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Since assuming the presidency of the European Council on July 1, the Hungarian prime minister has drawn the ire of the European Union. He first visited Russian President Vladimir Putin, then went to Beijing to meet with President Xi Jinping. Finally, Orban left the NATO summit in Washington early to meet with former US President Donald Trump. The EU quickly said that Orban does not speak for the European Union. Even German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stressed this point.
Many EU governments are slowly losing patience. Writing with unusual clarity on messaging platform X, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Orban was making himself a compliant tool of the Kremlin dictator. Hungary’s prime minister seemed to feel he was immune to the consequences, but he could be wrong.
Early warning
The European Parliament warned against handing the presidency to Orban in a resolution a year ago. The resolution said Hungary could not fulfill the task “in a credible way.” “It would be like giving a violent student as headmaster,” FDP MP Moritz Körner warned at the time. The resolution was passed by 442 votes, 144 against and 33 abstentions. EU member states were asked to find “an appropriate solution” as soon as possible, but nothing happened because the resolution was non-binding.
The EU has never seen a rotating presidency like this before
MEPs already feel vindicated. “Viktor Orbán must be removed from the Security Council presidency. In fact, he shouldn’t have had it in the first place,” said Green Party MEP Daniel Freund, one of Orbán’s fiercest critics. Freund said the EU had never seen a presidency like this before. He stressed that a country that had had most of its funds frozen by the EU for “repeated violations of the rule of law and corruption” should not speak for the entire EU and “certainly should not appear in this way in Moscow and Beijing.”
Two models against Orbán
There are two ways to correct this mistake: The EU could introduce criteria that a country must meet to hold the presidency of the Council. Part of these criteria could be that a country may not hold the presidency if it is in the process of conducting a fundamental values infringement lawsuit and the European Commission is withholding funds for violating the rule of law. This is an idea that has been circulating in Brussels recently.
Another option is also being heard in parliamentary groups: closer to the start date of the next presidential term. This means that the next successor, Poland, would take on this role as early as December. “The damage that Orbán has done in the first weeks of his presidency must not continue to go unpunished,” Freund and other MEPs demanded.
Violation of the principle of loyalty
But the fundamental question remains: Can Orban be fired from his post in the EU, or is there another way for the EU to present the country to him? Daniel Hegedus, an expert on Central and Eastern Europe at the Berlin Marshall Fund think tank, thinks it’s possible. Orban has an obligation to be loyal and united to the EU, but he has undermined that principle as EU president. He also has no foreign policy power.
In fact, Orban assured in a letter to the heads of EU government that he would not travel to Moscow and Beijing on behalf of the EU. But Hegedus said he has always been seen as an official representative of the EU and should be aware of this: “Withdrawal of not only the presidency, but also the right to vote is belated and possible,” the researcher said.
First measures against Orban
However, many EU diplomats are skeptical and EU governments seem to shy away from quitting the presidency. At the last meeting, EU ambassadors openly expressed their anger with Orbán. But “quitting” the EU presidency is not on the agenda and will not be a question for the future”, explained Hungarian Minister for Europe János Boka. However, some states have already taken exemplary steps. Lithuania announced that it would not “temporarily” send its minister to the presidency meetings in Hungary, but this applies to informal meetings. A high representative will be sent, not a minister. Sweden also announced that it would not send a minister to Budapest. Estonia, Latvia and other EU governments hope to follow suit, but have not yet revealed the details. /DW
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