The public display of Trump's "dirty underwear" is a source of entertainment for all who oppose him. But also a…
The unavoidable happened
Exactly 2 days after the elections the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced in the European parliament that she started the rule of law procedure against Hungary ►HU. This means that during the summer of 2022 funding for helping Hungary catching up with the rest of Europe will find an end. Since the problem is structurally endangering every funding and not just a special segment this may be a full stop. In fact this money is for a huge portion used for the personal enrichment of FIDESZ elite. Since the Hungarian authorities do not act against this fraud, do not prosecute the fraudulent persons, no legal review of illegal acts are possible, the EU will freeze this thriving mean of the Hungarian economy. In many years during the rule of Orbán the direct payments from the EU were higher than the growth of GDP, not to forget the fact that this multiplied economic effects, the not stolen part of this funding contributed in the development of our country, people were in jobs, paid taxes, spent their money again….
Despite the regime announced proudly a few days before the elections that Orbán told the EU that Hungary will against an earlier decision take place in the RRF credit and that the money starts flowing, money available to fill the holes in the budget caused by the elections won’t come. Well, in fact we should talk about craters after meteorite impacts instead of holes, the budget looks like the surface of the moon. The costs of the elections for the state – including tax refunds and state funded billboards – are estimated to be above 4.5 billion Euro. The rest EU funding from the cycle that ended in 2020 of 300 million Euro Hungary will get earlier to be able in helping refugees from Ukraine are not even worth mentioning compared to the excessive spending. Nevertheless the regime mixed everything and told the badly informed voters that the EU has opened the money tap even further before the elections.
The next steps are that Orbán has to react onto the demands of the commission, often enough belittled as just being a “letter.” If he does not fulfil the demands – what we shouldn’t expect at all, but it is part of the legal procedure – the council, this is the gathering of the heads of governments and states, has to vote about it. Orbán may defend himself, but he only will be able to win time with this strategy. But the timeframe is set tight, a lesson the EU learned from the never ending Art 7 procedure. The voting in the council is no obstacle, it needs to be done with the usual qualified majority, 11 states would be needed to side with Orbán and only 2 months ago there seemed to be 2 on his side, as it looks today it will be a maximum of 1. And this last one faces to be voted out within 3 weeks by losing his coalition partners. It is not optimistic but realistic to claim that late in the summer of 2022 this flow of money will be ended.
And no, Orbán can’t go to the courts to postpone execution of the decision. He may lodge a complaint of course, but this doesn’t effect execution. Since the ECJ declared the mechanism to be legal there only remain procedural mistakes or abusive application to be used as reasoning. I can’t imagine that deadlines are calculated wrongly or votes not counted correctly. And the same court has so often found serious problems concerning the rule of law in Hungary that the judges hardly would see an abuse of the mechanism.
At the same afternoon the EU announced the rule of law mechanism being applied against the Orbán regime our foreign minister called the EU to end making grandiose statements and to step down from the high horse. He called the EU for admitting Serbia immediately and giving Bosnia Herzegovina the status of a candidate member ►HU. Without going into the depth of the problems the regime favoured Bosnian Serbs are causing to their own country, that they are opponents of the Serb president, and other less logical errors in the Hungarian Balkan policies, the EU just doesn’t want another Orbán-like regime in the club. In Austria living Hungarian publicist Paul Lendvai wrote about the elections in Hungary and Serbia last Sunday as ►DE: “Putin’s victories in Budapest and Belgrade.” He declared that the EU has not to expect anything positive from our regime, however this the EU obviously understood as well and ended the shortsighted inactivity, he also criticised just before the EU finally acted indeed.
And what did our minister in the office of the prime minister Gergely Gulyás say in reaction to the announcement of the EU? Child protection ►HU! He was very proud of the hateful anti-gay referendum, obviously he didn’t understand that it failed – so many voted invalid or did not participate at all. And the Orbán-hates-gay-law was introduced more than half a year after the rule of law mechanism. Further the EU “blows the same song” as the “Hungarian left” – and this wasn’t elected. As if the basic values of the EU could be abolished by national elections. Gulyás wants the EU to return to dialogue. Well, he may answer to the demands of the commission, also this could be a dialogue. Orbán may defend his actions in the council. They may offer to join the European prosecutor office for example. Sure, this won’t happen, but this would be part of a constructive dialogue how to solve Hungary’s problems. Probably Gulyás doesn’t understand that peacock dancing is no dialogue, that the EU has enough of empty promises. Of course it is hard to admit 2 days after the elections that the opposition was right about EU funding and the ever-lying propaganda machine has deceived the voters.
