8 May 2013
For some time now I have been pondering why the Hungarian government has attracted so much attention from the EU. From revised constitutions to unorthodox economic policies, the European Commission and the European Parliament, has seen fit to criticise Hungarian policy.
For a while, I thought it was simply a case of external friends of the defeated Hungarian Socialists and Liberals trying to ameliorate the pain of a massive political rejection by the Hungarian electorate. I also considered that the European institutions might be seeing things I didn’t in terms of anti-European practice.
However, it is now becoming crystal clear that the answer lies in the dangerous idea of Hungarian Prime Minister – an idea that at its core is a challenge to the EU and its elite.
Viktor Orbán won his historical election victory in 2010 on the back of the disgrace, incompetence and venality of the Liberal-Left in Hungary. That much is clear. However, the victory also contained the seeds of a much deeper rage – the rage against a European Union that stood by and watched the events of 2006 without as much as a flicker of concern. That a Hungarian and EU Prime Minister in 2006 could admit to lying day and night and stealing an election could pass unnoticed, reinforced Orbán’s belief that there was something fundamentally flawed in the European project. The flaw was simply the recognition that the EU had lost sight of some basic values about democracy, the rule of law and accountability.
The onslaught of criticism that emerged from Europe soon after his election merely confirmed this view – his super-majority was not a reflection of democracy in action but as far as the EU was concerned, a dangerous tilt to ‘populism’. Truth, in the world of the Brussels elite had been turned on its head. Concepts of democracy and accountability had been worryingly diluted, particularly by elites who are not democratically accountable.
The EU’s intervention on the revision of the Hungarian constitution was also crass and based on ill-founded notions of what it contained. Irrespective of how many times critical Left-Liberal MEPs were refuted with evidence, the cry for change continued unabated. It is now obvious that their concern is less about the welfare of Hungarians and more about the threat that Orbán’s constitution is to the EU’s worldview.
The Hungarian Prime Minister believes that the nation state is the most important unit of democracy. He has questioned the progressive liberal agenda on a raft of issues from education to religion, from economics to the family and found them wanting. He clearly believes that political accountability and justice is found closer to home, not in Brussels. Additionally, he thinks he is not alone and he is right. These are dangerous ideas.
In a week when the EU (in the shape of the unelected Oli Rehn) in rather imperial tones suggests that Hungary’s deficit – which remains within limits – requires monitoring but France’s significant deficit which breaches the EU’s rules will result in several more year’s grace for readjustment, you can see exactly what Orbán sees and why he thinks the EU acts unjustly and unfairly towards Hungary.
From Budapest, looking at the EU and its institutions is not a pleasing experience. The Eurozone is burning while the Brussels elite much prefer to talk about the fourth amendment of Hungary’s constitution. Europe’s unemployment, especially youth unemployment, is a shocking indictment of failed policies. That Eurozone states in surplus castigate those in deficit is understandable but where is the much-vaunted European solidarity?
Viktor Orbán talks of family, of morals and ethics, of patriotism and social responsibility. However, for the EU elite, the so-called inheritors of the enlightenment, these are words and concepts that dare not be spoken. Indeed, the notion that the EU might not be fit for purpose, the idea that the EU has to change, that the EU is killing the democracy it once vowed to protect, is a dangerous idea.
Whether he likes it or not, Prime Minister Orbán preaches subversion. He helped to hasten the end of communism in Hungary and if he wins another election, which looks likely, he might hasten the end of the current form of European union. Wouldn’t that be something?