In recent years, there's been growing concern
about Hungary's direction under its authoritarian leader, Viktor Orban.
As well as attacking democratic freedoms at home,
he's been undermining Western solidarity over Ukraine.
Indeed, his efforts to challenge Western positions have been so
far-reaching that many believe that he's actively serving Russia's interests.
So, how has this happened? And what, if anything, can be done about it?
Hello and welcome. If you're new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay and
here I take an informed look at international relations, conflict, security, and statehood.
While states once existed as individual units within the international system,
the modern world order is built on multilateralism.
Since 1945, there's been a massive growth in the number of international organisations.
However, while most of them have clearly defined rules for joining,
remarkably few set out the ways to expel a member.
Sometimes, this isn't needed. Many bodies, including the United Nations,
exist as a discussion forum for countries with very different worldviews and political systems.
But this isn't always the case.
Some organisations expect members to adhere to shared values.
In the case of Western bodies, such as NATO and the European Union,
this is meant to be a fundamental respect for the principles of liberal democracy.
But what happens if a member turns its back on these values?
This question has become increasingly important within the European Union.
Poland has become an extremely troublesome partner.
Meanwhile, Turkey has long posed problems for NATO.
But there's one country that now stands out as a real challenge for them both: Hungary.
Over the past decade, it's been increasingly odds with its Western partners over a range of issues.
So much so that there are even calls for it to be expelled from the two organisations.
Hungary lies at the heart of Central Europe.
Landlocked, it's surrounded by seven countries.
To its north are Slovakia and Ukraine, and Romania is to its East.
To its south are Serbia and Croatia, and Slovenia and Austria lie to its West.
At 93,000 square kilometers, or 36,000 square miles, it's the 108th largest member of the UN.
Its population is around 9.8 million.
While the vast majority of ethnic Hungarians, there are several minority communities,
including Roma, Germans, Romanians and Slovaks.
And while the vast majority are Christian, linguistically Hungary is highly unusual.
While all the surrounding countries speak Indo-European languages,
Hungarian belongs to an entirely separate language family, alongside Finnish and Estonian.
Hungary has a fascinating history. Having arrived in Europe from the Urals in the 9th century,
the Hungarians established their first kingdom in the 11th century.
However, in 1699, Hungary came under Habsburg rule - later forming the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This lasted until the end of the First World War,
when it became an independent state under the Treaty of Trianon.
However, the treaty stripped the new country of almost two-thirds of its
traditional territories, which were then given to neighbouring states.
This is a source of bitterness for many Hungarians to this day.
Having allied with Nazi Germany to regain its lost lands, at the end of the Second
World War Hungary came under the Soviet Union's sphere of influence - becoming
part of the Warsaw Pact alongside six other countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
In 1956, a popular Uprising against Soviet control was brutally suppressed.
However, as the Cold War came to an end, Hungary peacefully transitioned
to democracy and, in June 1991, the last Soviet troops left the country.
In the years that followed, Hungary quickly oriented itself towards the West.
In 1994, it applied for EU membership, starting negotiations in 1998.
Meanwhile, in March 1999, it joined the Czech Republic and
Poland to become the first former Warsaw Pat members to join NATO.
Six years later, on 1 May 2004, Hungary alongside nine other
countries from Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean joined the European Union.
At first, Hungary was seen as one of the great success stories of EU and NATO enlargement.
It had managed to transition to democracy extremely well and was
attracting considerable international investment.
And, in December 2007, it even joined the Schengen Area,
thereby opening passport-free movement to the other members at the zone.
And while there was some economic difficulties, including its excessive government spending which
eventually saw it given a 20 billion Euro bailout by the International Monetary Fund,
the country nevertheless seemed to be a good member of the Western club.
However, things were about to change.
In May 2010, the centre-right Fidesz party won a landslide victory in Hungarian national elections,
ousting the ruling socialists.
At the time, few seemed worried.
The party's leader, Viktor Orbán, had served as prime minister between 1998 and 2002,
when Hungary made most of its significant moves towards Western integration,
and he was generally seen as an internationalist liberal.
However, it soon became apparent that things had changed.
Within months, Orban introduced measures to restrict press freedoms.
And while these were eventually watered down after EU pressure, the Hungarian
prime minister stirred up considerable anger by now comparing the EU to the Soviet Union.
As Orban consolidated his position at home, these problems only grew.
As well as further restricting media freedoms,
he began to clamp down on civil liberties and human rights.
And by 2014 he was no longer even trying to hide his agenda; openly announcing that his vision for
Hungary was for an "illiberal democracy" based on a "different, special, national approach."
At the same time, his overt nationalism and xenophobia was causing wider problems.
As well as antagonising neighbours by reaching out and strengthening ties
to their Hungarian communities, he also became overtly anti-immigrant.
In 2015, he undermined EU solidarity during
the Refugee Crisis by refusing to resettle asylum seekers,.
Calling them "potential terrorists" and "intruders",
he made it clear that he believed in a Hungary only for Hungarians.
Despite mounting criticisms from various quarters, Orban seemed wholly untroubled.
Indeed, he appeared to revel in his notoriety.
In large part, this was driven by the EU's persistent failure to tackle his bad behaviour.
