“The Bad Boy from Budapest is back on the Brussels Naughty Step”

Hungarian government then accuses Brussels of "blatant lying" as cracks widen across EU

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2022

Orban likely to lose EU funding before Christmas… unless he starts kow-towing to Brussels

On Thursday last week the EU Parliament voted to suspend billions of euros in EU payments to Hungary unless it does what Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the MEPs say.

With it now looking like a Scrooge’s Christmas for Hungary, Facts4EU.Org summarises the case for the prosecution and reports on the Hungarian reaction.

EU Parliament insists that the EU must freeze funding to Hungary

The EU Parliament says the Commission and Council should resist pressure from Hungary and go ahead with adopting the proposed ‘rule of law’ conditionality measures to suspend EU cohesion funds worth billions.

In a resolution passed on Thursday (24 Nov 2022) by 416 votes in favour, 124 against and 33 abstentions, MEPs said that the 17 remedial measures negotiated by the Commission and Hungary are “not sufficient to address the existing systemic risk to the EU’s financial interests”, even if implemented fully.

They called on EU member states to adopt the proposed measures under the Conditionality Regulation in order to protect the EU budget against “breaches of the principles of the rule of law in Hungary”, and to lift them only after the Hungarian remedial measures have had a sustainable effect.

The final decision now goes to the EU Council, which has just three weeks to announce the verdict.

The ‘Bad Boy from Budapest’ comes out fighting

With impeccable timing, on the same day as the EU Parliament’s attack on Hungary Viktor Orban was at a meeting of the leaders of the four Visegrad countries: Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. At the meeting Orban gave a speech which we quote from below.

“Our common challenges are illegal migration, the energy crisis, preventing economic recession, and protecting the external borders of the Schengen Area.
“Hungary is in a special situation: we are the only country in Europe that has to deal with two migrant crises at the same time; everyone else has to deal with one, or none. But because of our geographical location, this year more than a million Ukrainian refugees have arrived in Hungary. A large number of them have gone on, but we have had to receive them and care for them; and this year we have stopped more than 250,000 illegal border crossings at our country’s southern borders.
“Hungary is a country that is under migration pressure from two directions at the same time. We have spent more than one and a half billion euros on border protection, we have formulated numerous laws, and we have fought numerous battles with Brussels – which has been continuously attacking Hungary’s border defence operations.
“I agree with my colleague, Mateusz [Morawiecki, Polish PM]: as we are facing a protracted war in Ukraine, in the period ahead the migration pressure from Ukraine will increase; and the V4 [Visegrád Four]’s demand that the EU should also assume some of this burden is a fair demand. In the coming period we should also expect migration pressure from the south to increase – partly due to the war, and partly due to other events.”
- Viktor Orban, Košice, Slovakia, 24 Nov 2022

Viktor Orban and his family
(click to enlarge).

The Budapest-Brussels battle lines

The EU Commission, MEPs, and EU Council have been battling the Budapest government for years. It would be fair to say that the issues have been many, from their dislike of Viktor Orban’s anti-immigration, pro-Christian, pro-traditional family policies, to his rejection of the influence of foreign bodies in Hungary financed by George Soros’s ‘Open Society Foundations’. The EU also has issues with media freedoms in Hungary as well as the way its judiciary is appointed.

In 2015 Viktor Orban was roundly condemned by Brussels for starting the construction of high barbed wire fencing to protect Hungary’s borders. At that time, Hungary had the highest influx of migrants per capita of any other EU country. It is worth mentioning that many other EU countries have now followed suit and the Commission is even part-financing the construction of some of these barbed wire borders.

On 18 September 2022, the EU Commission proposed to freeze €7.5 billion in EU funds for Hungary, citing corruption and public procurement concerns, after having triggered the rule of law conditionality mechanism against Hungary in April.

After negotiations with the Commission, Hungary presented 17 remedial measures, such as creating an anti-corruption task force and changes to its public procurement rules, to address the concerns. It seems these are not enough.

And finally, Hungary accuses EU Commission and EU Parliament of “blatantly lying”

On Friday, the day after the EU Parliament vote, Péter Szijjártó, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, was in just as much of a combative mood as his boss.

The EU Commission and EU Parliament have both claimed that Hungary has refused to vote for an €18bn fund to support Ukraine, thereby blocking it. This has provoked a very strong reaction in Budapest. The Hungarian Foreign Secretary stressed his government had made it clear that Hungary is prepared to provide its share of the €18bn EU fund – but it merely opposed taking out another joint EU loan to pay for it.

