(C) Freedom House
This story was originally published by Freedom House and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Hungary Versus Brussels on the Diplomatic Stage [1]
[]
Date: 2024-08
Over the last 14 years, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and his far-right Alliance of Young Democrats–Hungarian Civic Union (Fidesz) have weakened that country’s democracy. Hungary’s electoral environment has become less competitive, its media sector has become less diverse, and academic freedom has been eroded under Fidesz. Freedom House’s research has counted the effects of Orbán’s antidemocratic, even authoritarian, rule; the country scored 90 out of 100 possible points in Freedom in the World, our annual assessment of political rights and civil liberties, when he returned to the premiership, only to score 65 in the 2024 edition.
Now Orbán is setting his sights on an even larger venue. On July 1, Hungary received the six-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, chairing its meetings and guiding its priorities. Hungary’s presidency is also emblematic of the unwillingness of the European Union (EU) to check Orbán’s acts, even though he has campaigned harshly against it for years. Now Orbán has been given six months to sow chaos and further his antidemocratic foreign policy vision.
Orbán’s influence grows within Europe
Hungary’s recent history is often cited as the example par excellence of democratic backsliding in the 21st century. And even before assuming the council’s presidency, Orbán and his allies have endeavored to influence events beyond Hungary’s borders, undermining the free media, free and fair electoral processes, and even the EU’s shared market economy.
As Freedom House previously documented, a damaging media-capture model developed in Hungary has spread throughout Central Europe to the Western Balkans. Under this model, a first among EU states, outlets are placed under government influence through friendly owners and publicly backed bodies. Now Orbán and his associates are looking even further afield. In April, Direkt36 reported on how government agencies helped fund a friendly Portuguese businessman’s acquisition of Euronews, one of Europe’s biggest television channels. With maneuvers like these, the continent’s media consumers may suffer a pronounced loss of media diversity—and proliferation of biased, disinformation-filled content—like Hungarians have.
Orbán and his allies have also aided the electoral campaigns of politicians in Slovakia and Poland and “flooded” Europe with political advertisements, despite their expressed stance against interfering in other countries’ domestic affairs. Orbán and his wealthy associates have targeted private enterprises more generally, reportedly working to acquire foreign companies and firms run by Fidesz’s domestic opponents outside the media sector. In short, Orbán’s regime is not only exporting its normative model of illiberal governance but is acting more overtly to advance its base interests.
A Janus-faced foreign policy
Now, Orbán has a new platform, the rotating presidency. While experts, like former colleague Zselyke Csaky, have noted how that position is constrained, as it focuses more on agenda-setting than policymaking, those who feared the potential for reputational damage and confusion have quickly been proven right.
On day one, Orbán lambasted his counterparts for the “erosion of Europe’s competitiveness.” Days later, with no formal mandate from the EU, Orbán embarked on a “peace mission” to seek allies among two of the world’s largest autocracies, Russia and China. He said he did this to foster a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine, doing so just ahead of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit where Ukraine sought continued aid in a war provoked by Moscow. This angered many EU counterparts, who quickly stated that these were purely bilateral meetings of Orbán’s.
Following his meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Orbán sent a confidential missive to the European Council, one of the EU’s major decision-making organs, reportedly “parroting” the Kremlin’s position on Ukraine. After the NATO summit, Orbán unilaterally met former US president and current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has been publicly critical of aid to Ukraine, instead of pressing his case by holding a bilateral meeting with the incumbent Biden administration in Washington. (And even before attaining the council presidency, Budapest had tried to block EU aid to Ukraine more than once.)
In a matter of days, Orbán and his associates have made clear their intentions, as other experts have already put it, to displace “the political mainstream in the Euro-Atlantic system” and form stronger ties with those autocracies that the EU has sanctioned.
Europe can still speak with one voice
While Hungary will only hold the presidency for six months, the damage it may inflict on the EU’s fundamental values—“economic, social, and territorial cohesion” and the values of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law—may reverberate far longer.
To their credit, members of European Parliament raised their concerns about the new presidency in January. Still, the European Council did not prevent the bloc’s sole nondemocratic member state from taking up the role. With their feathers now ruffled by Orbán’s glad-handing with autocrats in Beijing and Moscow, Europe’s democratic leaders must act, not out of fear, but with a clear vision for revitalizing the bloc’s democratizing potential.
Bold and creative solutions are out there. For one, the European Council could use articles in the EU’s formative treaties to suspend the rights of members who violate the bloc’s principles or effectively shorten Hungary’s presidency. And only days ago, top EU officials committed to boycotting meetings chaired by Hungary.
Member states can do more. They can wholeheartedly enforce the new European Media Freedom Act, which mandates more equitable distribution of government advertising in media and greater transparency in ownership. And they should continue to help Ukraine achieve victory, on Ukraine’s terms, through continued military, humanitarian, and budgetary assistance. By maintaining their resolve, EU leaders can show observers and rivals that the bloc will defend its interests and values no matter who holds the rotating presidency.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://freedomhouse.org/article/hungary-versus-brussels-diplomatic-stage
Published and (C) by Freedom House
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/freedomhouse/
