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By Alissa Manuel
Since March 2020, the Hungarian people have witnessed increasingly anti-democratic measures being enacted by the Fidesz Party’s government as part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These have built on a decade of similar actions taken since Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was elected in 2010, culminating in Freedom House’s assessment that Hungary has lost its status as a liberal democracy. In the absence of independent courts, free and fair elections, and freedom of the press, recent developments in Hungary are the epitome of democratic backsliding: a process in which a democratically elected government deliberately undermines the fundamental rules and features of an existing democracy. Yet, despite Hungary becoming the first EU member state to be classified as only ‘partly free’, the EU’s response to this crisis has been limited and ineffective. This raises pressing questions about whether its mechanisms for dealing with authoritarian developments are adequate.
Hungary’s Authoritarian Developments
March 2020 saw Hungary’s Fidesz government pass comprehensive emergency measures in response to COVID-19, enabling Orbán to rule by decree indefinitely, suspending elections and allowing the Prime Minister to overturn existing laws. However, until these emergency powers were repealed in June, they were used to accomplish much more than an emergency pandemic response. Notably, the new lack of bureaucratic obstacles enabled the acceleration and classification of the Budapest-Belgrade Chinese rail project, condemned by the opposition, and ended legal recognition of gender transition.
Such developments are unsurprising given the Fidesz government’s track record. Orbán is a public opponent of liberal democracy, and considers the mere existence of elections in Hungary to be enough to make it a democratic state. This conviction explains the many authoritarian measures his government took prior to the opportunities presented by the pandemic, aided by Fidesz’s consistent two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliament.
Changes made to Hungarian elections by the government have ensured the maintenance of this power. The emulation of a tactic employed by Vladimir Putin in Russia - in which citizenship laws are expanded to issue passports to ethnic Hungarians residing in surrounding nations - has proved to be highly successful. These new voters offer a major base of support for the Fidesz government. At the same time, voting has been made increasingly difficult for Hungarian expats, in order to reduce concerns about the 300,000 largely anti-Fidesz voters residing in the UK in particular. With such measures ensuring Orbán’s continuing power, an end to Hungary’s democratic backsliding seems far out of reach.
Beyond electoral changes, taking control of Hungary’s courts is perhaps the clearest of the government’s assaults on democracy. 2013 saw the passage of laws giving a parliamentary committee, with a Fidesz supermajority, complete control over the appointment of judges to Hungary’s Constitutional Court. This led to an expanded court being packed with Orbán loyalists. Further still, the Hungarian parliament passed a set of amendments to the nation’s constitution to grant constitutional status to several of the laws the court had previously overturned. Yet the attack on judicial independence has not ceased – in December 2018 Hungary witnessed the creation of a separate administrative court, to which every appointment is made by the Minister of Justice without any form of oversight. These measures have established the end of judicial independence in Hungary.
Beyond the courts and elections, Fidesz has also threatened the freedom of the press, directly managing the state media and eradicating newspapers that oppose Hungary’s government. Orbán’s belief that refugees threaten Hungary is even printed and presented as truth in history textbooks. Hungary is now a nation wiped of the fundamental aspects of a liberal democracy, in which the absence of an independent judiciary, free and fair elections and freedom of the press signals nothing short of a crisis of democracy deserving of international concern.
How has the EU responded?
The EU has a range of strict requirements for prospective or existing member states, outlined in its Copenhagen Criteria. Amongst these conditions, liberal democracy is presented as a necessity, alongside the protection of the rule of law. With Hungary’s government in such clear violation of these fundamental principles, the EU’s limited response may appear puzzling. Yet attempts have certainly been made to curtail Orbán’s relentless attack on democracy.
In 2018 the European Parliament voted to trigger Article 7, a mechanism which suspends the voting rights of member states that fail to preserve the EU’s democratic values. However, Article 7’s sanctions can only be carried out in the case of a unanimous vote by European Council members, a requirement that has yet to be fulfilled. This is due largely to the fact that Hungary is only one of several member states that are undergoing processes of democratic backsliding. Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic follow in its footsteps, having been shown by Hungary how easily an assault on democracy within the EU can be carried out. With these nations’ leaders sharing Hungary’s anti-democratic values, achieving a unanimous vote that reprimands the actions of the Fidesz government has been impossible.
However, a deal brokered with Hungary and Poland at the close of 2020 shows some limited signs of assertiveness from the EU. Primarily, this compromise broke a veto on the EU budget, orchestrated by the two countries in response to the possibility of losing access to EU funds. The deal continues to tie EU funding to adherence to rule of law conditions, though any country opposing these terms can challenge them in the European Court of Justice. This could potentially delay any enforcement by months or even years. Therefore, though the EU is taking a step in the right direction by affirming sanctions for anti-democratic countries, the consequences these nations will experience in the near future appear limited.
This, therefore, begs the question of whether the EU’s existing mechanisms for reprimanding anti-democratic activity by its member states are sufficient. The EU faces a huge challenge now that curtailing authoritarianism is no longer a task confined to Hungary alone, and, as its treaties do not allow for the simple expulsion of a member state, sophisticated and commanding solutions are required. The EU’s timid actions so far have proven that democratic backsliding, if not stopped, can dangerously encourage other nations and generate an even greater challenge for the union.
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