“It is a blatant lie that Hungary has ever blocked or opposed the EU providing support to Ukraine to keep the country functioning. Those who claim that we’ve ever opposed or blocked this are lying.”

Joint indebtedness is not the way forward for Europe, he said, adding:

“The European Union was not created to become a debt union; this has never even come up in the past. So this is once again a step that goes against the EU treaties and the vision that we have for Europe’s future.”
- Péter Szijjártó, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 25 Nov 2022

Observations

Oh dear. Once again it seems that all is not sweetness and light in Ursula von der Leyen’s fairytale world of EU “solidarity and unity”.

Before Christmas It seems the EU will either cut off EU funds to Hungary or (perhaps more likely given the usual EU fudges) it will issue a final ultimatum of sorts.

With Hungary’s Prime Minister speaking on Thursday of fighting “numerous battles with Brussels” and his Foreign Secretary the next day openly accusing Brussels of “blatant lying”, last week did not exactly close on a high point for the empire’s rulers.

Needless to say, readers are unlikely to be informed by the BBC of any of the above.

We must get reports like this out there

Reports like the one above take far longer to research, write and produce than many people realise. If they were easy, readers would see other organisations also producing these daily.

However, there’s little point in the Facts4EU.Org team working long hours, seven days-a-week, if we lack the resources to promote them effectively – to the public, to MPs, and to the media. This is where you come in, dear reader.

Facts4EU.Org needs you today

We are a 'not for profit' team (we make a loss) and any payment goes towards the actual work, not plush London offices, lunch or taxi expenses, or other luxuries of some organisations.

We badly need more of our thousands of readers to become members, to support this work. Could this be you, today? It's quick and easy, we give you a choice of two highly secure payment providers, and we do NOT ask you for further support if you pay once. We just hope you keep supporting us. Your membership stays anonymous unless you tell us otherwise.

Please don't assume that other people will keep us going - we don't receive enough to survive and we need your help today. Could you help us? We rely 100% on public contributions from readers like you.

If you believe in a fully-free, independent, and sovereign United Kingdom, please join now by clicking on one of the links below or you can use our Support page here. You will receive a personal, friendly ‘thank you’ from a member of our team within 24 hours. Thank you.

[ Sources: EU Parliament | EU Commission | Hungarian Prime Minister | Hungarian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Mon 28 Nov 2022

Click here to go to our news headlines

Please scroll down to COMMENT on the above article.
And don't forget to actually post your message after you have previewed it!

Something to say about this? Scroll down for reader comments

Since before the EU Referendum, Brexit Facts4EU.Org
has been the most prolific researcher and publisher of Brexit facts in the world.

Supported by MPs, MEPs, & other groups, our work has impact.

We think facts matter. Please donate today, so that we can continue to ensure a clean Brexit is finally delivered.

Any credit card user

Quick One-off

From £5 - £1,000

Monthly

From £3 per month

Paypal Users Only - Choose amount first

Quick One-off

Monthly

PLEASE NOTE IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT : You can write your comment under any existing comments below. After you have clicked to preview your comment, you MUST then click on the CAPTCHA system and send you comment, for it to be published. Thank you!

Reader Comments 9

1. terence patrick hewett , Monday, November 28, 2022, 08:26:

Poland is well on track to becoming one of the most powerful military forces in the EU. And Visegrad likewise: and they have no intention of being dominated by either Russia or the EU. I see the centre of gravity of the EU moving East: even perhaps of Visegrad looking elsewhere for trading partners once they become increasingly powerful.

2. Diane , Monday, November 28, 2022, 09:46:

Perhaps pertinent to this, the words of a Polish MEP hammers home some truth in the article titled 'Bitter Truth: EU Parliament told it has done 'a lot of damage' to Europe at Anniversary event ( full article 27 Nov Breitbart.com/europe site ) " The idea that, say, Spain, Germany, France etc., deputies accountable to their own national electorates can dictate something to, shall we say, Hungarian society or any other society to which they cannot be held accountable and which cannot take them to task is simply preposterous" he added. Call it what you will but democracy it is not.

