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A Political Verdict?
As we all might have heard the unavoidable happened, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) dismissed Orbán’s trial against the rule of law conditionality, the same happened with the Polish trial, which was invoked separately.
The rule of law was since many years a concern of the EU. So the idea grew that only countries should get funding from the EU that obey the common values as determined in Art 2 in the EU Treaty. In July 2020 an EU summit has been held and the heads of governments and states voted unanimously that to the upcoming multiyear budget a rule of law mechanism should be added, valid if the generally needed qualified majority would adopt it.
In a historic summit in December 2020, when Poland and Hungary threatened to veto the entire budget, since these 2 countries were afraid to get less money because of the rule of law mechanism. After they got a political declaration that they may ask the ECJ to declare the rule of law conditionality invalid – a way open to all member states anyway – both budget and mechanism were adopted unanimously. Not the 1st time Orbán agreed with EU law to ask the ECJ later for declaring this invalid.
Orbán wanted to keep the money flowing until the 2022 elections, since the ECJ needs in most cases more than a year to decide. Although a trial does not have a suspensive effect the commission did not use the mechanism. To win time the claim was sent to the ECJ on March 31st, 2021, the very latest legally possible day. The question was obviously not that difficult and despite all expectations of Orbán the ECJ already yesterday was able to announce the ruling.
Already in January Orbán attacked the judges in his “underground publication,” which has been dutifully copied in all regime media. Last Saturday he spoke about a “jihad” against Hungary. Who expected that Orbán would accepted the decision he himself asked for was terrible wrong. Within hours after the ruling was announced he sent unusually not on a Thursday, but on Wednesday held “kormányinfó” press conference not only his usual spokesman and minister of the office of the prime minister Gergely Gulyás, but minister of justice Judit Varga as well. The latter declared repeatedly that all this is about the so-called child protection law would be the reason, not the rule of law. Hard to understand her prediction that things would be over after the elections and the referendum on April 3rd, she declared that the EU did no longer attack Hungary concerning the redistribution of refugees after the 2018 elections and the invalid anti-referendum as well. Besides this was another example of an European law Orbán agreed with to loose a trial at the ECJ, the EU did not act further because Hungary fulfilled its duty. Whether the EU has a time machine Varga did not tell either, since the anti-gay law has been not even in discussion when the rule of law mechanism was proposed, passed, or the trial begun. Perhaps this is the reason why she left the press conference after her declaration and did not allow questions ►HU. She moved on to the NER elite indoctrination school MCC as soon as possible ►HU.
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen declared ►EN: “I welcome these judgements, which follow the position that the Commission, the European Parliament, the Council and ten Member States defended in the procedure. …. This mechanism ensures that the Union budget will be protected and implemented in line with the principles of sound financial management, for the benefit of all European citizens. The Commission will now analyse carefully the reasoning of the judgments and their possible impact on the further steps we will take under the Regulation. …. I promised that no case will be lost. And I have kept that promise. The Commission has been monitoring the situation in all Member States since the entry into force of the Regulation and we are assessing in depth certain cases.”
The European Parliament EP put the rule of law onto the agenda of the regular seating for yesterday as soon as the ECJ announced the ruling. From nearly all parties came the request that the commission now must act. EP speaker Roberta Metsola (EPP, MT) said that there is no more time to wait for. Johannes Hahn (EPP, AT), commissioner responsible for the budget, assured that the mechanism would be launched within weeks and that the implementing directives are ready. Only the extreme right took party for Orbán, a Bulgarian MEP protected Orbán and Kaczyński, just to leave after showing the nazi salute ►HU.
On a press conference with several other MEPs Katalin Cseh said that the government acted as if they did not read the verdict. Together with her colleagues she thinks that with the application of the mechanism mustn’t be waited until the elections ►HU. Péter Márki-Zay declared to recover the endangered EU funding ►HU. Since Orbán wants tolerance from Brussels and Berlin the call of German minister of justice is important as well: Marco Buschmann told the commission to act, to apply all possible means ►DE. Since Orbán doesn’t get what he wants we are a step closer to leave the common way with the EU, as he announced last Saturday.
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The Court’s judgement, political or not is a valid and binding one as far as all, including Orban are concerned. It is an important and welcome further step in ensuring that the respect for the rule of law remains an inviolable principle of the EU and in safeguarding EU funds from criminal misuse.
Orbán: Who asked them having a say? Varga: We!