The economic world understood the meaning of the EU decision. So the Euro was yesterday before the announcement moving between 369.0 and 369.2 Forint, shot up to 379.8 within minutes and is at the moment of writing at 379.6 Ft for 1 € ►EN. The shares of Lőrinc Mészáros’ Opus Global were yesterday early afternoon traded at 240 Ft, right now at 218 Ft ►EN. More than 3 times more than the BUX lost since yesterday 14:00 and 6 times more than the Euro Stoxx 50 during the same period.
Maybe he hopes to steal Brussel's cruiser and head out for Atlantis.
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First of all all secret information on the regime must be published.
The alignment with Russia must be documented step by step.
The parallel history of the Horthy regime has to be found in the German archives.
Mostly the young generation must understand the past with clarity.
Really Telex does that now, but it requires some reading and thinking. Many of the children of families who supported the opposition in the last election from larger cities want their children to move to the EU, I know of one candidate from the opposition for Parliament (who will not be named) who encouraged her daughter to go to college at the Univ of Indiana in the USA and she now is a US citizen, married, with one child here in Chicago.
She is totally opposed to Orban, but tells me she honestly doesn’t understand how her mother keeps up the political fight year after year.
Still the situation in Hungary is better than in Russia where Putin’s repressive apparatus has largely crushed the admirable ant-war movement. The last major antiwar rally was on March 13, and the streets have been mostly quiet since. Dmitry Peskov Putin’s main spokesperson explained it this way: “ Many people are showing themselves to be what we in Russia like to call traitors. They disappear from our lives on their own. Some resign from their jobs, some withdraw from their professional lives, and some leave the country and move to other places. That’s how Russia is cleansed.”
I read Orbán announced today new funding to complete the Chinese Belgrade – Budapest railroad and new athletics facilities in Ferencváros. I am just wondering how HU will be able to continue this spending spree.
Debt.
Orban never retreats in strategic issues and he plans for decades ahead.
The Chinese deal (just as Paks 2 and the Russian gas and oil deals) are absolutely sacrosanct, part of his overarching strategy of moving away from the EU. He’s not gonna compromise on those.
Similarly sports and the churches are sacrosanct, so they will get any funding.
Investing in local, socially conservative communities is absolutely key – when the opposition has no connection to any rural community.
Orban’s cosigliere just has to call the local priest or the local football coach and he will get names of reliable Fideszniks.
The opposition hasn’t got a clue, who its supporters are outside Budapest.
Orban knows the names of all Fidsz voters and this list gets updated continuously with the help of these local communities.
Macron’s lead is shrinking.
If Orban’s bet pays off, I don’t have to explain the consequences.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-06/macron-makes-last-minute-media-push-as-gap-with-le-pen-narrows?srnd=premium-europe
Gergely Karácsony seemed a little lost as to how to understand the defeat see https://telex.hu/belfold/2022/04/06/karacsony-gergely-hvg-interju-valasztasok-utan-nem-lehetett-nyerni-a-nem-fidesz-strategiaval but he largely blamed Jobbik for not bringing in conservative voters.
This article https://telex.hu/valasztas-2022/2022/04/06/bencsik-janos-jobbik-polgari-valasz-jakab-peter-marki-zay-peter-valasztas-2022 agrees with Gergely Karácsony that Jobbik collapsed going into April 3rd, but János Bencsik in this article has zero idea as how to get rid of Orban. He seems most concerned with forcing Péter Jakab out of the Party, to recreate what?
I recall arguing with our late host Eva about bringing Jobbik into the opposition saying it created a rotten block. Eva even indicated if in the primaries Péter Jakab was selected as the PM candidate she would have supported him because it was all about forcing out Orban. It appears he could not even deliver the votes of his own members, many of whom defected to Fidesz apparently based on Orban’s Hungary first campaign over the war in Ukraine.
Maybe the electoral pathway to removing Orban has past and Hungary will need its own color revolution to remove its lackey of Putin. It would require a serious economic collapse or a fall over of the Ukrainian war into NATO territory for that level of change to be considered by the masses of Hungarians who like a lot of people are risk adverse.
