The New York Times: This is how the EU allowed Hungary to become an illiberal model
The leaders of the European Union, after being forgiving for a long time, now believe that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán poses an existential threat to the bloc that is a model of human rights and the rule of law in itself. The New York Times.
Viktor Orbán has built his “illiberal state” non-stop over the past decade with ample EU support. However, so that this ends:
At the beginning of the year, the European Court of Justice will make a landmark decision on whether the Union has the right to link aid to the organisation’s core values.
If Brussels did so, it could launder billions of euros from countries that violate these values. Last but not least, it could encourage the European Commission’s executive to intervene in these matters at a new level, the American newspaper writes. How Viktor Orbán forced the European Union into such and why he seemed powerless for so long to stop him reveals the assumptions of the founders of the organization and why he stumbled upon populist and nationalist challenges, they wrote.
Interviews with more than a dozen current and former European officials show how emotions towards Viktor Orbán and his illiberal project are evolving from complacency and not yet realizing that the Orbán project poses a serious internal threat to the EU – its despite. also that Hungary has fewer inhabitants than Paris. At a meeting in 2015, when Jean-Claude Juncker, then President of the European Commission, saw the arrival of Viktor Orbán and said, “The dictator is coming,” he called him a dictator and patted him in the circle. .
According to the paper, no one in power wants to confront Viktor Orbán on issues such as the rule of law and corruption – especially not the leaders of the nations, who all have a seat in the powerful European Council. “I also felt in the Council that Orbán’s peers were reluctant to deal with such issues,” said Luuk van Middelaar, an assistant to Herman Van Rompuy when he was President of the Council. He added: the council “is like a club where Viktor is just one of them who is ultimately a political animal and respects each other for the simple fact that he won an election”.
Some European lawmakers recognized early on that Viktor Orbán was trampling on democratic norms, but national leaders, especially the European People’s Party and the European Parliament, the strong center-right political group that had ruled over the past decade, prevented them from finding a solution. Among the conservatives defending Orban was Angela Merkel, then chancellor of Germany. German companies have significant investments in Hungary, and Merkel saw a political ally in the Hungarian leader. A prominent member of the European People’s Party said Merkel and her aides had allayed concerns about Viktor Orbán, saying it could be a difficult case but important to stay in the family.
“The biggest mistake – the one we are still paying for today – is for the Council”
– said Rui Tavares, a former European legislator who wrote a report on violations in Hungary adopted in 2013.
According to Bulgarian analyst Ivan Krastev, for several years after the election of Viktor Orbán in 2010, he was careful not to “cross the red lines of Brussels, but to dance along them, which he called a“ peacock dance ”.
Viktor Orbán’s party also passed a new constitution and a new media law restricting freedom of the press. He reshaped the country’s judicial system, removed the head of the Supreme Court, and a court oversight office headed by the wife of a prominent member of the ruling party. Electoral laws have been changed to favor the party.
The sharper turning point came in May 2018, at a meeting between Viktor Orbán and the leaders of the European People’s Party: Joseph Daul, the party’s chairman, and Manfred Weber, a German Christian Democrat politician leading the parliament, warned Viktor Orbán that his party was in danger of being expelled from the parliamentary group.
“If you try to fire me, I’ll destroy you”
Said Viktor Orbán, according to the official.
Two years later, in March, Viktor Orbán left the People’s Party, when it became clear that he wanted to repel his party. Mr Weber still regrets the loss of Fidesz. “On a certain level, it’s a relief,” he added. “At the same time, Orbán’s departure is not a victory, but a defeat” in the struggle to keep the European center right as a “broad people’s party”, he said.
Brussels may have finally found a useful tool for influencing domestic politics: violating Europeans can have serious financial consequences for individuals, a treaty rightly held by the European Court of Justice.
(Featured image: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán attends the plenary session of the European Parliament on 11 September 2019. Photo: Frederick Florin / AFP)