the Council. So that change isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Imposing a suspension of rights requires a unanimous vote of all member states apart from the member state facing suspension. Hungary and Poland have in the past stated they would veto any suspension of the rights of the other. Their divergent responses to the invasion of Ukraine might have changed all that.
Poland might be persuaded not to block the suspension of Hungary’s rights if it were offered a soft landing as regards its own serial and serious breaches of the rule of law. This would raise rule of law issues too, but with a little careful plea-bargaining they might be surmountable.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: European Council
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