Monthly Archives: March 2018

Hungarian ruling party Fidesz has sharpened its rhetoric against immigrants at the end of the campaign before the parliamentary elections scheduled for 8 April. The campaign has included elements of criticism towards the UN and a package of draft laws limiting the activities of non-governmental organisations. It is unlikely the government will soften its rhetoric and actions after the elections. This may negatively affect Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ability to build alliances among the European Christian Democrat parties in the future.

Fidesz does not have an election programme. It has built up its campaign around migration issues, which have been used for three years, since migrants, some from the Middle East, reached the southern borders of Hungary. It has used this issue instrumentally to maintain voter support. In the government’s rhetorical fight against accepting migrants, the enemy was initially EU institutions (“Brussels”), then the American philanthropist of Hungarian descent George Soros. At the end of the campaign, the UN has also begun to fill the function of enemy for internal political interests. According to the Hungarian government, the UN intends to impose on the country an obligation to take in illegal immigrants. Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Péter Szijjártó called on UN High Commissioner for Refugees Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein to resign after he described Prime Minister Orbán’s statements as racist and xenophobic. At the same time, Hungary is critical of the Global Compact for Migration, prepared under the auspices of the United Nations.

Fidesz argues that at stake in the next parliamentary elections is setting up another “national” government or one “supporting migration.” To illustrate the threats posed by migrants to the Hungarian nation, Orbán, in his speech of 8 February, pointed to the need for Hungarians to keep their own “colour” and avoid a “mixed” nation, which analysts suggested the government aims at maintaining the country’s racial purity. In turn, in a speech on 18 February, Orbán claimed that Hungarians are better educated and more employable than migrants.

The prime minister uses other offensive rhetoric against employees of NGOs, calling them “well-developed examples” of “the type of European ideological intellectuals.” At the same time, the government submitted to parliament a draft package of laws under the name “Stop Soros,” aimed at further limiting the activities of NGOs. The new regulations will, among others, enable the interior minister to suspend an NGO the government deems “supporting illegal migration,” which it considers a national security risk. The law would also impose a 25% tax on donations these entities receive from abroad. The vote on the bill was postponed until after the elections.

The opposition focuses in its campaign on calling the government to settle well-documented corruption scandals related to the prime minister’s family and the problem of the mass emigration of young Hungarians. Also, all the opposition parties have made numerous economic promises; however, none has presented a broader vision of the country’s future or its place in the EU and in the world. The parties do not express themselves clearly about the relocation of refugees. They declare, however, that they would not remove the fence on the southern border of the country.

The opposition is more active than in the previous elections in seeking the votes of Hungarians living in neighbouring countries. The ethnic policy of the Fidesz government has increased the number of Hungarian citizens by more than 1 million since 2010. About 360,000 voters who do not have an address in Hungary have already registered on electoral rolls. This is about twice as many as before the elections in 2014 and are mostly voters from neighbouring countries, whose votes may decide two seats in the 199-member parliament. In 2014, these mandates gave the ruling party a constitutional majority. That is why the leaders of Jobbik, the Hungarian Socialist Party, and the party Dialog (MSZP-P) paid a visit to Transylvania in Romania, even though in the last elections an overwhelming majority (95%) of Hungarians living there voted for Fidesz. As the electoral rights of Hungarian citizens living abroad are subject to public debate in Hungary (only 18% of the country considers them justified), these parties ensured their support for maintaining these rights. Jobbik has also promised to support efforts to create an autonomous Szeklerland in Transylvania, inhabited mainly by Hungarians. At the same time, the party of former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, the Democratic Coalition (DK), highlights in its campaign the potential withdrawal of electoral rights of citizens who do not reside in Hungary.

