by Paul Lendvai
In addition to attacking the Central European University (CEU) and the nongovernmental organisations—‘foreign agents financed by foreign money’—Fidesz and the far-right Jobbik party pushed through a law in March 2017 that forces all asylum seekers into detention camps, kept in converted shipping containers. Amnesty International, the UN refugee agency and other civil rights groups condemned the measures as ‘illegal and deeply inhuman’ and ‘a flagrant violation of international law’. Orbán rejected the accusations, continuing to claim in his speeches that migration is a security issue, representing ‘a Trojan horse for terrorism.’
At the same time, the Orbán government has started a large-scale campaign against the EU, with newspaper advertisements and billboards calling on the Hungarians: ‘Let’s Stop Brussels’. Every household has received a leaflet with a personal letter from the prime minister introducing six leading questions to prove that ‘Brussels’ plans are endangering our national independence and the safety of our country.’ The message is clear: the EU is planning to impose higher utility prices, ‘illegal immigrants’ and taxes on Hungary. This campaign, combined with the actions planned against the CEU and the NGOs and the law restricting asylum seekers’ and migrants’ freedom, was sharply condemned even by centre-right speakers at the special session of the EU parliament convened to discuss the Hungarian case. After a heated debate with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at this plenary session, the European Commission announced on 26 April 2017 the beginning of infringement proceedings against Hungary over the law on the CEU, and criticised its false claims against the EU. In spite of the unprecedented personal outbursts against him, Orbán did not lose his temper. At both the session and a subsequent press conference, he vigorously defended his provocative actions. In tune with his usual tactics, he launched counterattacks in defence of Hungarian national sovereignty, including several venomous remarks about Soros, the ‘financial speculator who ruined the lives of millions of Europeans and seeks to send 1 million migrants yearly to Europe.’
Three days later, the presidency of the European People’s Party issued an unprecedented warning to Orbán and to Fidesz: ‘We will not accept that any basic freedoms are restricted or rule of law is disregarded. This includes academic freedom and the autonomy of universities. The EPP wants the CEU to remain open, deadlines suspended and the dialogue with the US to begin. The EPP believes that NGOs … must be respected. The blatant anti-EU rhetoric of the “Let’s Stop Brussels” consultation is unacceptable. The constant attacks on Europe, which Fidesz has launched for years, have reached a level we cannot tolerate.’8 This statement was undoubtedly the sharpest ever official and public condemnation of Orbán’s party by its right-of-centre partners. In contrast, and in spite of his alleged reassurances, Orbán’s response has been ambiguous. He has continued to perform his ‘peacock dance’, confusing critics in Brussels while reaffirming his unchanged political line in Budapest. The same weekend as the EPP meeting, a new advertisement shown on state-controlled TV in Budapest condemned the Brussels bureaucrats, who, supported by the ‘speculator Soros’, were trying to force the country to accept illegal immigrants. In Fidesz parlance, the European Union is always described as ‘Brussels’, and external critics of the Hungarian regime are generally associated with the ‘Soros network’.
Within two weeks however, on 15 May 2017, a strong majority in the European Parliament in Strasbourg voted for a resolution that may, for the first time, result in sanctions against a member country, suspending its voting rights under Article 7 of the EU Treaty. It calls on the Hungarian government to repeal laws tightening rules against asylum-seekers and NGOs, and to reach an agreement with the US authorities, making it possible for the Central European University to remain in Budapest as a free institution. It instructs the European Commission to strictly monitor the use of EU funds by the Hungarian government. This resolution was the hitherto strongest signal of EU disaffection, though it is unlikely that the Hungarian case will ever reach the European Council of member states’ prime ministers and presidents. The procedure that might lead to a suspension of voting rights can only be initiated by a two-thirds majority of the European Parliament and a four-fifths majority of the Council. In any case, the current Polish government would veto such an outcome just as Orbán would in any similar case against Poland, as indeed he had already announced when the first sharp attacks from the EU were being directed against the right-nationalistic Polish regime.
Thus even this strongest critical resolution will have no immediate practical effect on Hungary and regime spokesmen tried immediately to minimise its importance. Nevertheless, neither the symbolic value nor the political impact of what happened in the European Parliament should be underestimated. The ill-conceived decision to launch a massive openly anti-EU campaign has alienated even former staunch Fidesz supporters, to such an extent that every third EPP member in the European Parliament voted for the resolution. It was adopted with 393 votes in favour 221 opposed, and 64 abstentions. The left, liberal, green and radical left MEPs, who wrote the resolution, were joined by sixty-seven members of the EPP, while forty abstained.
