Is Hungary’s leader giving up on Europe?
By Attila Mong
By Attila Mong
Over the next few weeks, European leaders will be focusing
on the United Kingdom, whose citizens will soon decide whether they want their
country to remain part of the European Union. But that’s not the only threat to
the EU’s makeup that is in the offing. Trouble is also brewing in Budapest.
Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, is a
long-established Euroskeptic. Ever since he took office in 2010, it’s been
clear that there’s no love lost between him and Brussels. He seizes just about
every opportunity to scold European Union leaders — and they seem increasingly
willing to return the favor.
But lately, Orban has been taking matters to a whole new
level, prompting opposition parties to warn that he’s plotting to take Hungary
out of the EU altogether. Although his position on the issue remains far from
clear, there are many signs that he is eager to revise Hungary’s status within
the EU.
It wasn’t always like this. Orban was once fervently
pro-European.It wasn’t always like this. Orban was once fervently pro-European.
In fact, he led his country’s accession talks to the EU during his first term
in office between 1998 and 2002. But once he returned to the opposition in the
years that followed, his attitude began to shift. He saw an opportunity to
respond to the growing anti-globalization and anti-EU feelings of average
Hungarians, many of whom feel that joining the EU has not brought about the
prosperity they think they were promised.
By the time Orban returned to power in 2010, he did so on a
platform featuring a strong anti-globalization and anti-Brussels agenda. Since
then he has regularly flaunted his contempt for European values. He has enacted
laws sharply curtailing the freedom of the independent media and allowing for
extra taxation of EU companies operating in Hungary. He has openly stated that
he aims to transform Hungary into an “illiberal democracy,” citing Turkey,
Russia, and China as praiseworthy models. He has used the migrant crisis to
raise himself to EU-wide prominence as the leader of the hardliners who aim to
build fences to defend “fortress Europe” — the implication being that this is
something Brussels can’t handle. Even though his right-wing Fidesz Party is
still part of the European People’s Party — the mainstream conservative
alliance in the European Parliament — he is clearly becoming a liability even
for his long-time allies, such as the Christian Democrats of German Chancellor
Angela Merkel.
Some of Orban’s recent comments have fueled additional
anxiety about his intentions. Lately he and leading members of his party have
taken to describing Hungary’s EU membership as purely a “business matter” — a
red flag for those European leaders who see the EU, above all, as a vital
political project. In one recent interview, Janos Lazar, a minister often seen
as one of Orban’s potential successors, also cast Hungary’s EU membership
purely in economic terms. This is a calculated provocation. If the EU is only
about business, then there’s no reason to accept a common Europe policy on the
refugee crisis — and the refugee quota that goes with it.
Needless to say, that crisis has provided Orban with one of
his most effective anti-EU talking points. In a recent radio interview, he
declared that Europe is no longer a safe space for his fellow Hungarians,
claiming that the EU’s stance on migrants has led to “rioting immigrants,”
“refugee camps that are on fire,” and “gangs preying on Hungarian women, our
wives and daughters.”
Those comments came a few days after Orban’s March 1 state
of the nation speech, in which the prime minister recast the debate over
migrant policy as an epic battle between the “Europe of free nations”
(supporters of national sovereignty, including Hungary) and the federalists who
sit in Berlin, Brussels, and Paris. The latter, he claimed, believe in
immigrant quotas that will turn Europe into a sort of caliphate, a frontal
assault on the continent’s Christian values. A left-wing opposition party
immediately accused Orban of preparing the ground for “taking Hungary out of
the EU,” also referring to Orban’s plans to call a referendum on the EU’s
refugee quotas later this year. That initiative is clearly aimed at providing
the prime minister with a popular mandate in his fight against Brussels.
Though such a referendum blatantly violates EU rules, it’s a
perfect way for Orban to boost his party’s standing against its main rival, the
far-right Jobbik Party. (The next election isn’t due in Hungary until 2018.) So
it’s certainly true that Orban has eminently practical reasons for indulging in
anti-EU populism.
Yet his Brussels-bashing cannot be dismissed as pure
opportunism, either — there’s also a strong ideological element. Just consider
his affinity for Vladimir Putin. Moving Hungary closer to Moscow has become the
centerpiece of Orban’s foreign policy.Moving Hungary closer to Moscow has
become the centerpiece of Orban’s foreign policy. Last year Moscow awarded
Budapest a massive 10 billion euro loan. Ostensibly it’s for an expansion of
Hungary’s only nuclear power plant, but some observers view the deal as part of
a broader Kremlin effort to buy influence with the Hungarians.
Meanwhile, Orban’s talk of illiberal democracy is far more
amenable to Moscow than Brussels. When it comes to values and body language,
the Hungarian prime minister seems much more at ease with Putin than with
anyone in Brussels. During Orban’s last visit to Moscow, Putin and the Russian
media praised him for his critical stance toward the EU, and the Russian
president claimed to be just as worried about “defending the European identity”
as Orban himself. Orban’s approach can, indeed, be summed up as a kind of
“Europutinism” — crony capitalism in economics, semi-authoritarianism in
politics. Once the most liberal member of the Soviet bloc, Hungary is now an
outlier once again — but this time in the EU.
So does all this mean that Orban really is maneuvering for
an exit? Probably not. Taking Hungary out of the EU altogether would almost
certainly prove hugely unpopular among voters. What Orban does seem to want is
more space between Budapest and Brussels. He is clearly keen to resist greater
political and economic integration among the EU’s current members. Judging by
his actions to date, he would appear to envision a future for Hungary on the
edges of the EU, as a sort of bridge between East and West, still enjoying some
benefits of EU membership even as it seeks to grow closer to Russia. Of course,
whether he can square this circle remains to be seen.
In the photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian
Prime Minister Viktor Orban converse during a signing ceremony of several
agreements between the two countries on Feb. 17, 2015, in Budapest, Hungary.
Photo credit: SEAN GALLUP/Getty Images
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