If a greater part of Fidesz’ election-propaganda could be forced to deal with public demands for answers to: “What now, little Viktor? – What will you do when the price-barrier implodes after the election?”.
“How much more should Hungarians limit their EU membership-status, for the preservation of the Oligarchy?”, etc. and the predictable consequences of further antagonism – eventual marginalisation and reduced voting-rights – That should strengthen a positive turnover of many currently undecided votes for the opposition.
There are many reports this morning US time internationally of artillery fire from Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine of firing shells at a village in the Luhansk region. Meanwhile the Russian RT news service depicts this very differently quoting Putin’s main PR person Dmitry Peskov stating that it was quite likely that Ukraine would seek a military solution to the conflict. He is quoted directly stating “The attention of our interlocutors is drawn to the fact that a military operation and an attempt to resolve problems with the use of force in the southeast are quite real.This probability is high and real.”
The Russians have also expelled the deputy US ambassador to Russia today. In their article he is depicted as a security specialist named Bart Gorman indirectly implying he may have been the CIA station chief in Moscow.
The Russian inversion and projection of actual situations into prepared propaganda-molds, is total and uncontested within their realm of power.
Civil Russia has, for a good decade, readily swallowed wild stories of strong territorial threats by the West, more or less compulsively based on antiquated pre-Nato era argumentation.
For those who live in Western Europe, this is normal and expected. However – The current situation has prompted a mature debate about whether it’s time for the EU to take step into common defense, and for how long (post Trump) the EU Nato members can rely on American military leadership.
Behind it’s now ubiquitous paywall The NY Times ran this story on Feb 17, “The United States’ Message to Russia: Prove Us Wrong” written by David Sanger. It continues to present the logic of the US CIA of “constantly renew(ing) the alarm that Russia is only several days away from triggering an unprovoked land war in Europe that could kill tens of thousands of Ukrainians in its opening hours, and plunge the world back into something resembling the Cold War.” Effectively according to Sanger who has deep CIA contacts the CIA, Department of State, and the White House believe if “that’s what it takes to deter Russian President Vladimir V. Putin from pursuing an invasion that they worry will not stop at Ukraine’s borders,” then they will continue.
The problem is Russia is not impressed by this spy game in the least and now is laying down the nuclear card. It is widely reported that Putin will personally oversee exercises by Russia’s nuclear forces involving the launch of ballistic and cruise missiles. The exercises, set to take place on Saturday, have been confirmed by the country’s defense ministry, according to Interfax news agency but are not being widely reported in Russia.
But RT did run an extremely intimidating article https://www.rt.com/russia/549690-belarus-ready-deploy-supernuclear-weapons/ that apparently is discussing the possibility of short-range missiles armed with nuclear warheads moved into proximity of Poland.
Of course the USA via NATO can move similar weapons into Poland and Romania, both nations could support that move.
As I stated before during the Cold War as a US Army officer I did indeed see nuclear artillery shells in storage ready for deployment in Europe and now with the development of rocket assisted projectiles (RAP) that have extended range equipped with guidance systems all of this become more scary. Because both Poland and Romania have howitzers capable of launching RAPs with tactical nuclear warheads. We are headed down a very dangerous path and Orban may well be forced to rapidly choose sides for real, because I am pretty sure he knows if nukes start flying Hungary will become a wasteland because Hungary has NATO facilities on its soil.
I also found it interesting that Telex covered the Russian nuclear exercises in this article https://telex.hu/kulfold/2022/02/18/orosz-ukran-valsag-oroszorszag-raketakiserlet-vlagyimir-putyin-ukrajna-legiero but as far as I can tell Magyar Nemzet did not as yet. However the Telex article really does not discuss the possibility of Belarus hosting nuclear weapons even though this story was published in Russia prior to the Telex article being published. Instead this is what Telex wrote about Belarus “There may also be more than 30,000 Russian soldiers in Belarus, where joint military exercises have been announced in advance until Sunday. Many assume that a possible attack on Ukraine could start from this direction as well. Putin will meet with Alexander Lukashenko on Friday. The Belarusian president told the BBC he would also be talking about whether Russian troops would stay in Belarus after the exercise.”
I am totally unclear why Telex chose not to cover the statements made by Lukashenko on being open to hosting nuclear weapons targeting NATO on its soil in this article, but it does appear to be an editorial decision. I think the editorial team at Telex either does not fully grasp where all of this could be heading or it does indeed grasp it and does not want to appear alarmist.