Page 68 - bne magazine September 2021_20210901

68 Opinion
bne September 2021
Defending each other's backs
The Commission did not dare to use its nuclear weapon of using Article 7 to suspend Hungary’s rights as a member of the EU, and this option became completely unusable when Kaczynski returned to power as Poland’s de facto ruler in 2015.
Article 7 proceedings, where there is a “clear risk” of the state breaching the bloc’s “fundamental values”, require unanimity among EU members and after 2015 Hungary and Poland could defend each other’s backs. Both Hungary and Poland have finally been put under the Article 7 procedure but no-one expects this to go anywhere.
Poland’s takeover by the Law and Justice (PiS) party drew fire away from Hungary because Kaczynski has been clumsier about breaching EU rules. Poland now has racked up some 85 active infringement proceedings since PiS returned to power.
PiS does not enjoy Orban’s constitutional majority in the lower house and has also faced a hostile Senate. Therefore to consolidate its power it often had to bend Poland’s constitution, rather than simply pass a constitutional amendment, leaving it open to legal appeals. This explains the importance PiS has placed on neutering the country’s judiciary, which in turn has become a red flag for Brussels. The Commission has now demanded Poland suspend the Supreme Court's new disciplinary chamber by mid August.
PiS also lacked the protection of the EPP, as it was also only a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) grouping in the EU, a shunned rabble of far right and eurosceptic parties, of which it formed by far the largest contingent.
Poland gave Orban extra heft in European politics. With Poland’s backing, Orban was able to weaponise the Central European Visegrad Group and mount a direct challenge to EU values. His once ludicrous claims to represent a new national conservative force that would overthrow the bankrupt liberal Western European elite began to be almost credible with the rise of Matteo Salvini’s Lega in Italy and the renewed threat from Marine
Le Pen’s National Rally (formerly Front National) in France.
But Europe’s radical right was put back on the defensive when it failed to make a much anticipated breakthrough at the 2019 European Parliamentary Elections. Janez Jansa’s return to power in Slovenia in March 2020 is the populist right’s only clear national victory in Europe since then, and this is balanced by Boyko Borissov’s defeat at the April 2021 Bulgarian general election.
The pandemic has enabled many European governments to demonstrate the state’s effectiveness, and shown that the radical right wing has little constructive to say on what is Europe’s biggest current challenge. Poland and Hungary have been among the bloc’s worst performers in terms of infections and deaths.
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Looking more widely, Brexit removed both a traditional rightwing ally (and fellow ECR member) in the shape of the British Conservatives, and posted a warning of the cost of leaving the EU. At the same time, the defeat of US President Donald Trump has created an impression that rightwing populism’s moment may have come and gone.
Given their failures in the pandemic and their length of time in office, Orban and Kaczynski now both face a serious challenge to retain power at their next general elections, in 2022 and 2023 respectively. In Hungary the opposition has formed a broad coalition, while in Poland former premier Donald Tusk has returned to reinvigorate the Civic Platform party (though if this works, it may also paradoxically stymie attempts to bring the opposition together).
Neighbouring Slovakia, which threw out the populist leftwing Smer party after two terms of office in 2020, shows that new party formations together with civic protests can bring about swift political transformation.
Removing Orban's 'protection'
The events of the past two years, together with Orban’s increasingly arrogant attacks on the EU, seem to have finally given the bloc the self-confidence to confront his hybrid regime, one that would never have passed muster as a EU candidate country if it were to apply to join today.
The first key step was Fidesz’s expulsion from the EPP, which he pre-empted by quitting the grouping in a tantrum in March 2021.
Fidesz is now homeless. This has removed the last vestige of Orban’s political ‘protection’. He is now casting around for potential allies in the European Parliament, and has typically
“The Polish judgment says: we do not respect that European law has precedence and we do not care what European courts say about our checks and balances”
grandiose plans to create a broad rightwing group with Salvini or Kaczynski, though the rival nationalist leaders are currently struggling to come to a deal.
The second sign that the EU is getting real was the way it attached the new rule of law mechanism to the 2021-27 budget deal and the Recovery Fund in November 2021. This should enable the Commission to claw back funding from the two states if they degrade the rule of law sufficiently to imperil the use of EU money.