UNDERSTANDING ORBAN

by Daniel Barge

Is Orban a puppet of Vladimir Putin? 

Following his actions at the recent EU summit, it would appear so. Although he "left the room" to allow EU leaders to vote "yes" to EU accession talks with the EU, he soon returned to veto a €50 billion, four-year financial aid package.

The obvious implication or conclusion is that Putin has some disgusting sex tape of Orban that would destroy him, so that Orban throws a spanner in EU efforts to support Ukraine whenever ordered to. 

But the Financial Times has a different take:

For much of his 13 years in power Orbán has used an antagonistic relationship with the EU to galvanise voters and extract financial concessions from Brussels. His current beef with Brussels is its suspension of €20bn of funding over concerns relating to the rule of law and fundamental rights, but EU officials are moving to limit his ability to thwart the bloc’s agenda.

Orban, it seems, just views the EU as a big fat cash cow, whose need for unanimous votes on important issues can be monetized.

He has done this before:

A longtime eurosceptic and self-styled “illiberal democrat”, he has played hardball at several previous summits, vowing to block the EU’s €1.8tn budget and pandemic recovery fund in 2020 or an €18bn aid package to Ukraine a year ago, only to retreat.

“He is always transactional, never ideological,” said a European diplomat. “And we shouldn’t underestimate that he likes being at the centre of attention.”

So, why is he pissing in the EU pool right now?

The day before EU leaders gathered in Brussels, the commission agreed to release €10bn of the frozen funds to Hungary, arguing it had enacted reforms strengthening judicial independence. EU officials said the concession was merit-based but the timing was helpful.

Orbán and his allies had repeatedly said his opposition to helping Ukraine was not linked to Hungary’s EU funding. But as the summit drew to a close on Friday, he finally named his price: payment of the remaining €20bn in funds.

“This is a great opportunity for Hungary to make it clear that it should get what it deserves,” Orbán told Hungarian public radio. “Not half or a quarter, but the whole thing. We demand fair treatment, and now we have a good chance to achieve this.”

But the EU's patience with this pattern of blatant extortion may be wearing thin, and other methods for dealing with Orban, besides giving into his demands are now on the table.

The EU's "nuclear option" is Article 7:

Some officials have considered reactivating the so-called Article 7 punishment procedure for rule of law breaches, which can result in the suspension of voting rights. It can be blocked by another member state, but a change of government in Poland means Hungary no longer has a guaranteed protector. Still, multiple countries are nervous about using what is essentially the EU’s biggest weapon against a member state.