This means that more EPP members voted for the anti-Orbán resolution or abstained than voted against, although the leader of the group, the German politician Mandref Weber (CSU), still supported Orbán. His position within the European Union has weakened considerably due to his belligerent tone and also as a result of the Brexit referendum and the triumph of the pro-European Emmanuel Macron movement. The charges of the regime spokesmen—that those MEPs who voted for the resolution were in the pay of George Soros and ‘his personal lobbying against Hungary’—belong to the repertoire of the far-right populists in Budapest. Orbán and his henchmen will always seek confrontation with Soros, the number one enemy of the Hungarian nation. Since Soros gave a major public speech at the Brussels Economic Forum on 1 June 2017, paying tribute to the young protesters defending the CEU in Budapest and referring to Hungary as ‘a mafia state’, Orbán and his apparatus have been on a war footing with his erstwhile benefactor. Attempting to convince the Hungarians that the nation is threatened by enemies within and without, the regime points repeatedly to the supposedly shadowy Soros networks as financing and organising both the civil society protests and the infringement procedures in Brussels against the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland for breaching their legal obligations by failing to house a single asylum-seeker (relocated from Italy, Greece etc.). In reality, the proceedings are the result of more and more EU member state governments and the international media calling for financial retribution as a form of punishment for countries that refuse to cooperate when it comes to the refugee crisis.
In a paradoxical way, the EU decision about relocation and resettlement can be useful for both right- and left-wing populist governments in Budapest and Warsaw, Prague and Bratislava. Portraying all asylum seekers as illegal immigrants posing a grave threat to the Christian European identity of the Czech, Hungarian, Slovak and Polish nations, these governments present themselves with impeccable nationalist credentials in defending their countries against Brussels bureaucrats supported (or even steered) by Soros, who is trying to force them to take in illegal immigrants. Orbán has gloated that ‘We want a Hungarian Hungary … rejecting the blackmailing by Brussels and the obligatory resettlement quotas. Brussels has openly taken the side of the terrorists.’ Adding the obligatory Soros reference, he added, ‘It is absurd that a financial speculator decides the way ahead in Brussels. The European leaders are kowtowing to György Soros, who can say what Europe should do.’
Both liberal intellectuals in Budapest and foreign correspondents have tended to underestimate or even to ridicule the effects of the anti-Soros campaign conducted by the government media. However, a poll conducted in June 2017 by the independent Republikon Institute in Budapest revealed that 28 per cent of the population think that Soros has ‘considerable influence’ on Hungarian politics, while 12 per cent think that he has ‘some influence’. Thus
40 per cent of the adult population (and 70 per cent of Fidesz supporters) have more or less swallowed the government’s propaganda.
The international reputation of the Orbán government might remain at a nadir for the forseeable future, but even EU sanctions would be unlikely to change political realities in Hungary. Nevertheless, the recent series of massive demonstrations, with tens of thousands taking to the streets to protest against the anti-CEU and anti-NGO law, clearly rattled the regime, which was unprepared for their size and spontaneity. The biggest surprise for the observers was the youthfulness of the crowds marching through the capital to Kossuth Square, in front of the parliament building. A previously apathetic generation has been aroused by the ugly and ill-prepared attack on an internationally admired symbol of academic freedom and independence and the values of liberal democracy.
The CEU affair has been Orbán’s third major miscalculation within a year. The failure of the October 2016 referendum against welcoming migrants, supported by an enormously expensive advertising campaign, was followed in February 2017 by the humiliating defeat of the grandiose project of winning the right for Budapest to stage the 2024 Summer Olympics. This was a victory for the newly founded youth group Momentum, which collected 266,000 signatures in the capital to stage a referendum against the costly adventure. The powerful protests against the closure of the CEU, organised through Facebook and Twitter by different, mainly young groups, suggested a break with the lack of political interest exhibited by the youth vote in recent years. Young people have always been a catalyst for change. It is far from clear, however, whether their enthusiasm will be short-lived, or points to future turbulence. Both the fact of the protests and the posters carried by demonstrators also pointed to another object of their anger: the blatant and unabashed corruption at the top of Hungary’s power structure. The journalists working for critical websites have stressed that the spontaneous actions of a handful of young protesters have mobilised crowds of a size that the opposition parties in parliament couldn’t even dream of rallying. The ferment witnessed in the spring of 2017 within the ranks of Budapest’s intellectuals and students does not necessarily mean that the tide has turned across the entire country, but something is definitely changing in the atmosphere, from sullen silence to more and more frequently organised and vocal protests. Brazen warning shots from Orbán and other Fidesz leaders have failed to muzzle the representatives of civil society in urban centres.
Critical observers and opposition figures have questioned the motives behind the dangerously self-defeating offensives led by Orbán on so many different fronts. The political scientist András Bozóki has listed four different explanations for Orbán’s rationally inexplicable move against an internationally respected, high-quality educational institution, which has contributed to an attractive image of Budapest and the country:
a) Orbán is seeking to find an additional enemy visage, to regain voters who have deserted to Jobbik; b) he is driven by resentments, even by hatred, against the liberals; c) he has been emboldened by the Trump era and is looking for new international opportunities; or d) he is complying with a request by Putin, who has been irritated by the impact of the CEU graduates from Russia and post-Soviet Asian republics after their return to their countries.9
After talking to a number of political insiders in Budapest during the CEU crisis, I personally assume that Orbán’s high-risk campaign on several fronts has essentially been sparked off or encouraged by the intoxicating effect of Trump’s triumph. He might also have been influenced by the initial elation of the Russian leadership and the rise of right populist parties across the EU. There is also no doubt that, as is so often reflected in his speeches, the animosity against the liberals in general and George Soros in particular is deeply imbedded in Orbán’s thinking and feelings. Fanning the flame of xenophobia against refugees and migrants as well as stoking hostility against a political and socially liberal European agenda are used as tried and tested methods to whip up deeply-rooted nationalistic feelings in Hungary, and to project Fidesz as the only reliable shield for protecting national identity.
