Can Orbán go out to all of Europe so that a dangerous weapon of the EU is not born against him?

Twenty minutes later, the summit of EU heads of government in late summer did not become the longest EU summit in history. Even these twenty minutes were supposedly missing just because the President of the European Council, the Belgian Charles Michel I didn’t want it to be the longest summit in history.

The length of the debate is understandable: the next seven-year budget cycle will be one of the most important periods for the European Union, all the more so since the Union would adopt a gigantic bailout package alongside the budget, borrowing together for the first time in his story. And the Union also has a seven-year budget framework because it would be impossible to have this debate every year, with so many different financial and political interests.

It is not a normal period

And now we’re not even talking about a normal seven-year budget. The coronavirus has paralyzed the EU and, for a time, the epidemic seemed to put an end to what the Union has been doing so far: allowing people and products to move freely between Member States. Another reason for the paralysis is that the political dividing line, with the eastern ruler on one side and the south in permanent financial trouble on the other, and the increasingly stingy northern member states on the third, has deepened.

This is important for Hungary now, because by mid-summer it was no longer possible to get away with the adoption of a mechanism by the EU heads of government to take action against those member states that constantly violate the core values ​​of the EU. the European Union. There are two countries that return to this role: Poland and Hungary, but Bulgaria also seems to be increasingly joining them.

At the summer summit, it was agreed that there would be such a mechanism, but not in detail. The rule of law mechanism itself consists of depriving a country of part of its aid if it violates the fundamental values ​​of the Union. But as Council summits function in such a way that the interests of all member states must be served, no details have been found; a classic survival deal was struck, after which everyone at home could say he had won the fight.

The details

In practice, this meant that the final fight for the rule of law mechanism had been postponed. The first concrete proposal of the mechanism, with which it maintained the German Presidency, was quite permissive with Hungary, eliminating almost everything that was really dangerous, including the word rule of law. But even this was too harsh for Hungary, and for the European Parliament, for the opposite reason, because the MEPs found it too soft, it is frankly unacceptable. The version in which the European Parliament, Council and Commission finally agreed was somewhat harsher than the German proposal, but not as forceful as the original proposal put forward by Michel (although its details were not fully worked out).

The functionality of the mechanism, which was put indoors about ten days ago, will depend on many things. Especially on how the European Commission will apply it. It is worth saying here that the establishment of the rule of law mechanism is also intended to provide an opportunity between a subtle warning and a “nuclear strike” (suspension of voting rights) on the EU arsenal, which is missing.

It is already clear that the governments of Hungary and Poland are very reluctant to pass the rule of law mechanism. Not as much as it has been announced that EU ambassadors will veto legislation on the EU’s seven-year budget and the € 750 billion recovery fund in Monday’s deliberations. This has been done, so that the rule of law mechanism has only been approved by a qualified majority and the approval of the budget has stalled.

What is expected?

This veto refers only to the political intentions of the member states. Hungary and Poland cannot veto the rule of law mechanism alone, because a qualified majority in the council is sufficient to adopt it, there is no need to vote unanimously. Therefore, the Hungarian government can do two things.

One is that it will not pass the bill necessary for the coronavirus rescue package, which will allow the EU to raise new money from its own resources. This, in turn, does not undermine the rule of law mechanism, only the next-generation EU aid package. The consequence would be that the package would not be adopted as part of the EU budget but as an agreement between the Member States. Therefore, Hungary would not receive money from here, but, as it is a loan, we would not have to repay it either. Basically, the package is not for us either, but mainly for the southern Member States, whose economies have been hit hardest by the epidemic, but who have a special need for money.

This veto would be problematic in several ways. On the one hand, we would not swim with the rule of law mechanism, but we would be angry with almost the entire European Union.

The inclusion of the aid package in the budget is also very important for the Germans and the French, who are the most important countries in the Union. And that the money arrives as soon as possible is very important for the southern Member States, of which, for example, Portugal was an important ally of the Orbans in the battles of the EU, also because they expected that if they would compromise with the Hungarians on the rule of law rescue package. Now, however, the exact opposite is happening: The Orbans did not have enough commitment, so they can further slow down the adoption of the package.

The other option is for the Hungarian government to veto the entire budget because it must be approved unanimously. That would really piss everyone off at ourselves, and obviously the pressure will be enormous. Viktor Orbán, don’t go that far. And while compromise is at the heart of how the EU works, and although they understand better after ten years how the Hungarian Prime Minister is playing this game, he can still surprise everyone by going further than anyone might think. It still doesn’t occur to EU heads of government and diplomats that someone actually vetoes the budget they are beneficiaries of for political reasons, because we get an astonishing amount of money from this union. Diplomats probably still think it’s a hoax and Orbán just wants to achieve something.

The question is what else can Hungary achieve in this matter. The development of the rule of law mechanism was carried out through a dialogue between the three institutions, a process that lasted weeks. This version has already been approved by the Council, the Presidency, the commission and the Parliament. They can be sent back to negotiate, but it is unlikely that someone will leave them. Therefore, the Hungarian government does not want to accept the mechanism, but the parliament will not accept the budget if the rule of law mechanism is further relaxed. Especially since in many Member States it has really become an internal political question whether they can do something with the Poles and the Hungarians.

Squeezed in a corner

Now it seems that no one is going to let go and someone has to back down. The ministers responsible for EU affairs will vote on the issue, the Hungarian government, on Tuesday. Judit Varga It represents. He wrote this on Facebook on Monday:

Veto. The responsibility lies with those who allowed the ideological debates to take the rescue package hostage and violate the July agreement between the state and the heads of government. Hungary has quite complied with the EU treaties and the July agreement. He never sold sackcloth. Only the Hungarian people can decide the fate of Hungary.

This is classically the law that Fidesz has represented in EU debates so far, and it generally works if it is intended for national audiences and EU diplomats. The July agreement, for example, was easy to follow as it did not include details of the mechanism, so there was nothing to follow.

According to Varga, the rule of law has no metrics, so it is an ideological debate to hold a country responsible for violating the rule of law. From this point of view, of course, no moral-based state organization expectation has a normative metric, so nothing can be held accountable in member states as long as there are, in fact, certain common values ​​that political communities can uphold. This argument will fail there because the Hungarian government is no longer negotiating not only with diplomats and bureaucrats, but with the entire political elite in Europe, who will react not on the basis of EU nuances but on the basis of political reality.

And the political reality is that it seems that the Hungarian and Polish governments have a better chance of stumbling over the functioning of the entire continent so that a politically dangerous instrument cannot be created for Orbán and the Polish government. And the fact that this tool is really dangerous is best illustrated by the fact that Fidesz is risking even this to prevent its adoption.

Featured image: MTI / Prime Minister’s Press Office / Zoltán Fischer