Eu Leaders Set To Take On Hungary S Viktor Orban The Trojan Horse Of The Putin Regime

Gunter Verheugen can still recall the passions of a rosy past, when courtship between Hungary and the European Union was just beginning, and when one of his most attractive young protagonists was a student named Viktor Orban. It was 1989 when Mr Verheugen, a German politician, first met Mr Orban. “We had a short conversation and he said, ‘We will make Hungary a free and democratic country,’” he recalled. “That’s what he said. “And I had absolutely no reason to doubt.” Fifteen years later, Mr Verheugen chaired the accession of Hungary and nine other countries to the European Union as Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy. But the romance with Hungary is long over, and one of the pressing questions for Europe is whether, with the war raging in Ukraine, it is now ready to offer hard love to a leader that Mr Verheugen says he has become “a completely different person.” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin give a press conference at the Prime Minister’s residence in Budapest in 2019.ATTILA KISBENEDEK / AFP / Getty Images Mr Orban, who was first elected Prime Minister of Hungary in 1998, has been described by his former aides as a “dictator without terror” and by critics as the man who ended the country’s brief struggle with democracy. His supporters call him a prophet who protects his homeland from the liberal poisons of Western Europe. Already one of the most divisive forces in Europe, Mr Orban was recently bolstered by his fourth consecutive election victory earlier this month. A conservative who has spoken out against what he calls LGBT ideology, has stripped the courts and the media of their independence – all in the wake of a huge accumulation of wealth from friends and relatives – Mr Orban has fought with the European Union while maintaining relations with Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader. Mr Orban is “the Trojan horse of the Putin regime within the EU,” said Daniel Kelmen, a political scientist at Rutgers University. Prime Minister Orban, second from the right, took the stage in declaring victory in his country’s national elections at a rally in Budapest on April 3rd. NANNA HEITMANN / The New York Times News Service Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, has set in motion a new path of conflict between the EU and the flourishing powers that have flourished between it. European Member States have found new determination to oppose the Kremlin. Now, after years of anxious indecision, European leaders say they are preparing to face Mr Orban as well. For the first time since returning to power in 2010, he is facing resistance that could punish him for weakening Hungarian democracy. In February, the European Court of Justice ruled that the EU could withhold funds from Member States that do not respect the rule of law. On April 5, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged to start implementing the regulation in Hungary, which has received billions of euros in EU money to reshape its cities and build a new class of oligarchs, many with close ties with Mr Orban. The stakes have probably never been higher, as Mr Orban seeks to boost the fortunes of far-right ideologues elsewhere. A Hungarian bank has lent 10.7 million euros to French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who advanced to the second round of voting on April 24 against center-right President Emanuel Macron. “If Mr Orban can ‘help bring an ideological ally and an adventurous authoritarian like Le Pen into a major Member State, that would be a great victory for him,’” says Professor Kelemen, who has written extensively on Europe. . “Because then, he would have really managed to make the EU completely safe for politicians like him.” At home, Mr. Orban sits safely on an election fortress he built primarily for himself. Political scientists say he has turned Hungary into an electoral dictatorship that uses levers of state control – over the press and the courts in particular – to safeguard the ballot box. His victory in the April elections gave him a two-thirds majority that once again puts the constitution in his hands. It was “a victory so great that you can see it from the moon, and certainly from Brussels,” Mr Orban said in celebration. Supporters of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban attend a rally marking the end of his campaign in Szekesfehervar, Hungary on April 1.BERNADETT SZABO / Reuters “Everyone who is a Christian and a patriot in this country is happy about it. “We expected a victory, but not as big as it was,” said Zoltan Osztie, a prominent Catholic priest who is former president of the Hungarian Association of Christian Intellectuals. He called the Hungarian leader a pioneer and a prophet, crediting Mr