“Orban has started preparations to take Hungary out of the EU”. It is not George Soros or one of the parties of the sparse left opposition in Hungary who say this. But Péter Jakab, leader of Jobbik, the Hungarian nationalist party, the second parliamentary group in Budapest after Fidesz. Only 17 deputies against the 117 of Viktor Orban’s party, but today Jakab was not alone against the premier in the closed-door meeting in Parliament ahead of the European Council on Thursday. Jobbik and all the other opposition parties have asked Orban to lift the veto on the recovery fund, the Hungarian sites say. The head of government insists on his line but in the evening a new video call is triggered with the ‘veto partner’ Mateusz Morawiecki, premier of Poland.
From Brussels the pressure is very strong on the two Eastern countries which are blocking the 750 billion euro package of anti-crisis aid and also the multi-year European budget of 1800 billion euro. From Berlin, the German EU presidency, on duty until the end of December, sent the ultimatum to Budapest and Warsaw: they must give their last word by Wednesday. And if it continues to be ‘vetoed’, then the other 25 European states will go ahead alone: the recovery fund could at this point become an intergovernmental agreement with enhanced cooperation or a fund modeled on the ‘Sure’ program, developed by the Commission to support unemployment costs for covid.
The decision to veto, in protest against the conditions that link the provision of EU sources to respect for the rule of law, is causing tensions in the Polish government. Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Gowin is not exactly on the same line as Morawiecki and last week hinted at a glimpse. That is to say the possibility of closing an agreement with the other European leaders on the basis of a political declaration that establishes respect for the sovereignty of all member states. After all, Poland is third in the ranking of the recovery fund money distribution, immediately after Italy and Spain, with over 60 billion euros. Losing them would be a shame.
This is one of the reasons why Poland’s position is considered less granitic than Hungary’s in diplomatic circles in Brussels. If the ‘Orban-Morawiecki’ pair breaks out, Budapest may have a harder time isolating itself on the no.
But Orban does not give up for now. In the Hungarian parliament, however, the premier ends up under attack, albeit solid in the solid majority of Fidesz of course. But it is a fact that all the other parties, right and left, are asking him to withdraw the veto.
“Orban wants to paralyze Europe even if this ends up killing the Hungarians”, attacks Jakab, convinced that the recovery fund can instead pull the country out of the crisis. After all, Hungary is also doing well on the distribution criteria: it has the highest share of funds per capita, in total over 15 billion euros for less than 10 million inhabitants. “The veto would cost every Hungarian 250,000 forints”, according to the calculations of Tímea Szabó of the environmental party ‘Párbeszéd’.
“The veto only serves the financial security of the prime minister, his family and friends”, attacks the socialist Bertalan Tóth. “The premier has declared war, but the war will only have losers,” says Erzsébet Schmuck, of LMP, the Hungarian Greens. “Orban is too weak to harm Europe with a veto, but the veto can cause serious damage to Hungary,” says Democrat László Varju, who asks the government to use only ‘trusted’ vaccines. Hungary is testing the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, which is not authorized by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
Fidesz’s reply is always the same: “You are at the service of Soros and of Brussels which favors immigration”. Because, for the party of the Hungarian premier, “it is clear that Brussels wants to blackmail countries that do not accept migrants, tying the European funds that are due to us to political conditionalities”.
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