The EU heads of state meeting last week managed to vote on potential Ukrainian membership of the EU only when Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban temporarily left the meeting. He returned, to block an aid package for Ukraine. Orban had been courted in Paris by Emmanuel Macron, and also at the leaders meeting by other politicians.
However, patience with Hungary and its leader – their illiberal politics, corruption and closeness to Russia, is running very thin and the mood is now running towards punishing Hungary.
There is now a small but growing group of EU MEPs, officials and some country leaders who would like to severely constrain Hungary, or even kick it out of the EU. Legally no mechanism exists to do this, though there is a procedure (Article 7) that could lead to the suspension of voting rights of a country (though to do so requires a unanimous vote by all the other countries)
Article 7
It is not impossible that Article 7 could soon be used against Hungary (the return of Donald Tusk as Poland removes a blocking vote). Though it has recently released Eur 10 bn in funding to Hungary, EU transfers remain ‘conditional’ on the rule of law and institutional quality (Eur 12 bn is held back still).
Hungary /Orban has increasingly been seen as a test case of the EU’s resolve – on the topic of ‘European values’ and the need to buttress attacks on the EU, not to mention the amount of political energy that is wasted on Orban.
Orban may have one last chance to recant. The EU has now tabled a special leader’s summit on EU aid to Ukraine for February 1st. We expect several leaders to propose bi-lateral EU donations to Ukraine if the summit looks like it will fail to approve aid on a pan-EU basis, and that the mood with respect to Hungary will harden.
