I have long wondered what the hell Hungary is doing in the European Union.
As a journalist, my beef has always been about the enormous amount of control the Prime Minister Viktor Orban exercises over the nation’s news coverage.
Press freedom in Hungary flows out of the country as inexorably as the River Danube.
And with it, the truth is often washed away.
Citizens are denied balanced coverage of the issues that affect them, and there’s a lack of scrutiny of government actions because much of the media has been turned into a government propaganda machine.
The press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders believes that 80 per cent of news output is under Orban’s control.
There are independent media outlets carrying the torch for objective reporting, but there has also been a history of them being bought-up by Oligarchs and business owners who support Orban’s ruling Fidesz Party.
There was an inspiring story of journalistic defiance five years ago when the popular, independent Index news site came under great pressure.
A pro-Orban businessman called Milo’s Vaszily bought a 50% stake in the company responsible for Index’s advertising revenue. It is a government tactic to only give lucrative government advertising business to media companies who fall into line.
Then the Editor in Chief of Index was fired amid claims that the government was trying to control its agenda. Then, risking their own livelihoods and futures, around 90 journalists walked out in protest and went to set up a site called Telex which received huge support and acclaim and is still operating today.
But the lack of independent news sources isn’t the only reason Hungary is out of line with EU values.
Ever since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022, Hungary’s use of the veto to try to stop European support for Zelenskyy’s government in Kiev has been especially disruptive.
It’s also been an infuriating drag on Europe’s efforts to galvanise themselves to be less reliant on the Americans for defence.
It was all so different in 2003 when Hungarians who voted in a referendum on EU membership cast their ballots 83% in favour of joining.
Five years later, Hungary was given a 20 billion euro bailout package by a combination of the IMF, the EU and the World Bank.
But since Viktor Orban was re-elected back in 2010, the EU has been in constant legal and political tussles with him over human rights, central bank governance, press freedom, immigration, LGBTQ rights and EU foreign policy.
At the Hay-on-Wye Festival (May 22 – June 1), I was watching the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and historian Anne Applebaum talking about her book Autocracy, Inc. which is an account of how the world’s autocrats and plutocrats are forming a kind of global alliance.
“The EU is very, very hamstrung and hampered by one country – which is Hungary,” she said.
“It prevents them putting greater sanctions on (Russia) and creating a European defence mechanism. Why should that be true? Why should we have rules that make it so that one country can stop all of the others?”
Afterwards, I got to ask her a very naïve question at her book signing. Did she think the EU would be reluctant to push Orban out of the club for fear that it drives him further into the arms of Putin? “He’s already there,” was the clear answer.
Which begs the question – what is a leader who supports Putin’s Russia ahead of Ukraine doing inside the European Union, especially when he doesn’t believe in equality or an independent media?
The truth is that it’s almost impossible to expel a member country. There’s not really a mechanism to kick them out, though their use of the veto can be curtailed. Invoking Article 50, as the UK did on the path to Brexit, only works for countries who have themselves decided to leave.
Some people have discussed whether 26 countries could invoke article 50 and then sign a new Treaty, leaving the 27th out in the cold. But it’s complicated, and fraught with danger. Not every country would necessarily agree, particularly Slovakia at the moment. And it might cause cracks in the whole EU edifice.
I doubt that Hungary would leave of its own volition. Orban may not like the EU very much, but he has more influence on Europe inside than outside, at the same time as getting economic benefits from membership, consistently flouting its rules and also looking east towards other allies like Turkey, Russia and China.
He’s having his cake and eating it.
Maybe he also thinks this is a good time for strong men to make hay while Donald Trump is in the White House.
Though Viktor Orban consistently manages to win elections, his is a particularly authoritarian kind of nationalist democracy in which controlling everything helps him to win.
I’m not suggesting that the EU is perfect — far from it. But Orban’s Hungary just doesn’t fit into it.
If he was applying for membership of the EU club for the first time right now, the bouncers wouldn’t even let him over the threshold.
Thank you for this! Fascinating read.