Opinion

EPP ♥ Orbán

Leading figures in the European People’s Party are sheltering the Orbán regime in the name of partisan politics.

Since Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party swept to power in Hungary in 2010, his government has managed to rewrite the Hungarian constitution, eliminate checks and balances, undermine the independence of the judiciary, reduce media pluralism, place party loyalists in nearly all significant positions of public authority and introduce a new electoral system designed to favor his party.

The success of Orbán’s tactics was on full display in his victory in the April 2014 Hungarian parliamentary elections, which according to international election monitors, were held under conditions that gave “an undue advantage” to Orbán’s party.

Emboldened by his electoral victory, Orbán declared last July that he intended to abandon liberal democracy in favor of building an “illiberal state,” citing China, Russia, Singapore, and Turkey as role models. He cultivated closer ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, warmly hosting him in Budapest and pursuing bilateral gas and nuclear power deals with Russia while denouncing EU proposals to strengthen its common energy policy. Most recently, Orbán sparked controversy in the European Parliament when he said that Hungary should consider reintroducing the death penalty and launched a “national consultation” on immigration that critics argued was designed to promote xenophobia.

European institutions are pushing back. The European Parliament endorsed a highly critical report on Hungary in June 2013 and, earlier this month, again voted to condemn Orbán’s recent actions. The Council of Europe published a highly critical report on Hungary’s Constitutional Reforms in 2013, and this month published a new report criticizing xenophobia and violence against minorities and immigrants in Hungary. The European Commission has launched a series of legal actions against Hungary. But none of this has deterred Orbán.

To understand why the EU has been so ineffective in opposing Orbán’s drive to consolidate power, one must look first to the leadership of the European People’s Party (EPP), the center right faction in the European Parliament of which Orbán’s Fidesz party remains a member in good standing. Leading figures in the EPP are sheltering the Orbán regime in the name of partisan politics. In the interest of party loyalty and of maintaining their majority in the European Parliament, many EPP politicians have proven themselves willing to tolerate Orbán’s violations of democratic values.

For example, in July 2013, when the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (the LIBE Committee) issued the Tavares Report criticizing the erosion of fundamental rights in Hungary, EPP vice-chair Manfred Weber (who has since become the party’s chair), dismissed it as a politically motivated attack on the Orbán government by leftist parties.

 

In March 2014, EPP President Joseph Daul spoke at a Fidesz campaign rally in Budapest praising Orbán and endorsing his reelection bid. After Orbán’s victory, EPP leaders across Europe ignored international criticism of the election and warmly congratulated Orbán. The EPP has placed Fidesz politicians in key leadership posts in the Parliament where they can help deflect criticism of the Orbán regime. József Szájer, a close associate of Orbán’s who played a key role in Hungary’s controversial constitutional reforms, is a vice-chair of the EPP, while last year Fidesz MEP Kinga Gál was named vice-chair of the LIBE committee which had previously criticized the Fidesz government so harshly.

Most recently, this month when the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning Orban’s statements on the death penalty and his migration consultation, only parties on the left voted in favor. EPP leadership publicly defended the Orban government.

To be fair, a few EPP politicians have spoken out against Orbán. Viviane Reding, a Luxembourger affiliated with the EPP, spoke out publicly against the Orbán regime’s “systematic” efforts to undermine the rule of law and constitutional values when she was European commissioner for justice from 2010 to 2014. Under her leadership, the Commission launched a series of infringement procedures targeting Orbán’s moves to centralize power.

Neither regular infringement cases nor action based on the so called “Rule of Law initiative” the Commission proposed in 2014 could hope to stop democratic backsliding in Hungary if politicians at the European level are willing to coddle the national leaders responsible. The experience of other democracies, such as Mexico, Argentina, and the United States in the era of the “Solid South,” suggests that so long as party leaders are willing to put partisan interests above democratic values, they may allow local pockets of autocracy to persist for decades within otherwise democratic systems.

For leaders of the EPP that means standing up to Orbán and his Fidesz party. German Chancellor Angela Merkel took a small step in the right direction during her visit to Budapest in February when she emphasized the importance in a democracy, “to appreciate the role of the opposition, civil society and the media” and questioned the very idea that a democracy could be “illiberal.” Most recently, the EPP-backed Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker greeted Orbán at the Riga summit in May by saying, “Hello dictator” and giving him a playful slap on the cheek.

But neither oblique criticisms nor ribbing at EU summits will stop Orbán. To discourage democratic backsliding in Hungary, EPP leaders need to stand together and firmly declare that Orbán and Fidesz’s actions have no place in the proud family of the democratic center-right.

 Daniel Kelemen is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University. 

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