The prime minister of Hungary, the ultra-nationalist Viktor Orban, believes he has found a master move against the European Union. If in 2021 it already tried to prevent recovery funds from being conditioned on compliance with the rules of the rule of law, now it tries to undermine the unity of the Twenty-seven against the Russian invasion war in Ukraine.
Last week, the Hungarian “autocrat” announced the calling of a referendum in his country for citizens to decide whether they agree with the EU’s policy of sanctions against the Vladimir Putin. “No one calls a popular consultation if they do not count on winning it,” he points out Josep Pique in conversation with this newspaper, “and more in this case”.
What does the former Spanish Foreign Minister refer to? Pique points out Double game that hides behind this movement of the Hungarian populist leader.
The sanctions against Russia – this week, the Commission proposed the seventh package, almost practically one per month since the beginning of the invasion, on February 24 – are part of the enormous set of decisions that must go through the Council. That is, by the Heads of State and Government of the Union. And there Orbán can therefore exercise a kind of “veto right”.
On the other hand, the government he leads is immersed in its own sanction procedure, promoted by Parliament and the European Commission, due to the autocratic drift of the regime.
Sanctions on Budapest
“For years, Orbán has been undermining the separation of powers, the freedom of the press. He has persecuted opponents, has attacked NGOs and has promoted laws that systematically reduce fundamental rights,” he explains. Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilarpresident of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament (LIBE), the most powerful in the European Parliament.
[La Eurocámara tacha a Hungría de “autocracia electoral” y pide congelarle los fondos europeos]
As a consequence, the Commission has applied the conditionality of the Next Generation EU funds and Hungary will not receive further funding until it meets the requirements to “comply with the principles and values” of the EU.
It’s been months since Article 7 of the Treaty was activated, the one that allows suspending the right to vote to a country in the Council. But, again, to confirm this punishment – the most serious to which a Member State can be subjected – unanimity is needed from the rest of the leaders. Y Poland, another government “in a serious autocratic drift”and also subjected to sanctions for it, recalls the also former Minister of Justice, allied with Hungary.
“The treaties do not provide for the expulsion of a member state”, continues the popular foreign minister, “but sooner or later, the Union must give a firm answer to Orbánbecause it is acting like a Trojan horse”.
And it is that the historical and ethnic relationship of Hungary with Russia always represented a challenge for the EU. And that was precisely one of the reasons that encouraged its integration, the same ones that are used today to promote those of the remaining countries of the former Yugoslavia and even the one claimed by Ukraine: better to be on the side of the liberal democracies than under the area of influence of Putin’s Russia.
José Manuel Albares and the former Foreign Minister Josep Piqué, debate with the Ukrainian Dmitro Kuleba, in the La Toja Forum.
Dmitry Kulebahead of Foreign Affairs of kyiv, recalled it this Thursday at the La Toja Forum, in a debate with Jose Manuel Albaresdirected by Piqué… and before Joseph Borrellthe High Representative of the EU.
“illiberal democracy”
Orbán’s (allegedly) master move is, rather, “a negotiating card” to defend himself from his own sanctions, in the opinion of Jose Ramon Bauzaa member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the European Parliament, and who is on a humanitarian mission in Ukraine this weekend to deliver medical and emergency supplies.
The Hungarian leader wants the money from Brussels, and not give up his “special relationship” with Putin. He today he is losing the battle in the first, but remains firm in the second. And he believes that, in any case, he will come out the winner: either sanctions are lifted from him or European unity is broken in which they affect his “friend” in Moscow.
Orbán governs what he himself has come to define, unapologetically, as an “illiberal democracy”. Less than two months ago, his foreign minister, Peter Szijjartovisited Moscow to negotiate a new gas supply contract.
[Orbán logra que el embargo al petróleo ruso sea parcial y con excepción para Hungría]
“That is already a challenge to European unity, that is breaking the EU rulesbecause the sanctions and the embargo on imports of Russian fossil fuels belong to the Union, to the entire Union, to the Twenty-seven”, recalls Bauzá. But the announcement of this referendum places Budapest in a frontal challenge to Brussels. “And unity is our best weapon”.
At the press conference in which Borrell announced the new package of sanctions, in response to the “great escalation” in the war that involves the mobilization of 300,000 reservists and -above all- the annexation of the self-proclaimed “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk and Kherson and Zaporizhia regionsthe High Representative insisted that “Russia cannot win this war”, and that the EU will continue “to support Ukraine with unity and as long as it takes” until that goal is achieved.
[Al menos 25 civiles muertos en un ataque ruso contra un convoy humanitario en Zaporiyia]
However, if Moscow selectively cut gas to the member states, while continuing to supply it cheaply to Hungary; if Budapest does not meet the principles and values of the EU Treaty; and while Brussels cuts off its funding and maintains its threat to take away your right to vote…and Orbán’s reaction is to side with Putin, that unit would be dead.
Unless, of course, the European institutions soften his defense of rights, freedoms and democracy in Hungary. But that, in the opinion of the experts consulted, is giving up the main foundation of the Union, the rule of law. In other words, as much as closing one’s eyes while the Trojan horse of the autocracies opens its floodgates.
