In the last few days, several important developments have taken place that may have a profound effect on the relationship between Hungary and the European Union. I will touch on two that caught my eye in today’s post. A third, equally important, must be left for tomorrow.
I introduced the first one in my April 29 piece titled “Reconstruction of the von der Leyen-Orbán RRF meeting.” In this article, I hypothesized that, in spite of all the smiles and von der Leyen’s pronouncement of a “good meeting with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán,” the meeting brought unwelcome and unexpected news to the self-assured Hungarian prime minister. The news was that he is no longer in a position to blackmail the European Union. The European Commission has the upper hand since it holds the purse strings. The 13-page, banal proposal that the Hungarian government offered to qualify for RRF money would not do. The Hungarian government either radically revises it or the grant will not be approved. No ifs, and, or buts.
Two days ago, Katalin Halmai, Népszava’s correspondent in Brussels, confirmed my hypothesis. She learned from reliable sources that “the leaders of the European Commission told the Hungarian delegation that the Hungarian plans developed for the use of the EU Recovery Fund were so bad that they would not be supported in this form.” The European Commission was represented by President Ursula von der Leyen, Céline Gauer, head of the Working Group on the Financial Fund, and von der Leyen’s chief of staff, Björn Seibert. Von der Leyen apparently made it clear that “no political compromise” was possible on the issue, and Gauer informed the Hungarians that the “privatized universities” cannot be the beneficiaries of EU RRF funds.
The Orbán government, which normally is not in any hurry to release documents, made the mistake this time of publishing the text of its 13-page proposal just as the Hungarian delegation was leaving for Brussels. Therefore, we are able to trace quite accurately where the Orbán government, in its new plan, which the Hungarian government officially submitted to the European Commission last night, had to retreat from its original scheme.
First, as we knew right after Orbán’s meeting with von der Leyen, the original plan to get 5,800 billion forints from the RRF fund, 2,500 in a grant and the rest in a loan, was scrapped. The Hungarian government decided to remove the most controversial spending requests from the proposal and to ask only for the grant money, forgoing the loan.
Second, as for the specifics of the proposal, there are no great surprises here. The largest item in the original plan was supposed to go toward renovating universities. But, according to 444, in the new version, only about 20% of the original amount is devoted to fattening up Hungary’s newly privatized universities. All of the promises given to the university administrations about the bright days ahead are down the drain, I’m afraid. The deficiencies of Hungarian healthcare, however, can no longer be ignored, and therefore, proportionally, it was cut the least. Although Hungary deleted 56% of its initial requests in monetary terms, healthcare lost only 35% of the sum originally planned.
The European Commission has two months to evaluate the Hungarian proposal. If it is approved, the Hungarian government could access 325 billion of the grant money by August. And, although the Hungarian government did not submit a plan to use the available 3,300 billion forint credit line, presumably to avoid a dispute with Brussels before the 2022 election over the more contentious items in the original plan, this money will be available until the end of 2023. And since I have the feeling that, despite the cavalier attitude demonstrated by the government in the matter of the interest-free loan, every eurocent is needed, Orbán is probably counting the days until the election when, if he is victorious, he can submit a new proposal to the European Union to take advantage of the extra 3,300 billion forints.
As I said, after her April 23 meeting with Viktor Orbán, when the Hungarian proposal was rejected out of hand, Ursula von der Leyen tweeted “Good meeting with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán tonight.” “Good meeting” seems to be the stock beginning of every such EU announcement. A couple of days ago Didier Reynders, commissioner for justice, tweeted “good meeting with MoJ Judit Varga.” “Good” obviously doesn’t mean “pleasant” in this context, since a sentence later we learned that it was “a frank and open discussion on a series of Rule of Law issues; Art. 7 hearings, NGO’s transparency.” We all know what “frank and open” means in the language of diplomacy. Reynders’s closing sentence was “I now expect some quick progress on these last two issues. Our dialogue will continue.”
Didier Reynders and Judit Varga
According to Euronews, Reynders covered more ground with Judit Varga than he indicated in his Twitter message. Apparently, he informed the Hungarian minister of justice that the hearing on Article 7 would be held during the current Portuguese EU presidency. And Hungary must fulfill its obligations when it comes to the rulings of the European Court of Justice. It was not in Reynders’ tweet, but reporters in Brussels “know that the commissioner asked Hungary to consider joining the European Public Prosecutor’s Office,” which obviously the thoroughly corrupt Orbán regime can’t afford to do. On the other hand, we know that a large segment of the Hungarian population considers joining EPPO the only way to ensure investigations of the far too many corruption cases in Hungary.
Judit Varga also reported on her conversation with Didier Reynders on her Facebook page, both in Hungarian and English. I’m quoting from the latter. She made it clear to him that
back in April, the Commission promised that this year’s report would measure all Member States on an equal standard, including positive developments in the Member States as well. We still expect the 2021 Rule of Law Report to be:
impartial,
based on real facts,
hence including the Hungarian government’s standpoint too.
The Hungarian government will always remain open to dialogue in order to develop an honest and mutually respectful discussion, instead of providing unilateral and misleading information.
impartial,In brief, Judit Varga, as a representative of the Hungarian government, accuses the European Union of an unfair assessment of the rule of law in its last report and demands the inclusion of alleged “positive developments” in this year’s report. What positive developments? If possible, the state of democracy and law is in worse shape today than a year ago.
Péter Föld S.’s comment in Hírklikk is worth quoting here. “To understand what this is all about, the student is asking the teacher to grade her knowledge more fairly this time than last year, because she was very dissatisfied with his last assessment, as though she deserved a grade of five but received only a measly two and that only by the grace of God.” Well, maybe the teacher will get tired of this impertinence and will say something very nasty, for example, “You know what? If you don’t join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the European Commission will not be able to support your latest recommendations to the ministers of finance for consideration.” There might come a day when patience will run out, just as it did when Viktor Orbán wanted to pull the wool over the eyes of the officials of the European Commission by trying to ensure a perpetual ideological, political, and financial overlordship of Hungarian higher education. He failed.