3. FTFY , Monday, November 28, 2022, 13:59:

Orban is a perfect addition to this bunch, who mock decent folk by flaunting just how "bad" they are. The common thread between them, is a will to subvert the law.
Many, if not all of them, came under scrutiny by the law but were let off by those in their chosen parties. Criminality is never far from them, it would seem.
Hungary invited this on themselves for siding with Russia. No sympathy, whatsoever. If we are struggling this winter, pouring billions into the same war it refused to condemn, then there is no reason why they should still be getting billions.
You can't support Ukraine & Hungary simultaneously. It's that thing called a conflict of interest. Try putting the national interest first.
The EU needs to adopt a 'rule of law clause' as condition for membership - not funding.
In Bank's 2016 memoir, which could easily be retitled "Bad Bots of Brexit: Tales of sanctioned crime, disaster capitalism & casually colluding with a foreign power" - he acknowledges that before the referendum campaign he met with Russian officials many times, including Alexander Yakovenko, the Russian Ambassador to London.
Theresa May, as Home Secretary did her bit by declining a request by the intelligence services to investigate him. She had her use, before being cast aside.
Boris would later refuse any further reports & after his usefulness, he was on the boozy pavement. This is a pattern not an instance.
Who will take him & his Russian wife, who was a Leave.EU ambassador, to court if he gets let off by the Tories?
He is still, the biggest ever individual donor to the party.
Soon, when the Tories are out, an apolitical ethics entity needs to look into this, plug the loopholes & bring to justice any wrongdoers.
Whatever the EU decides to do with Orban is peripheral & good riddance. It couldn't have come sooner.
We need to uphold our own rule of law, a topic you will never think to "research". Thankfully, I did it for you.

4. Not4EU, London , Monday, November 28, 2022, 15:09:

1. Terence.
I doubt that the 'centre of gravity' of the fetid EU will move eastwards. It's failing as all command control autocracies inevitably do. It's more likely that, particularly once the money taps are turned off & the EU no longer serves its function of wealth transfer to them, that the Visegrad countries will break away (if the EU has not already collapsed) & form a confederation rather than the federation that they're being shoehorned into which is increasingly reminiscent of the Soviet Union/CCP. Countries cooperating when it's in their country's interest to do so but not imposing an unelected corporatocracy's edicts which harms the country's culture, beliefs or controls so not impacting a country's sovereignty.
This subsuming of a country into a foreign-controlled federation is demonstrated by FTFY(3) who, when referring to the EU, says 'we' and is all for punishment for country's who do not 'do as they are told'. Perhaps the EU and such people are discovering that some countries still act in their own interests & not their banker/corporate masters. They are losing control. Something our GINO should take note of, because more people are watching & making notes.

5. LuxuryBalloon , Monday, November 28, 2022, 22:50:

A bit silly of Orban to make Hungary completely reliant on Russia for its gas, oil and electricity. I wonder what the monthly payments are by Hungary to fund Putin’s war in the Ukraine

6. FTFY , Monday, November 28, 2022, 23:13:

I find it interesting that you only took issue with the word "we". You were fine with everything else.
None of it is new or normal. It was widely reported by credible news sources - so not here.
It's quite clear that "we" means the UK, as I explicitly say "the EU" when I meant the EU.
This is plain speak. Reacquaint yourself with it. You've become too used to doublespeak.
Out of curiosity,, when Brexiteers say "we", who exactly do you mean?
Do you mean conservatives in Hungary, Italy, France, or the US? Or anywhere you can find them?
Or do you mean your countrymen?
Orban can join Putin if he can't follow the rules. He needs to decide & stop dragging his heels. One would think he is buying Russia time intentionally.
There is no such thing as neutrality in geopolitics - according to a certain Russian.
So as far as he is concerned - Brexiteers, Trumpers & EU want-aways are his closest frenemies,
If he could make them his best frenemies, then what good is NATO?
The fact that Putin, even at war, now has more in common with isolated groups of conservatives in different countries than those groups do with their own countrymen needs consideration - how can that not be a potential problem?.
Here's a thought, Why on earth would a bully be opposed to others banding together against him? Oh, I don't know. Do you?

7. Buster , Monday, November 28, 2022, 23:45:

Orban is a fascist. The EU should just kick Hungary out and let it take its chances with the jackbooted, Putin backing thug
Orban. Poland can follow if necessary.
The EU would be well rid of these gutter dwellers.

8. Dimi , Friday, December 02, 2022, 23:11:

Buster, your comment is insulting and racist.

9. Dimi , Friday, December 02, 2022, 23:38:

E.U are fascist. And if they want to kick out Putins backers they should kick out themselves....

Add comment:

Please note: Your email address is never published unless you choose to enter it.