It’s true that Jobbik lost a shed load of votes by comparison with 2018, but I think that’s partly because under Jakab, they started to distance themselves from the extreme right (Mi Hazánk was created by disillusioned Jobbik politicians, who didn’t appreciate the move away from the fascist tendencies of the past). Appearing on the same platform as “the Left”, and especially the DK party leader, was just too much for many Jobbik supporters. I think Jakab was hoping his “charisma” would be enough to keep people on board, but as we saw in the primaries, his charisma wasn’t highly esteemed by enough voters.
It’s a paradox, but at the moment it seems like there is only room for the extreme right in the Hungarian government
“It would require a serious economic collapse or a fall over of the Ukrainian war into NATO territory for that level of change to be considered by the masses of Hungarians who like a lot of people are risk adverse.”
I’m afraid you’re right at the moment, there are no good or desirable options, we’ll just have to wait and see what effect events have on Hungary. My own feeling is that the opposition needs to work together in the 4 years between elections as well (to get organized in the countryside), but that’s unlikely to happen in the current set-up
First of all, the interview was with the hvg.
https://hvg.hu/360/20220406_Karacsony_Gergely_Nem_lehetett_nyerni
The Telex just took some headlines. Maybe the paywall was responsible for this.
Second, I think Jakab was aware of the risks. The idea him being able to “deliver the votes of his own members” is absurd, and shows a complete misunderstanding of democracy. If I vote, I vote, I do not “deliver” my vote to someone. I saw Jakab and heard Jakab several times at demonstrations, the same for the other opposition politicians, and he was a true part of the team messaging for the EU, against the theft of the regime etc.
And like Éva, I would have closed my nose too, and vote for Jakab, the same for MZP.
If 60% vote fascists, it shows how deep this country has sunk. And these 60% voted for Putin, and against the EU.
https://ria.ru/20220405/stanislavov-1781837933.html?fbclid=IwAR1CYdyNUf2N18wN74SBjoczkLKa98uW8ahnX7wg5KGby3NCPPsTLVSooq8
Of course in a democracy of any kind a political party can have trouble delivering votes. But if a political party is a shell operation that has little loyalty of its members, then what is the point of bringing it in to an electoral coalition. The United opposition leadership were obviously aware of problems in Jobbik and assumed there was a core of votes to be gained by having them inside. Because of the lack of exit polling I guess we will never know for sure the complete reason for the apparent cross over to Fidesz was.
It is pretty clear that prior to the Ukrainian war Fidesz was targeting these voters with much propaganda, including all kinds of allegations of Jakab‘s mistress and his secret apartment, on and on. But really Jakab shared a similar Hungary first ideology that Fidesz used to undermine solidarity with Ukraine. I also saw no evidence Jakab really tried to purge Jobbik of pro-Russian elements in it, he hoped I guess they all walked away, split, or were no longer important for the new vision of Jobbik.
A politician cannot “deliver” votes, only his own one.
What Jakab did, was trying to help to unseat the Viktor. Nothing more, nothing less. I do not like his political direction at all, but respect his decision to be a part of the coalition.
Jakab about the Viktor and Russia from 24th of February:
https://hungarytoday.hu/hungary-oposition-ukraine-marki-zay-russia/
A politician cannot deliver votes, he/she has only one vote.
Taking Jakab and Jobbik in the boat made sense. The Jobbik voters would have gone crazy if Jakab would have joined the opposition after the election to build a government.
https://balkaninsight.com/2021/09/21/can-the-former-far-right-deliver-hungary-from-orban/
As much as I disagree with many of Jakab’s´ opinions, I think he was supporting the coalition and MZP during the campaign.
As far as Russia concerned:
https://hungarytoday.hu/hungary-oposition-ukraine-marki-zay-russia/
Sorry jan, by unknown reasons 2 of your comments went into spam.
No problem.
Was it the Russian Link?
