Donations
Veridica.md
Prime Minister Viktor Orban finds himself in a complicated situation. Politically, he gets increasingly isolated from its Western partners. Hungary's economy is in crisis, and the European funds that could relaunch it have been blocked due to anti-democratic slippages. With all the friendship that Budapest has shown to Russia, there isn’t much Russia can do to help, being itself increasingly affected by Western sanctions. Orban's solution appears to be to block Finland and Sweden's entry into NATO until the EU unlocks funds for Hungary. However, this blackmail policy may have reached its limits.
Hungary delays the ratification of Sweden and Finland's NATO accession because they criticized the slippages of the Orban regime
Turkey and Hungary are the only NATO countries that have not yet ratified the accession of Sweden and Finland to the Alliance. If in the case of Ankara there are debatable reasons on the table, in the case of Budapest the repeated postponements of the start of discussions in parliament are difficult to justify. We know that at the end of last year the EU left Hungary with its hand outstretched for the money from the allocated funds, which it didn’t get, the reason being very clear: violation of the rule of law. In other words, all the “measures” taken by Orban following the Eastern model so as to ensure his “eternity” in power have now received the bill from the EU “family”.
In the first week of March, discussions on the applications of Finland and Sweden to join NATO should have started. They were postponed until the end of March. Instead, a delegation led by the vice president of the Hungarian parliament traveled to Sweden these days.
The real reason for delaying a decision on the two NATO candidacies was voiced by Prime Minister Viktor Orban himself: “some MPs from the governing parties are not very enthusiastic”, because, among other things, these countries are spreading obvious lies about our democracy” and about the rule of law here”.
But as Putin has his Lavrov, Orban has his Szijjarto. And what does the Hungarian foreign minister say in a Facebook post on February 27?
“How can a country expect a favor from us when its politicians continuously spread lies about Hungary? How can they expect quick and fair decisions when, lately, all we have heard is that there is no democracy in Hungary, and that the rule of law is not guaranteed in Hungary”?
Neither of the two Nordic countries commented in any way on these statements, which the government in Budapest called political disputes but, according to the President of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Swedish parliament, the Hungarian delegation that visited their country did not discuss conditions. “We talked about strengthening and improving bilateral relations and understanding each other's constitutional traditions”, Aron Emilson said.
The bottom line was that Hungary supported Sweden's NATO membership, and the Swedish foreign minister said Hungarian MPs had hinted that a vote could be given at the end of March. But no matter how elegant the Swedish parliamentarians are, we cannot ignore how the vice-president of the Hungarian legislature formulated, somewhat more elegantly, it’s true, the condition for a favorable vote on Sweden’s joining NATO.
“It would be appropriate for the Swedish politicians, government representatives and members of the EU parliament not to indicate or suggest, based on completely untrue facts, that there is a lack of rule of law in a country, Csaba Hende said.
And the Hungarian delegation's journey continued to Finland, the second nation to renounce its neutrality to join the military alliance. The motives of both Nordic states have to do with Russia, with their history with Russia, and the invasion of Ukraine was the final argument that put an end to their historical neutrality.
At the end of the visit to the two Nordic states, the head of the Hungarian delegation said that a date for the ratification of the two states' accession to NATO could not be confirmed. Even more interesting is that Csaba Hende invoked parliamentary procedures that could last weeks, and besides, many FIDESZ parliamentarians, the party that holds the majority in the Budapest legislature, need to be clarified about those lies regarding the lack of democracy in Hungary, right?
In other words, Viktor Orban's blackmail charade was played to the end in two European capitals blamed for pointing the finger at Hungary’s democracy, but to which Hungary flatly responded: One hand will not wash the other for nothing!
The Finns have understood from the Hungarian delegation that Hungary admits that their country meets the criteria for NATO membership and that the politicians in Budapest will process Finland's accession to the Alliance only through the lens of these criteria. One could draw the conclusion that Budapest’s approach, in a, let's say, Central Eastern European style, did not really work. It is possible that some of the more vocal MEPs, who say in Strasbourg that Hungary is no longer a democracy, will adopt a more “diplomatic” language, but from here to seeing Sweden and Finland lobbying the European Union for an unreformed Hungary, which continues its slippages, is quite a big step and it is hard to believe that either of the two countries will take it.