So much for Orbán’s enemies—who, then, are his friends? In his annual state of the nation report for 2016,10 the prime minister identified Berlin, Moscow and Ankara as ‘our three points of reference’, adding: ‘We shouldn’t let ourselves be dragged into an anti-German, an anti-Russian or an anti-Turkish international action’. We have already dealt with Orbán’s tenuous personal relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and his habit of currying favour with her chronic adversary within the ruling CDU-CSU party, the Bavarian leader Horst Seehofer. But regardless of the personal factors, Germany is Hungary’s most important trading partner and foreign investor. The economic weekly Handelsblatt once carried the headline ‘German investors love Orbánistan’; Audi, Daimler and Bosch have all erected large plants and research centres in Hungary, with car manufacturer Daimler currently constructing another factory at a cost of €1 billion. German companies employ 174,000 individuals in Hungary and have an annual turnover of €200 billion.
In his infamous speech on the ‘illiberal state and illiberal democracy’ in the summer of 2014, Orbán described Turkey, alongside Russia and China, as a ‘success story’, not least for the strong personalities of their leadership. At the height of the refugee crisis, Orbán was full of praise for Turkey: ‘President Erdogan has for a long time been one of my personal friends. Our relationship with Turkey is close and commendable.’11 Turkey’s slide into a personal dictatorship and the brutal suppression of opposition have not changed Orbán’s sympathy for Erdogan. He was the only EU head of government to immediately congratulate the Turkish president after his narrow victory in April 2017’s controversial constitutional referendum abolishing the post of prime minister and the current parliamentary system, and thereby establishing an executive presidency.
As for Russia, we must bear in mind the memories of its crumbling rule over Eastern Europe as Orbán sprang onto the international stage in June 1989. The famous Polish fighter against Soviet communism, Adam Michnik, and the outstanding British chronicler of the Eastern Bloc’s collapse, Timothy Garton Ash, were both ‘watching with admiration as the then little-known 26-year old Orbán electrified the crowd on Heroes’ Square in Budapest with a call for Russian troops to leave Hungarian soil. Now he is one of Vladimir Putin’s best friends inside the EU’.12 They, as well as such liberal figures as the French-German politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit and the liberal former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, are among Orbán’s sharpest critics.
It is a well-known phenomenon that strongman leaders often get on very well with one another. Was the lure of the Russian strongman responsible for the most puzzling and controversial turnaround in Hungarian foreign policy in general, and in Orbán’s personal attitude to Russia in particular? The impact of such leaders is not confined within state borders, but spills over into international politics. There is barely a dictator in the world for whom Viktor Orbán does not have praise. To the chagrin of its democratic partners in the EU, the Fidesz government cultivates very close relations not only with Putin and Erdogan, but also with the authoritarian rulers of the Philippines and Azerbaijan.
The debasement of political communication into catchphrases and bizarre rhetoric is reflected in the blossoming of the personal friendship between Orbán and the president of Azerbaijan, Ilcham Aliyev. The birth of the effusive relationship between two states so geographically far apart, which historically had never cultivated close contacts, dates back to a highly disputed decision taken by the Hungarian prime minister alone. One night at the beginning of 2004, an officer from Azerbaijan murdered his neighbour, an Armenian officer, with an axe, during a NATO training course in Budapest. For this abominable deed motivated by national hatred, he was sentenced to thirty years’ imprisonment at a Budapest court in 2006. However, on Orbán’s personal instructions, and despite the opposition of Hungary’s then foreign and justice ministers, he was prematu
rely released at the end of August 2012. The pardoned officer was welcomed back to his home country with much jubilation. Armenia immediately broke off diplomatic relations with Hungary in protest.
Since this incident, the grateful Aliyev has visited Hungary three times, while Orbán has been to Azerbaijan twice. Each has lauded the other to the hilt. Orbán has called one of the most corrupt dictatorships in the world (123rd of 176 countries on the Transparency International corruption list) ‘a model state’ and ‘one of the most admired countries … stable, predictable and successful!’ During a visit on 6 March 2016, Orbán and his wife Anikó Lévai, under the glare of floodlights, laid a wreath on the grave of Aliyev’s father, a former KGB general who was the then Soviet republic’s party chief and a member of the CPSU Politburo for almost twenty years. This prompted sarcastic comments, and not only in Budapest. At any rate, relations are so good that Orbán personally awarded Mrs Aliyev a high Hungarian decoration in recognition of her charitable work in Baku. In March 2017, Anikó Lévai attended the Hungarian cultural festival in Baku and personally congratulated Mehriban Aliyeva on her appointment as vice-president—by her husband.