Hungary’s parliament will convene an emergency session on Monday to do something its western partners have waited for, often impatiently, for more than a year: to hold a vote, finally, on approving Sweden’s bid to join the NATO military alliance.
But Hungary’s governing party, led by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has signaled that it will boycott the session, blocking the chance for a vote and further delaying a decision on Stockholm’s bid. It’s the kind of obstruction of key policy objectives for which Orbán has become notorious within the European Union.
“We are the sand in the machinery, the stick between the spokes, the splinter under the fingernail,” Orbán said in a speech to tens of thousands of supporters in 2021.
That “stick between the spokes” tactic, and Orbán’s role as Europe’s perennial spoiler, has brought the EU to breaking point time and again as he has blocked crucial decisions to leverage concessions from the bloc, forcing its leaders to scramble to find workarounds.
If he is so anti EU, why doesn’t he just exit the bloc? I mean they watched Brexit so they know how it’s done. If his whole message at home is that the EU is bad, why stay? Hungary either needs to remove Orban or stick to their rhetoric and leave the EU.
EU needs a way to vote these shit stains off the island. Full stop. That’s the only path forward. This will only get worse over time.
There is a mechanism wherein they can remove their vote, article 7 I believe but it has never been used. In my opinion it should be and unanimity should be removed in favour a super majority of member states.
For most things, the European Council already decides things by qualified majority voting (typically requiring the support of 55% of member states representing 65% of the EU’s population). This was enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty. But extending QMV to matters that currently need unanimity would require treaty changes, which by definition would need every EU member to sign up. There are limited incentives for smaller members (let alone problematic members like Hungary) to agree to more QMV since unanimity gives them disproportionate influence.
NATO needs a similar mechanism as well, but for similar reasons doesn’t have one either.
Majority of Hungarians are still pro-EU, even a lot of his voters. Also, he still gets some EU funds, ending up in his and his friend’s pocket. There is no reason to leave, as long as he can stay in power in the current setup.
Honestly why won’t he leave the EU is simple. He gets money from the eu for projects that he can give to his cronies gets a kick backs from them to line his pocket. All while being able to use the EU as a scapegoat in Hungary when people don’t see improvement in their quality of life. Orbán can point at eu regulation and say, “look this is why your life isn’t improving” to the Hungarian people all while not actually doing much on his own to improve their lives. Orbán just wants to continue to hold his position and make money. He’ll shit on the eu all day long because it plays well with the majority of Hungarians all while getting a pay day. The eu does try to hold him to task from time to time but it really isn’t that effective. He’s rigged the game in his favor in Hungary so I don’t see change coming to Hungary anytime soon.
I think they were moving in that direction at some point. The PiS party of Poland, Orban in Hungary, was in discussions with Russia to start an alternative bloc to the EU, iirc.