“The best migrant is the migrant who does not come”
In October last year we were standing on a sandy track in front of a four metre (13 foot) high fence. Looking left and right the barrier stretched as far as the eye could see, working its way through the fields and woods that lie along the flat lands between Hungary and Serbia.
For most Hungarians this is the symbol of Viktor Orban’s success, a man who was able to stand up to both migrants and Brussels and rid his country of swathes of refugees. Until the fence was completed in late 2015 thousands of refugees were flowing across its border each day — albeit the vast majority of them were headed to Germany or elsewhere, and not Hungary. The experience was a profound shock for ordinary Hungarians, where immigrants are a fraction of their number in other EU states.
We had been taken to the fence by the BBC’s Hungary Correspondent Nick Thorpe along with a proud local mayor from the Prime Minister’s party — happy to see his area return to quiet normality. The fence, Nick argued, is possibly the most visible symbol of how Orban has sought to go his own way in Europe, winning both popularity at home and criticism within the EU.
But, as Nick explores in our upcoming Hungary tour (March 13–18 2020), Viktor Orban’s changes to Hungarian society have in fact been far more profound than the border fence — they are just perhaps less visible.
In the course of two elections he has introduced sweeping changes across all aspects of life, from ownership of the economy, influence in the media, domination of parliament and the judiciary, giving his party overwhelming control of political life.
How is this possible in Europe some ask?
Orban himself is unapologetic and says “There is room for an illiberal democracy in Europe.” This, Gerald Knaus, the Director of the European Stability Initiative, a think-tank, makes him “the most dangerous man in Europe.”
In this first interview Nick Thorpe spoke with our Director, Nicholas Wood who asked him how Orban has gone about this — it has, he stresses, been carried out with overwhelming electoral support.
Later we will be speaking with Gerald Knaus about what the EU should, if anything, be doing to challenge the Hungarian government.
The tour is a first-rate opportunity to get to grips with one of the most important issues within Europe today.
— — — — — — — —
Conversation with Political Tours founder Nicholas Wood and our tour leader in Hungary, Nick Thorpe, the BBC’s correspondent in Budapest.
Nicholas Wood (NW):
Just to start with, there has been a lot of criticism of Hungary within the EU and how the Prime Minister, Viktor Orban has led the government there. Very simply, what are they’re so critical of?
Nick Thorpe (NT)
He has practiced a form of democracy, which I suppose is normally called as Majoritarian rather than Consensual. In other words, the winner takes all, he’s won three landslide victories in 2010, 2014 and then in 2018, and basically he’s rebuilt the Hungarian system in his and his party Fidesz’ image.
He rewrote the constitution, for example, he created laws that can only be changed by a two-thirds majority.
He created those with his two-thirds majority in the full knowledge that it’s very unlikely that any opposition party or parties in the future would ever be able to challenge those.
He rewrote the media law, he changed the makeup of the constitutional court. He changed the structure of the media to tilt it from his previous admittedly liberal bias to a bias now very strongly pro-government, 80% of those sources are coming from his side.
NW
So that’s really interesting. He’s done that effectively through a very large democratic support if you like. And directing the way so that he can remove any obstacles, opposition to him, whether it be within the judiciary or within the media. Obviously, the EU has been very critical of it. The European parliament has been very critical of it.
Is there any suggestion that any of these laws could be in contravention of EU law or human rights law?
NT
There is that suggestion. His critics don’t just come from the left or liberal or green side, they’re also coming from the centre right, The European People’s Party, the Christian Democratic block to which Fidesz, his party belongs.
That has reached such a point that Fidesz, his party, is now suspended for the time being from its membership of the EPP. So it can’t take part in EPP gatherings or its decision making processes.
Of course, he does have the democratic legitimacy to do this. That’s his defence every time when he’s accused of being an authoritarian or riding roughshod over checks and balances. But he’s also said very publicly that he doesn’t believe in checks and balances.
He says these are things that happen in the United States, for example, there’s no need for them in a European system, and effectively he defends his own model whereby the winner takes all.
So although there are still independent figures in Hungary, there are still strong independent media that are very critical of him, but there is room for manoeuvre. Their space has been eroded over time.
The president of the Republic very rarely refers or challenges any decision, taken by the Fidesz government, to the constitution court for example; he has packed the constitutional court with people loyal to him. No one’s accusing him of actually dismantling our democracy lock, stock and barrel. They’re saying basically he’s twisted the game to his own favour and then he’s used power very effectively. Some would say very cynically.
NW
Is there any hope that the opposition could gain strength and challenge it in any particular way?
NT
Well, this is actually a very interesting moment because despite three parliamentary election victories of Fidesz, and despite them coming out well ahead of the others in the European elections in May 2019, in the local elections just recently in October 2019 the opposition scored a pretty significant breakthrough.
They won back Budapest, which had been in Fidesz control since 2010 and they won control of 11 other provincial cities or towns across the country. So basically they re-emerged as a credible force.
But wait a minute, who are they? They’re a hodgepodge of many different parties because Fidesz/Mr. Orban basically turned Hungarian democracy into a two party system during that period in the full knowledge that there was no other single party as well organised, as powerful or as well financed as Fidesz.
So what the opposition finally did in October 2019 was to bite the bullet and realise they could never challenge Fidesz and Mr Orban personally, unless they got together.
So you now have this raggle-taggle opposition as a slightly uncomfortable but surprisingly well functioning alliance drawn from what used to be the far right that’s now moved more to the centre, to the more leftist old Hungarian socialist party with interesting new parties like Momentum — a kind of liberal green party, especially attractive to young voters emerging in the centre.
So they basically shocked Fidesz by doing so well in those October local elections and now they’re trying to maintain and build on that co-operation with one another because it’s an Alliance. It’s not a coalition as such, just an Alliance of very disparate parties, and they’re now building on these successes and (aiming for a breakthrough) in the next parliamentary election in 2022.
NW
Is there any one in particular to watch, are there any key movements to watch out, either within Hungary or within the EU in terms of this political battle?
NT
After the setback that Fidesz and Mr Orban suffered in the October elections, he has since claimed a pretty major success, namely that his candidate for a European union commissioner, Oliver Várhelyi, has now been chosen as Hungary’s commissioner and not with just any post, but is responsible for neighbourhood and enlargement policy of the EU.
There were challenges to Fidesz in the European parliament, for example, in those committees had suggested that Hungary was not worthy to be in charge of such important issues as enlargement and neighbourhood policy, especially looking towards Ukraine with which Hungary has had a long argument.
The question’s over its rule of law; How could a country like Hungary, (MEPs) asked, teach countries like Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, to prepare to suit rule of law criteria, which Hungary, if it were to apply now for the EU, might well not satisfy itself?
Nevertheless, at the second attempt Mr Orban’s candidate Oliver Várhelyia — a career diplomat — passed through those committee stages and will now become Hungary’s commissioner for this very important position.
Of course, this increases Hungary’s stature within the EU. It gives them a very important position and together with its ally, Poland, no one can ignore Hungary at all in the coming years.