No, April 6, 2022 19:25 and April 7, 2022 00:13
I agree with some of this, and yes it would be absurd in a ‘normal democracy’ to think that votes can be delivered on demand, but that is the work of coalition politics, and given the situation here there was a reasonable expectation that each element would at least ‘facilitate’ the vote from their supporters… difficult but that’s the task. Of course Heller Ágnes (bless her soul) made the point a little while back that it would be necessary to work with Jobbik and its voters … there was and is no alternative but the crunch comes around whether they will work with a democratic and progressive coalition… the work of pursuasion is yet to be properly started and is vital. The point about forming links in the vidék is crucial but equally important is for work developing links with young people. We know how many new voters are coming into the system and there is work to be done there, a huge task but without it there is literally no future. We will have to see… as the UK PM Harold MacMillan pointed out in the 1950s, much of it hinges on “events, dear boy, events”…
The coalition took the risk, and I remember well the discussions about how the voters will behave when they have to vote for a candidate of a party who would be last choice in a normal situation. Like you wrote, it seems the Jobbik people were the ones who couldn´t close their nose and vote. They also had some alternatives on the fascists side; fidesz and mi házank.
To the point of the young people, this is where I am very pessimistic, there is a standardized curriculum for all schools, in which nationalism, and fantasy history about the great Magyarok plays a big role. So, the propaganda starts from a very young age.
We are not there yet, but on the way.
https://www.mhpbooks.com/storytime-with-dear-leader-childrens-books-from-north-korea/
Yes, you are absolutely right and things do start early and it is a massive challenge. History and literature are selected for their capacity to support a particualr narrative… it’s extremely difficult. But the parties and the NGOs etc. have to start thinking creatively about alternative routes to developing a critical take on the world… one area that the opposition (in whatever form it becomes) has to consider is the media and there’s a huge need for alternatives to the KESMA setup, new forms of messaging and informing that include young people and that can lead to other spaces for educational input. I’m not suggesting a rival form of ‘indictrination’ but ways of encouraging and enhancing critical thinking. After all, the absence of that has led to where things are now…
The Guardian reports that O invited Putin and some Western leaders to talks.
Anyone know more about this?
Sorry, it was Reuters.
Now we have to wait for the EU reaction.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungarys-orban-says-he-asked-putin-apply-ceasefire-ukraine-2022-04-06/ Here is the link.
Macron has asked Putin several times to declare a cease fire, it has come to nothing. But Hungary agreeing to pay for gas in rubles was interesting. Maybe the Russian spy bank (International Investment Bank) in Budapest will provide the ruble’s at a special rate? A good horse trader always is ready to barter.
Macron is wrong because there is no basis for any ceasefire.
Orbán also said he urged for a ceasefire in UA when speaking on the phone to Putin. My guess is this is just another lie; he did not mention this not even remotely when calling Putin.
https://telex.hu/english/2022/04/07/orban-on-europe-hungarys-place-within-it-russia-and-more
To the question of the public service TV about what was said when former American president Donald Trump called him on Tuesday, he answered that he did speak with Trump on Tuesday, and he spoke for quite a long time with Putin as well, on Wednesday. He explained that Hungary is in quite a special geopolitical situation, and our history shows us that wars only become more brutal as they go on.
According to Orbán, Putin responded to this idea positively, but he does have some conditions for the Ukrainians. These will be discussed during the negotiations – added the Hungarian Prime Minister.
In his opinion, Hungary is aware of its size, and thus it belongs on the side of peace, and he is constantly urging the Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations, and the securing of economic and other negotiations for right after peace returns.
I don’t, but of course O can have no input. The resolution of the war may take a long time. O is a meaningless side show.
The battle is for the East to South crescent of Ukraine which if list would cut Ukraine from access to the sea and lead to the loss of their most valuable natural resources.
If enough aid is made available the Ukrainians might force Putin out of the Crescent. If it does not, who knows?
The abandonment of Putin’s assault on Kiev is a huge win for Ukraine.
I am an optimist. If NATO decide to put shoulders to the wheel, we destroy Ukraine’s enemy. The foreign ministers are talking and we can look out for news of enhanced support.
As for O, it is a Hungarian problem for them to sort out.
A short while ago Josep Borrell from the EU was interviewed on the US Public Television Network. He was asked about Hungary agreeing to pay for Russian gas in Rubles and if the EU would do anything about that. Borrell said the EU had no adopted rule against Hungary doing that. He said he and thought most other leaders of EU did not agree with Hungary’s decision.
At least for the moment the EU will do nothing to stop Orban from doing this.
To my surprise, Slovenian prime minister Janez Janša (who is Orban’s friend) seems to really condemn Russian aggression (as opposed to Orban).
From his twitter account:
Z = zlo (evil)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FPqWLE2XsAMfEfs?format=png