Polls from the beginning of March indicate that a coalition government of Fidesz-Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) will gain another mandate to form a government. Among all eligible voters, support for Fidesz-KDNP is 39%, for extreme right-wing party Jobbik, it is 12%, for MSZP-P, starting from the joint electoral list, headed by the most popular politician of the opposition Gergely Karácsony, 9%, for the leftist DK, 6%, and for the Greens (LMP), 4%. The electoral threshold is 5% for individual parties, and 10% for two parties sharing a common list. Therefore, apart from Fidesz and Jobbik, none of the political forces can be certain of achieving the electoral threshold. If all of them enter parliament, the opposition would have more seats than in the 2014 elections.

In the local government by-election held on 25 February in Hódmezővásárhely, one of the few Hungarian cities where Fidesz has been ruling for over two decades, Péter Márki-Zay, an independent candidate, won with a clear advantage. He had the support of all opposition parties. The vote proved that when there is high turnout (62.5%), maintaining the ruling party’s core electorate may not be enough to win, since Fidesz received only a slightly smaller number of votes in this election than could have been expected from public opinion polls.

Such a scenario will be difficult to repeat in the parliamentary elections. First, as some Hungarian analysts note, Márki-Zay won not because of the opposition alliance but rather their withdrawal, marking him as a credible candidate among local voters. Second, there is no joint opposition candidate in most of the 106 single-mandate constituencies in the parliamentary elections. The opposition’s fight for mandates—and public funding—prevailed over the attempt to unite. Third, none of the current opposition parties played a role in the last parliamentary term for Fidesz’s main rival, and this alone creates the chance for the opposition to win when considering the specifics of the Hungarian electoral system.

The probability of a Fidesz victory in the upcoming parliamentary elections and the possibility of setting up a government for the third time in a row is very high. The rhetoric of the ruling party used in the electoral campaign makes it similar to European extreme-right forces. It is not probable that Fidesz will soften its internal policy style after the elections, since it serves to justify to voters the government’s actions. As a consequence, its support within the European People’s Party may narrow, which may lead to seeking allies among the more radical European right-wing forces. Orbán’s meeting with Giorgia Meloni, president of the Italian Eurosceptic party Brothers of Italy, on 28 February in Budapest and another unofficial meeting with Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch extreme right-wing Party of Freedom, on 25 January can be considered the first signs of that. Wilders presented the Hungarian edition of his book in the city of Győr in the presence of government representatives.

Compliance with the judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union in legal disputes and the lack of conflict with large EU states confirm that Hungary conducts a European and foreign policy independent from the internal political discourse. It considers democratic values to be a purely formal legal question and it is convinced that such an approach helps it to avoid the negative consequences of their domestic political actions in EU forums. However, some of Orbán’s speeches, perceived as racist, as well as limiting civil society’s functioning, are noticed in Europe, confirmed by critical remarks by the Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Vera Jourová, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks, and the head of diplomacy of Luxembourg Jean Asselborn. This may damage the effectiveness of Hungary’s pragmatic foreign policy, if compliance with the rule of law, including the provisions of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, become decisive in the discussion on the future of the EU and its budget. Linking these issues has been announced, among others, by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

(21. 03, 2018. via pism.pl)

Altogether 82 percent of Hungarians support Hungary’s border fence and just under 80 percent oppose the European Union’s migrant quota scheme, according to a fresh survey by the Nézőpont Institute. The survey found that the border fence also has strong support among the voters of the opposition parties.

Fully 85 percent of the supporters of Jobbik approved of the fence, as did 74 percent of LMP’s, 65 percent of the Democratic Coalition’s and 49 percent of the Socialist Party’s voters.

On average, 63 percent of opposition voters agree with the government on the EU’s migrant quota scheme. Among Jobbik supporters, 76 percent reject it, compared with 65 percent of LMP’s, 50 percent of DK’s and 46 percent of the Socialists’ supporters. Nézőpont also found that 68 percent of Hungarians believe that of Hungary’s political parties, ruling Fidesz is the most strongly opposed to immigration. Fully 53 percent of the survey’s respondents said that there were opposition parties that are pro-migration. Nézőpont also surveyed the other three Visegrad Group countries — the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia — for their support for Hungary’s border fence.

It found that 60 percent of Poles and Slovaks and 55 percent of Czechs had friends and acquaintances who support the fence.