Without European money and with dwindling support from Russia, Viktor Orban also faces growing domestic pressure
The social pressure in Hungary, triggered by inflation and huge energy costs, does not give Viktor Orban much room for maneuver. The main economic partner, Russia, on whose gas Hungary depends for more than 80 percent, is beginning to feel the effects of European sanctions, so it is increasingly difficult for it to finance Hungarians’ loyalty, even if Hungary did not support the sanctions.
The anti-European and anti-Ukrainian speech delivered by Orban in his State of the Nation address had nothing to do with Russia anymore, even if it sounded that way. For FIDESZ and Viktor Orban it is a matter of survival. Without Russian support, without European money, Hungary's economy is going downhill and will create real conditions for the collapse of the Orban regime after more than a decade.
As things stand now, aside from the blackmail strategy, Orban and his ilk don't seem to have any other backup plan. As the prices of petrol and basic foods have exploded in Hungary, the anti-European discourse will stop working any time now. And the Russian propaganda with its various ideas regarding Transcarpathia will no longer have traction either.
Therefore, the main objective for Orbán in the near future will be to hold to power and find ways to unlock European money for Hungary. But how to do that when Orban Viktor and the governor of the Central Bank are in open conflict on the subject of the galloping inflation? Gyorgy Matolcsy, former economy minister in one of Orban's governments and now Governor of the Central Bank, has criticized the head of the executive for mishandling the inflation crisis. He blamed the prime minister for not doing anything despite being asked to help in this battle, after Hungary's Central Bank tightened the monetary policy. Matolcsy has warned him about the fact that Hungary is facing risks related to rising debt and that the situation is as it is also because Orban has ignored his institution's calls in recent years for reforms to boost competitiveness.
“In the last decade, Hungary has had clear goals, for example to create one million new jobs. Now it no longer has any goals”, Gyorgy Matolcsy stated in front of the parliament dominated by Viktor Orban's party. The former finance minister added that when he’d asked the prime minister to define a tangible goal for the next decade, Orban replied: “If I measure, I lose”. He was wrong, the governor also said, stressing that if one does NOT measure, one will definitely lose.
Inflation in Hungary is among the highest, if not the highest, in the European Union. The European Commission forecasts an average inflation of 16.4% this year in Hungary, boosted by a nearly 50% increase in food prices in January and huge increases in the prices of services and energy. And this is while price caps, including on some staple foods, are still in place, even though they should have been removed, as the governor said.
Budapest has an increasingly narrow room for maneuver in the EU and NATO
Viktor Orban has violated European principles and values for years by exploiting in his favor the need for consensus in adopting major EU decisions (which has allowed him to threaten a veto if concessions are not made), the difficulty of sanctioning a member state, the economic interests of large companies from member states attracted to Hungary by the facilities offered by the government, relations with some partners, etc. Basically, Orban has done whatever he wanted for years, without suffering significant consequences. The Europeans have had no choice, and the Hungarians supported him ballot after ballot.
That period seems to be coming to an end. Viktor Orban is increasingly turning into a European pariah, by contamination from his friend in Moscow. The EU has blocked funds destined for Hungary to sanction serious rule of law issues. A reform of the decision-making procedure within the EU may also follow. However, even if that reform doesn't take shape very quickly, I find it hard to believe that Brussels would give in to some form of blackmail from Budapest, just as it did not give in to the Russians’ gas blackmail.
What can the North Atlantic Alliance do, faced with the situation of having two members who do not say that they will not ratify the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO, but keep delaying the final step?
The Washington Treaty that established NATO clearly defines the criteria that form the basis of this political and military alliance. I don't think you need to be an expert in international law to understand that if a member country does NOT comply with what it has pledged to comply with it could be left on the sidelines. The legal expert would say that the help of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties in conjunction with the Washington Treaty is also needed. NATO knows it, Hungary knows it, Turkey knows it too.
