On 20 December 2017, European Commission launched an ‘article 7 TEU’ procedure against Poland over its violations of European Union values (see EUROPE 11930/1); you were spared this fate – and re-elected prime minister by a sizeable majority in May 2018. On 12 September, however, the European Parliament brought the same procedure against Hungary. Hearings before the Council of the EU have been the order of the day for the last five years. These exercises do not trouble you overly and in any case, you are too good a lawyer to believe that this article is enforceable. Hungary will not lose its right to vote at the Council overnight.
More annoyingly, however, Fidesz was indefinitely suspended from the EPP in March 2019 (see EUROPE 12218/8); following an anti-Juncker poster campaign throughout Hungary, a procedure to exclude you as an individual got underway, but is making little progress; two years later, you decided that “your” 13 MEPs would leave the parliamentary group, becoming independent and therefore carrying very little influence (see EUROPE 12670/2). You are a little more isolated within the EU and it’s not over yet. In June 2021, the Hungarian parliament voted through an ‘anti-LBGT’ law: at the European Council, the home of the diplomatically-worded comment, you spent an uncomfortable quarter of an hour; to your great astonishment, many of your colleagues spoke out in strong terms against this legislation and its sponsor. In July, the Commission launched infringement proceedings against Hungary’s violations of the fundamental values of the EU (as well as Poland and for the same reasons) (see EUROPE 12763/1). Fifteen member states plus the Parliament get behind this procedure. Notwithstanding, you retain the full confidence of the Hungarian people; you came out of the elections of May 2022 with your two-thirds majority intact.
Despite these trials and tribulations, you still have a couple of ‘good’ cards in your hand. In July 2019, the Fidesz members voted for Ursula von der Leyen, in what would be a very close vote. And although Hungary had just 21 seats to fill, you hope to send a phalanx of MEPs of your political persuasion in June of next year, as their support is likely to be greatly coveted. Your campaign is already underway, but is unlikely to spark any fundamental change of the EU.
More than anything else, you know how to make a nuisance of yourself: playing your veto in all cases in which unanimity is required. In 2020, the European Council finally reached an agreement on the hotly contested matter of the envelope of the multi-annual financial framework and the post-Covid 19 recovery plan. The Commission, well aware of the inefficacy of article 7 TEU, proposed a regulation that would make observation of the rule of law a prerequisite for financial resources to be awarded to the member states, which was subsequently adopted by the European Parliament and the Council. You and your Polish buddy vetoed it. We all know what happened next: the regulation was delayed and you were defeated when the case was brought before the Court of Justice of the EU (see EUROPE 12892/1). And that’s to say nothing of the times Hungary has been ruled against by the Court, on matters such as fate of judges, NGOs, infringements of migrants’ rights, university policy (‘anti-Soros’ law)… The list goes on.
You spent two years vetoing the renewal of the Cotonou agreement, so much so that the new agreement (the Samoa agreement) will not be signed until 15 November. How did that benefit you, politically?
You are now against paying Ukraine a further tranche of military aid in the framework of the ‘European Peace Facility’ (500 million euros) and, in that of the revised multi-annual financial framework 2021-2027, the disbursement of the macro-financial aid earmarked for Ukraine (50 billion euros). Nor are you in favour of the new package of sanctions against Russia, but your scepticism over this matter comes as no surprise to anybody. Similarly, you announced that you are placing drastic conditions on accepting the opening of accession negotiations with Ukraine, even though you made no trouble at all when it was the turn of the Balkans. I will be interested to see whether you manage to build a coalition of the like-minded at the European Council of mid-December. What you are expecting from this meeting, as you recently wrote to the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, is a far-reaching strategic discussion on common policy towards Ukraine and you are making this an absolute prerequisite for any political decision on the above issues.
Let me be quite clear about it: any reduction in the military and economic aid granted to Ukraine is a gift to the Russian invaders. Last year, you campaigned at home on the theme ‘The sanctions are ruining us’. I have to admit that I fail to understand your pro-Russian tropism. You are still buying Russian gas. During the pandemic, you were the only one out of the whole EU to buy up Sputnik V vaccines, the clinical trials on which are believed to have been falsified, en masse from Putin. Of course you will have to live with Russia (and, preferably, other leaders) once the war is over, but nobody knows when that will be. What yields are you hoping to reap in the future from the damage to European unity you are sowing today?
But as things stand at the moment, the thing that grinds your gears the most is the fact that European funding to Hungary has been blocked, as the progress your country has made towards restoring the rule of law is insufficient. 22 billion euros in cohesion funds are frozen and as for your revised recovery plan, which has been approved by the Commission, just one tranche of pre-financing in the amount of 920 million euros, as is common practice, was disbursed by the Commission last Thursday out of a total of 10.4 billion euros (including 6.5 billion in subsidies) (see EUROPE 13299/28), subject to the approval of the Council of the EU. Every other penny of it is on hold. Out of the whole EU, your country is the third-hardest hit by economic recession (-0.7% of GDP) and comes in second place for public deficit (-5.8%) in 2023. A bit of fresh money would do your country no harm at all, if you could reawaken the young democrat within you and make the legislative changes that are needed, particularly on the independence of the judiciary and the protection of the financial interests of the EU. Unfortunately, the juggernaut of cronyism that your regime has built up over 13 years would appear to be making the exercise slow and complicated, if not downright impossible.
On 23 October, during the commemorations of the uprising of 1956, you used the European Union being a poor parody of the USSR. Then, on 17 November, you launched a national consultation with 11 leading questions; the Hungarians are called upon to respond to scenarios worded as follows: ‘Brussels wants to establish migrant ghettos in Hungary’, ‘Brussels wants Ukraine to join the European Union’, ‘Brussels wants to give Ukraine more weapons and money’, ‘Brussels wants to open up our market to genetically modified Ukrainian grain’, ‘Hamas has received financial aid from Brussels’, etc... Even worse are the massive billboards with a photo of Alexander Soros and Ursula von der Leyen featuring the caption ‘Let’s not dance to their tune’ – the same Ursula von der Leyen you praised so warmly at the start of meetings of the European Council. If this is not open hostility, it looks very much like it.
For the sake of your own peace of mind, why not give your people a proper decisive referendum instead of several optional consultations. You will run the campaign of your life for a ‘no’ to the EU and if the ‘noes’ have it, you will be able to activate article 50 of the TEU, allowing you to leave the EU that is so abhorrent to you and allow your thousand-year-old nation to blossom in perfect indigenousness.
Yours sincerely,
Renaud Denuit