Nézőpont conducted the phone poll of 1,000 people in Hungary between March 9 and 14. It surveyed 1,000 people in each of the V4 countries between Jan. 18 and Feb. 13.

(19.03.2018 – via MTI/dailynewshungary.com)

According to GLOBS Magazine, the cooperation of the Visegrád countries, looking back on great traditions, is probably one of the most interesting partnerships in the world. Even the name is special, since it was purposely named after the city lying on the coast of the Danube, north of Buda. This was the place where the Hungarian, Czech and Polish kings met in 1335. (In that time, Slovakia’s territory was under the control of the Kingdom of Hungary, meaning that the meeting covered all the four present member states). The Roman Catholic countries located between the Baltic Sea and the Adrian Sea agreed that they would communicate their economic and political needs together to the western powers (primarily to the neighbouring Holy Roman Empire) and eastern Orthodox or Muslim powers, which mostly signified the framing of a joint trade and customs policy in practice. So we already agreed back then that we would go together without separate deals with outsiders. Following the change of regime in 1989-1990, the leaders of the Central European region (József Antall, Václav Havel and Lech Walesa) had exact visions about how they wanted to lead out their countries from the institutional fetters of the Soviet rule, so they wound up the Warsaw Pact in the 1990s and quit the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. Moreover, the states who once cooperated in Visegrád knew that besides introducing the market economy model in their countries, they also wanted to change their economic relations with the rest of the world based on the European principles and practices. They initiated so called Europe Agreements – more specifically, it is a type of free trade and economic cooperation relations – with the EU and signed agreements about the withdrawal of the Soviet troops. (When evaluating their result, it must be taken into consideration that the communist regime – then yearned to be reformed by the Soviet Union and Gorbachev – only collapsed in the second part of 1991.) That was when the three great statesmen decided to re-establish the historic Visegrád cooperation to achieve joint goals in the economic and geopolitical vacuum – since they could only join the EU and NATO later. The memorandum of association was signed in February of 1991 – at that time the countries were still hosted the Soviet troops – and the institutional cooperation was launched immediately. Since the split of Czechoslovakia in 1993, the Visegrád Group has four members. The power and attractiveness of the cooperation is demonstrated well by the fact that many of the neighbouring, west-oriented countries wanted to join them, but it was always turned down by the founders. At the same time, the so called Visegrád+ political cooperation is focused on a more and more extended cooperation – most intensely with the countries of West Balkan and the Eastern Partnership. Therefore, the Visegrád Group fought arm-in-arm for their integration goals, such as a strong cooperation with NATO – as part of the Partnership for Peace programme until the admission in 1999 (Slovakia was only admitted in 2004) – and the accession to the European Union following the successful partnership agreements to the start of the negotiations in 1998 and the accession in 2004. The Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) was worked out and enacted right in the beginning of the cooperation in order to boost the failed trade between the member countries. This didn’t only have a good influence on the traditionally state-owned or nationally owned companies’ product and service trade, but it also launched prosperous trade and production cooperation between the regional subsidiary companies of the foreign direct investments (FDI) and their other interests in the countries. This was accompanied by a quick visa-liberalisation in the EU for the citizens of our countries – free flow of labour wasn’t established at the time – which resulted in outstanding growth in trade turnover and touristic performance with both the EU and each other from the 2000s. A curiosity about CEFTA is that it was open to other countries of the region as well, and after the Visegrád countries joined the EU in 2004, it became a living heritage of the 1991 foundation through the states waiting to be admitted. Even though the Visegrád countries joined the Schengen zone in 2007, the integration pace is very different regarding the admission to the euro zone. They all accepted the introduction of the joint currency with the signature and ratification of of the Accession Agreement, but the date is not defined and neither Hungary, nor Poland and the Czech Republic seem to be ambitious to set a concrete date. Slovakia gave up its own currency, the Slovak corona in January of 2009. It’s hard to decide whether Slovakia – who wanted to strengthen by this its European determination – or the other three partners took the right step, but I think it says a lot that Slovakia’s economic growth has fallen back to the Hungarian level since her entry in the euro zone – just