Orban with supporting the three pillars of Hungarian society: God, the homeland and the family. However, there are also indications that Mr Orban has become more vulnerable. Cracks have been created in its relationship with Poland, which in recent years has worked with Hungary to dispel European concerns about a democratic setback. In early April, however, Polish strongman Jaroslaw Kaczynski publicly rebuked Mr Orban for his refusal to condemn Russian atrocities in Ukraine. “When Orban says he can not see what happened to Buha, he should be advised to see an ophthalmologist,” Kaczynski said. Hungary’s economic situation has also become more precarious. In November, it cut prices on staple foods and fuel, with gasoline now selling at a one-third discount compared to other parts of Europe. The subsidized goods have proved costly and the Hungarian funds have already been deprived of some funds to recover the coronavirus held by the EU. Hungary spent 72% of its planned annual deficit in the first quarter alone. The forint has sunk to record lows against the euro and the country’s central bank has quickly raised interest rates. Even before the rise in fuel prices, the Dutch bank Rabobank said that Hungary, by some measures, is second only to Argentina in economic vulnerability among emerging markets. Mr Orban is on a “catastrophic” path and without any change “can not survive financially”, says Arpad Szekely, former Hungarian ambassador to Russia. Mr Orban’s east-opening policy, a decades-long plan to distance his country economically from Europe while building trade with Russia and China, faces an uncertain future. “Russia had the ambition to emerge as an alternative to the EU in Central Europe,” said Tibor Navracsics, a close associate of Mr Orban, a former Hungarian member of the European Commission. Mr Orban broke with other EU countries and agreed to pay for Russian gas in rubles. But there are now real questions about how much of a presence Russia can maintain “in the Central European region as an economic power,” he says. Mr Navracsics, on the other hand, said the invasion of Ukraine was likely to bring Hungary closer to the EU. “The EU threat to withdraw funding is certain political concessions. That’s clear. “ Laszlo Bruna, the mayor of Tiszabo, once called the poorest place in Hungary. Nathan VanderKlippe / The Globe and Mail In 2012, the village of Tiszabo won the title of the poorest place in Hungary. A predominantly Roma rural outpost, 130 km southeast of Budapest, “almost everyone in this village lived on help,” says Mayor Laszlo Bruna. A decade later, Tiszabo won a very different title: It was the most populous of the 36 Hungarian villages that gave more than 90 percent of their vote to Fidesz, Mr Orban’s party, in the April elections. Out of 972 voters in Tiszabo, only 12 cast ballots for other parties. “This village is like a big family. Everyone knows everyone. “And if I tell people here that we are with Fidesz from now on, they will follow me,” said Mr Bruna. They follow him to a party that has flooded them with gifts. Tiszabo is today a village that has been transformed, with a modernized medical clinic, renovated town hall, school improvements, renovated streets, a bright new sports center and a construction site where a kindergarten will have space, the mayor estimates, for up to 200 children. . The population of the village is just over 2,000. A sign at this point indicates that it is being built with an EU grant worth $ 1.33 million. A short walk away, Mr. Bruna eats in the countryside with a beef stew from one of his cows slaughtered the day before. “Many people do not understand why Fidesz gained that majority. I have a very simple answer to that. “Fidesz helps everyone,” he said, referring to job creation and business. Tiszabo can now boast of an ice cream parlor. Once Hungary’s poorest village, Tiszabo has received significant state funding for new construction and is now one of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s strongest electoral supporters. Nathan VanderKlippe / The Globe and Mail Such generosity is much less lavish in places that resist Fidesz. “If you are the mayor of the opposition, your city does not receive subsidies. “They will even administratively block the use of European funding in your city,” said Peter Marki-Zay, mayor of Hodmezovasarhely, a small town in the southeast of the country. He is also the man who was briefly considered capable of overthrowing Mr Orban. Mr Marki-Zay led a coalition of opposition parties to run against Mr Orban in the April 3 election. It was “the last chance for the opposition to seize power,” said Laurent Pech, a European law scholar at Middlesex University in London. Mr Marki-Zay was crushed. “That’s the game I think, now, definitively,” says Professor Pech. “There is no case for the regime to …