By now, however, Hungary had become extremely skilled at playing the bloc's politics;
backing down on controversial measures just enough and just when he needed to.
However, Orban also enjoyed high-level protection from the centre-right European People's Party,
the largest bloc in the European Parliament.
But even after the Parliament voted to start infringement proceedings
against Hungary, in 2018, Orban knew he was safe.
Any serious action, including the suspension of certain membership rights - the so-called
"nuclear option" for misbehaving members - would require the support of all other member states.
This included Poland, which had also by this stage
taken a deeply liberal turn and was serving as Hungary's closest ally.
As a result, the situation continued to deteriorate and,
in 2019, Freedom House downgraded Hungary's democratic standards to "partly free".
The only EU member given this rating, it noted that Orban was using his
parliamentary entry strength to control, "the opposition, media, religious groups,
academia, NGOs, the courts, asylum seekers, and the private sector."
By now, many observers noted that Hungary had essentially become a corrupt one-party state.
Moreover, there were fears that Orban, and Hungary,
was increasingly becoming a role model for others.
However, while the domestic situation had been a source of growing concern for many close
observers, it was the war in Ukraine that really brought Hungary to wider international attention.
As the Russian invasion started,
there were real fears that Hungary would block Western action against Moscow.
Aside from the close relationship between Orban and Putin, which had
seen the Hungarian leader visit Moscow just weeks before the start of the war,
relations between Budapest and Kyiv were strained over the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.
However, although Hungary hampered NATO efforts to supply military aid to Ukraine by
using its airspace to Ukrainian aircraft, Orban in fact surprised
observers by opposing the invasion and supporting EU sanctions against Moscow.
But things weren't quite as they seemed.
With close elections coming up, many suggested that he'd merely wanted to
avoid being seen to be too pro-Russian in a country where memories of 1956 still lingered.
This scepticism was confirmed when Fidesz in fact won another landslide victory.
Having been congratulated by Putin, and reappointing pro-Russian figures to his
government, Orban quickly changed his position.
Hungary now became increasingly obstructive.
As well as trying to limit the scale and scope of further sanctions on Russia,
Budapest refused to back EU proposals to reduce
Russian gas consumption - eventually forcing EU members to exempt Hungary.
Indeed, it turns out that the country was already in talks to increase its supplies of Russian gas.
Meanwhile, it antagonised Western partners in other ways.
For example, alongside Turkey,
Hungary still hasn't ratified Sweden and Finland's membership of NATO.
On top of this, Orban continues his bad behaviour,
voicing ever more openly nationalist and racist views.
In July 2022, during an annual speech to Romanian Hungarians,
he said that Hungarians didn't want to become a "mixed race".
Widely condemned internationally, the comments even drew anger at home
as one of his advisors resigned over what she called his "pure Nazi text".
By any measure, Hungary now sounds firmly against liberal democratic values.
So much so that many believe that Orban is acting on Russia's behalf,
suggesting that Hungary is Moscow's Trojan Horse within the West.
While this could certainly be true, and it would seem to fit the pattern of Russian
interference we've seen elsewhere, we must nevertheless be cautious.
The Hungarian leader's position may equally be shaped by self-centred factors.
This could be anything ranging from a genuine commitment to authoritarian national populism,
through to an admiration for the Russian leader,
a troll-like desire to antagonise his Western Partners, a way to divert national attention
as he engages in wholesale corruption, or simply placing Hungary's economic interests
above solidarity with his EU and NATO Partners or even neighbouring Ukraine.
But regardless of the reasons for his actions,
it seems that the tide may now finally be turning against him.
In February 2022, the European Court of Justice ruled that EU money
can be withheld from members that don't abide by the body's fundamental values.
As a result, in September, the European Commission announced
plans to withhold 7.5 billion euros of funding over persistent public procurement corruption.
But while Budapest has agreed to introduce measures to fix
the problem, many remain sceptical .
A they see it, Orban will merely do what he always does.
He'll do what he needs to do to get past this issue before falling back on his old ways.
More to the point, many will argue that, underneath everything,
he clearly remains deeply intolerant, authoritarian, and xenophobic.
For this reason, many want far tougher steps and there
have even been calls for Hungary to be expelled from NATO and EU.
Of course, this won't happen.
For a start, there's simply no mechanism for a country to be expelled from either body.
And while some argue that where there's a political will, there's a legal way, despite all
Orban's misdeeds, there's still a deep reluctance to pursue such a radical and unprecedented step.
But we must also accept that not taking decisive action carries other extreme risks.
Regardless of whether Orban is in fact directly under Moscow's influence,
Hungary's position on a whole range of issues - from basic democratic standards,
civil liberties, human rights, and how to deal with Russia - stand fundamentally at
odds with the values of almost all its EU and NATO partners.
More to the point, by not acting, both organisations are not only undermining their own
values, they're also helping and encouraging other members to follow Hungary's path.
For all these reasons, and regardless of what lies behind Orban's behaviour,
the West needs to think long and hard about what it can and should do about its Hungary problem.
But, of course, Hungary isn't the only problem.
Here's a video on Turkey's difficulties with its Western partners.
Or, alternatively, here's another video that you might find interesting.
Thanks so much for watching and see you in the next video.