at the time if the financial crises in Europe. Economists discuss whether this is the result of the introduction of the euro in Slovákia or the lack of it in the other three Visegrád countries. The success and development of the group is also demonstrated by the Visegrád Fund set up in 2000, which helps the establishment of human relations and the cooperation of the scientific and cultural spheres with a moderate budget. The fund also receives support from countries outside of the Visegrád Group, with which it aims to strengthen cooperation with Germany for instance, and other great, developed world economic and political partners like Israel, Japan and South Korea. It must be highlighted that before the high-level union meetings, the Visegrád leaders always consult each other at ministerial level. Furthermore, the cooperation between parliamentary and professional organisations have become just as important as the cooperation of the governments. The cooperation is still based on structural economic similarities, because the countries’ foreign direct capital/GDP rates are still among the highest in the European Union, while the chances of the four countries to be involved in the international productive value chains are also similar. Hence, the EU plays a significant role in their trade – especially export – whereas the export capacities of enterprises in national ownership is quite low everywhere. Our demographic trends, and the rate and direction of emigration with purposes to work abroad are similar as well, however, the latter issue is probably a bit more moderate in the Czech Republic. The countries have similar views – though expressed with different vehemence – on the dangers regarding migration, therefore we aim to keep the key to immigration policy in our hands. A good example of outstanding solidarity is the way our partners help protect Hungary’s southern borders against illegal immigrants, and how we joined our forces to send policemen to Serbia and FYROM to strengthen expertise and solidarity at the southern borders. The urge to represent our joint interest in Brussels is not only confined to the consequences of the persistent approach regarding our immigration autonomy, but the challenges EU’s great policies are facing must be mentioned as well. So far, we always managed to live through the issues concerning financial budgets and the reforms of cohesion and agricultural politics with beneficial outcomes. We are encouraging the strengthening of EU’s defence capability, we set up the Visegrád Combat Team that can help our smaller regional partners, like Slovenia or the Baltic states in fulfilling their needs regarding protection. Hungary took over the one-year presidency of the Visegrád Group for the fifth time on the 1st of July, 2017. We hold the presidency in a period, when we have to protect our joint interests at several negotiations of key importance in the EU, not only concerning the budget guidelines, but also regarding the effects of the BREXIT talks. London is the important employer of the Visegrád work force, and it used to be one of the main net contributors of the joint budget, from where the Visegrád countries received significant sources for the development and cohesion of the regions and the support of agricultural producers, which shall be expected to continue to be provided. Another joint challenge is that Brussels initiated infringement proceedings against three Visegrád member states due to the implementation of migrant quota schemes centred around the supervision of the requests of illegal immigrants entering the EU. The fourth country (Slovakia) also criticised the EU’s logic, when the country – along with Hungary – legally attacked the decision concerning the obligatory migrant quotas made on the session of the Home Affairs Council without consensus among member states, even if the two countries didn’t win the lawsuit formally in the European Commission. (To attest their solidarity, the Visegrád countries recently offered financial support to the mostly affected Italy.) But the current situation in the case of Hungary and Poland is very unique: a so far unprecedented proceeding arose (it has already been officially initiated against Warsaw), which would withdraw the voting right of the member state – in other words the participation in joint decision making – due to the alleged violation of the different aspects of constitutionality and rule of law, not to mention that it could also come together with a punishment fee, which has also been unprecedentedin this field so far. This is why it was very symbolic that the new Polish Prime Minister, Morawiecki, visited Hungary in the first days of January 2018 shortly after his entry into office to consult with his Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orbán, who is not only a sympathetic ally, but also the head of government of the current presidency of the Visegrád Group. Hungarian and Polish people are not only connected by special historic events and similar values, but Poland has also grown to be one of our greatest trade partners in the post-communist world, while their touristic presence in Hungary has also reached a significant level.

(04. 03. 2018 – via dailynewshungary.com)