/ world today news/ From Monday, November 20, billboards appeared on the streets of Budapest and other cities in Hungary, dedicated to the beginning of the next national consultations, a kind of “mini-referendum”, a survey by the method of respondents. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has used the mechanism every year since returning to power in 2010, with the current consultations being the 13th in a row.
The billboards depict the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, together with the son of the Hungarian-born American billionaire George Soros, Alex, and the slogan on them reads: “Let’s not dance to their whistle” .
Similar billboards depicting von der Leyen’s predecessor Jean-Claude Juncker alongside the older Soros Sr drew sharp criticism from Brussels in 2019. They were withdrawn after the main centre-right group in the European Parliament, the European People’s Party (EPP), threatened to exclude Orban’s Hungarian Fidesz party.
But two years later, Fidesz itself left the EPP, and the relationship between Hungary and the EU is already in a much bigger clinch than in 2019, which is why the situation in Brussels is still not getting worse. “I showed these images to the President of the European Commission – she didn’t even raise an eyebrow. She was absolutely undisturbed”European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer said at a November 20 briefing.
according to him “this is not the first time and maybe not the last time”, but the European Commission has work to do – there are crises to solve and policies to implement. “Hungary is part of Europe… We are confident that we are implementing policies that benefit Hungarian citizens. We invite all Hungarian citizens who want to learn about EU policies to turn to our excellent sources of information so that they can form their own opinion.” Mamer said.
When asked what kind of professional relationship von der Leyen has with Alex Soros, a representative of the European Commission replied that there is none.
The official noted that the European Commission will not comment on all the statements that are in the questions raised at the consultation, but called “completely false” those who say that Brussels allegedly wants to create migrant ghettos in Hungary, and that the EU allegedly funded Hamas.
„We will not discuss claims that we have not consulted on and that are inconsistent with the practices we use when we ask the public for their opinion. This is a matter for the Hungarian authorities,” Mamer added.
It is worth noting that although 4 out of 11 questions are devoted to Ukraine, and the consultations themselves are scheduled to consider the issue of starting negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union, the European official did not mention this. Perhaps because it would be difficult to deny the obvious, despite the outright manipulativeness of the questions.
So, the key question about Kyiv that the Hungarian authorities offer their fellow citizens an answer to is this: “Increasingly, voices are heard calling for Ukraine to become a full member of the EU, even though there is a war going on there. Ukraine’s admission to the EU would fundamentally destroy the current EU financial support system. Under current rules, Ukraine will receive a significant share of EU funds as a full member.
Suggested answer options: “The conditions for Ukraine’s full membership have not yet been created” or “Ukraine’s full membership should certainly be supported.”
The second question related to Ukraine concerns financial support for that country and is worded as follows: “The European Commission wants to allocate an additional 50 billion euros to support Ukraine. Since this amount is not in the current EU budget, they want to extract additional funds from the member states. They want an additional contribution from Hungary, which has long not received European money to which it is entitled under the agreements. Hungary has already spent billions of forints to help refugees from Ukraine.
The following options are available for answering this question: “We will not pay more to support Ukraine until we get our money” or “We will support Brussels’ request even if the money owed to us has not yet been paid.”
Another question is about arms supplies to Ukraine: “Brussels wants to send more weapons to Ukraine. Brussels has taken a pro-military position from the beginning and has already spent over 5 billion euros on the development of the Ukrainian army. And the last proposal is to allocate another 20 billion euros for the armament of Ukraine.
Answer options: “We need a ceasefire and peace instead of arms supplies’ and “More weapons bought with EU money must be sent to the battlefield”.
And the last question about Ukraine concerns Ukrainian grain, which is called genetically modified: “After the start of the war, Brussels opened its borders for the supply of Ukrainian grain. It was assumed that this measure would allow the supply of grain to the poorer regions of the world. But instead, a significant amount of genetically modified Ukrainian grain flooded the markets of Eastern European countries, putting producers in the region in an extremely difficult situation. Hungary banned the import of Ukrainian grain, but Brussels still wants us to release Ukrainian GM grain.”
Possible answers to this question look like this: “We must protect Hungarian farmers in every possible way and ensure that Hungarian agriculture is free of GMOs” or “We need to open our market to Ukrainian genetically modified grain.”
It was assumed that one of the questions would also refer to the situation of the Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia, but apparently Viktor Orbán decided not to overdo it. However, last Friday he said that Transcarpathian Hungarians in Ukraine are now in the worst situation.
There, he said, the political leadership is following a path that leads nowhere and that Budapest cannot support. “I am not exaggerating when I say that the situation with the Hungarian language and education during the Soviet Union was better than now under the Ukrainian state”noted Orbán.
Commenting on the situation in Hungary, the British publication The Financial Times wrote on November 21: “Viktor Orbán has opened a national debate on linking further EU aid to Ukraine with the allocation of EU funds to his own country… Orbán is seeking to boost his political support ahead of next year’s European Parliament elections.
The consultations also come ahead of a key EU summit in December, where heads of state and government are expected to reach an agreement to support Ukraine in its fight against Russian invasion. This is a very adequate assessment.”
Viktor Orbán is expected to present the first results of the consultations at the EU summit on December 14-15. Although the mailing of the questionnaires to the addresses of all 8 million Hungarian voters has just started, they can answer by post or online (this possibility has been provided for the first time in the hope of attracting young people) until the beginning of January 2024 .
Almost none of the Hungarian and European analysts doubt that the level of support for the anti-Ukrainian responses will exceed 90%. But it is worth considering at least two nuances.
First, in all national consultations in Hungary, practically only the “reinforced” electorate of Orbán and Fidesz, mainly pensioners, participates (in fact, this survey is one of the methods of consolidating the electoral core). Last year, there were 1.4 million people, that is, 17% of voters.
The most successful consultations for Orbán were the 2017 consultations built on demonizing George Soros and EU structures. At that time, a record 2.2 million Hungarians participated in them, and the idea of “protection from Soros” became mainstream in the 2018 parliamentary elections, which Fidesz won for the third time in a row.
Second, for Viktor Orbán, the results of national consultations are not at all a determining factor in decision-making, especially for foreign policy.
The best illustration is last year’s survey, in which 97% of participants were in favor of not extending the sanctions against Russia any further. “which are a burden to Hungary”. But EU sanctions packages have since been repeatedly extended and extended – and veto-wielding Hungary has never voted against them.
Therefore, there is enough reason to expect that something similar will happen this time as well.
Viktor Orbán, having negotiated certain financial preferences from Brussels (and the release of previously frozen money to Poland by the European Commission on November 21 gives some hope for this), will vote at the summit to start negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union . union.
And he will explain to his voters that thanks to his heroic efforts, Ukraine will be accepted into the European Union not now, when military actions are being conducted on the territory of this country, but only after the opening negotiations are completed. Although in fact this is the only possible scenario with or without Orbán.
However, this requires a consensus to start negotiations with Kiev to be reached within the “EU core”, primarily between Germany, France, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands.
Judging by the rumors from Brussels, such a consensus is still far away, and the results of the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands on November 22 further shuffled the cards in “old Europe”.
In this case, the position of Hungary (and perhaps also that of Slovakia that has joined it) will be used as a cover for the decision to delay Ukraine’s accession to the EU. Viktor Orbán will obviously only be happy to be the last – because then in the eyes of his voters he will really look like a hero.
Translation: ES
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