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Orban responded that Britain became the first country in the Western world to launch a coronavirus vaccination program after Brexit. However, the message was clear: in the meeting with Brussels, Hungary and Poland threatened to veto the EU’s $ 2.2 trillion spending plan.
“Are the British really doing worse? Orban asked. “The answer is that a country that has left the block, one that is on the way and seeking its own solutions, can defend its citizens and save their lives faster than we who have stayed in the block.”
The fact that the leader of a country that has benefited so much from EU membership dreams of living outside the bloc may seem strange, and Hungary and Poland are unlikely to turn to the UK in the near future.
However, the internal political dynamics of these two retreats demonstrate what until recently seemed unthinkable.
The two sides reached a compromise with Germany on Wednesday, on the eve of a summit that was supposed to be dominated by a budget stalemate, unlocking the EU budget and stimulus plan. Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Gowin announced that the deal could be formalized on Friday.
The question arises whether the Budapest and Warsaw governments did not make a damaging miscalculation with such a long hesitation and by proposing a last minute compromise that could resonate and respond not only financially but also politically.
Orban and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki disagreed with the oversight, which is aimed at ensuring members adhere to the bloc’s democratic rule of law standards when spending money. They met in Warsaw on Tuesday to discuss the German proposal, though neither of them made a formal statement after the deadlock was announced.
In fact, after so many years of rebellion over everything from judicial control and gay rights to freedom of the press, it will not be easy to return. In an interview with the German weekly Die Zeit last month, Orban said Merkel said that what she was asked to do was “commit suicide.”
Both countries have led the EU not to base its threats on any action for many years. However, repeat offenders are still confident in the greatness of Brussels: neither Hungary nor Poland, which is bigger than it, can really afford to leave the EU. Even Britain, one of the world’s largest economies, is likely to plunge into recession if negotiations on a Brexit trade deal fail.
According to Bloomberg estimates, both nations should receive 180 billion euros in seven years, or 30 percent. its 2019. Gross Domestic Product.
According to a source familiar with the situation, some Orban officials have long disagreed with his position and thought he was going too far.
In Poland, the Law and Justice Party has been cornered and its government no longer seems so stable. The ruling coalition has only a small majority in parliament, the upper house is controlled by the opposition, massive protests against the abortion law have been going on for more than a month, and the government has been criticized for mismanagement of the coronavirus. .
Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, leader of the smaller government party, said that “the absence of a veto would mean a total loss of confidence in the prime minister, with all the consequences that this entails.” Mr Gowin, who works with the more moderate wing of Justice and Justice, has asked for a compromise with Brussels.
“There is no good way out of this situation for the ruling party,” said Peter Buras, head of the Warsaw office of the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council, before the compromise was announced.
Gowin said on Wednesday that Ziobro was putting his party’s interests above the interests of the nation and warned that the possible consequences of the EU veto were a hasty general election.
“I would also like to point out that according to the polls, in the event of early elections, the ruling field would lose power, and probably for many years, and nobody wants that scenario,” he told reporters.
After the collapse of communism just over three decades ago, EU membership became the Holy Grail of the former Eastern bloc. Once achieved, billions of euros have fundamentally transformed their economies. From the EU perspective, 2004 the integration of the eastern states became a crucial moment in the political project.
Orban’s vision, which he calls “illiberal democracy”, has divided Hungary, despite the fact that his Fidesz party has the support of as many voters as the opposition as a whole. In Poland, the Law and Justice Party, led by leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his own elected prime minister, Morawieckis, has been identified as an advocate of conservative Catholic values fighting the European liberal elite.
In both countries, however, the EU – which, after decades of isolation, has brought the freedom to travel and the opportunity to work abroad – can enjoy the popularity envied by many Western countries. A poll released this month showed that Hungarians support membership in the bloc at a record 85 percent.
So far, Orban has tried to continue the dismantling of democratic institutions that he has begun, while formally complying with the EU’s demands. However, what he called a “peacock dance” turned into a game of “hawk and April” with Brussels after the bloc pushed to introduce funding oversight.
Although Orban and Morawiecki have argued that their countries can do without EU funds, this feat has always come at a potentially high political cost, as they have turned their countries into a showdown when bloc membership is generally questioned.
“All those who say that we should give up EU membership, that they use us, that we can do it ourselves without money from the bloc, are pushing us towards international marginalization, if not Polexit,” the former Polish president said on Monday. Alexander to the private broadcaster TVN24. Kwasniewski. “What Law and Justice is doing is dangerous for Poland.”
V. Orban is already preparing for 2022. elections in which he hopes to win his fourth consecutive term. He described the upcoming elections as the most difficult, as the pandemic highlighted gaps in the healthcare system and crippled the economic growth fueled by the EU money on which his power was based.
“Today, the electorate cannot feel that we are fully committed to supporting the European Union and its future,” said Tibor Navracsics, a former justice minister in Orban who had been with the European Commission until last year, in a statement on Monday. “One might think that this government is fighting for freedom against the EU, as against a new type of Soviet Union.”
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