Orban EU presidency already dividing opinion – Hungary PM wants to ‘take over’ EU, MEPs sceptical of his ability to lead bloc

Hungary will hold the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of 2024, putting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in formal charge of the EU’s policy-making process for six months. While certain EU politicians are confident about the bloc’s future but view Hungary’s upcoming tenure with trepidation, some right-wing commentators say Orban is correct to say Europe is nearing a critical point.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban ended 2023 by saying Hungary does not intend to leave the EU, but wants to take over political control of the bloc.

Hungary is set to take over the six-month rotating EU presidency from Belgium in July. Unlike the Czech presidency, which ran from July to December 2022, and was hailed as a “big success”, Hungary’s stint is likely to be contentious.

“We need to go deeper, occupy positions, gather allies, and fix the European Union. It’s not enough to be angry; we need to take over Brussels,” Orban said just before Christmas.

The timing is interesting: Hungary will assume the presidency just after the EU elections in June, immediately before the formation of the new EP, amid negotiations on the composition of the new European Commission, and during the US election in November 2024.

The Hungarian premier has long received criticism for the erosion of the rule of law in the country during his second spell in office that began in 2010. In December Hungary was the only member state to veto the Ukraine Facility, a EUR 50bn package to provide Kyiv with financial assistance from 2024-27 to cover its ballooning public deficit, services and reconstruction work. The Council will vote on the funding again, Orban’s blocking of which has scuppered the EU’s annual budget review, at an emergency summit on 1 February.

Opposition to Orban presidency gathers pace

Last week Finnish MEP Petri Sarvamaa collected the requisite 120 signatures for a petition that could eventually lead to stripping Hungary of its voting rights in the EU Council.

Sarvamaa is a member of the European People’s Party (EPP), the conservative grouping that Fidesz was a member of for 15 years, only to be suspended in 2019 and finally leave to join the non-Inscrits in 2021. He proposes applying the procedure against Hungary citing Part 2 of Article 7 of the EU Treaty.

He wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “Signatures collected! We are one step closer to withdraw (sic) Orban’s voting rights. The feedback was strong, thanks to everyone who has supported this historical petition. I gathered 120 names across party lines and from several Member States.

“Next it would be crucial to measure the final overall support for the petition’s idea in plenary as soon as possible. This may be possible already next week, as Parliament will be voting on a resolution specifically on Hungary next week,” Sarvamaa tweeted.

In June 2023 members of the European Parliament (EP) voted through a non-binding resolution that “questions how Hungary will be able to credibly fulfil this task in 2024, in view of its non-compliance with EU law”, with a resounding majority of 442 to 144, with 33 abstentions. 

MEPs called on member states to “find a proper solution as soon as possible” and for the EP to take “appropriate measures if such a solution is not found”.

Pro-Fidesz institute pessimistic on EU, Ukraine

In an opinion piece on the right-wing website Hungarian Conservative, Carlos Roa, a fellow of the Budapest-based Danube Institute, which is funded by the Orban government, called 2024 “a watershed year” and a “do-or-die moment” for the EU.

In a piece entitled “Can the European Union Survive 2024?”, the right-wing writer criticises the EU’s policies since the EU-8 – Hungary, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia – joined the bloc in 2004.

“Broadly speaking, European strategy for the past two decades has essentially been a double-down bet that the US-led liberal international order would continue for the foreseeable future,” he wrote.

The last two decades have seen the US “providing international security, Russia supplying cheap energy, and China (and later India) emerging as a massive market demanding specialized European goods and products”. Thus the EU member states have been “spared from having to pour resources into defence budgets”, and has instead focused on welfare, refining and advancing manufacturing, and helping the EU-8.

Likening the EU to a poker player, the op-ed adds “It turns out that all it had was a pair of 8s. The time came when Europe should have folded, but it didn’t. After the 2008 global financial crisis China’s rise became “a significant cause of concern” and US “efforts and European attempts, to rebalance trade… have led to the return of protectionism and industrial policy.”

The “last straw” was Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and consequent energy sanctions on Russia, and Europe “is now de-industrializing due to high energy prices”, according to the right-wing outlet.

Right-wing op-ed paints grim picture of future of EU, Ukraine

Deprived of Russian energy supplies and faced with the reduction in US security, the op-ed continues, “European leaders are being called upon to somehow increase defence spending on an already limited budget”.

Moreover, “weakening EU macroeconomic conditions, inflationary pressures, poor demographics, and the migrant crisis (who) draw upon public benefits but have a poor record of assimilating”. These have put Europe in a situation that he calls “Kafkaesque”.

“Where would the USD 411bn to USD 1tn to rebuild war-torn Ukraine come from? No one is quite sure and it is apparently impolite to ask. It is no surprise… that the legitimacy of the entire Union is being questioned,” according to the op-ed.

Freund bullish on Orban

Some in Brussels are more upbeat on the prospects of the EU and Ukraine, but less so on Orban’s upcoming rotating presidency. According to prominent Orban critic and Green MEP Daniel Freund “putting Orban in charge of Europe is a terrible idea” adding that “if you give Orbán power, he will abuse it”.

Writing in International Politics & Society, Freund describes Orban as “the man who turned Hungary into an autocracy, introduced the concept of an ‘illiberal’ democracy to European politics and turned Hungary into a mafia state.”

According to the German MEP, Orban and his veto “pose a serious security risk for European citizens”. Orban “setting the EU agenda in the weeks after the EU election when top jobs are distributed, the five-year work plan for the Commission is being decided, and when, not least, Donald Trump will campaign for a second turn… are dire prospects for Europe.” 

Freund adds that Orban’s “ministers have shaken the hands of Kremlin representatives more often than any other EU government” while he “excessively abuses his veto on the European level in order to extort EU money”. Those ministers would chair the very meetings where the course is set for Europe’s future.

“Preconditions are required, and these preconditions don’t have to be political ones. EU governments could easily argue that a member state dealing (like Hungary) with not just one but two rule of law procedures is unfit to take over the rotating Council presidency. The order of member states could be changed with a qualified majority vote.”

“At the European Council summit last December (Orban) managed to extort EUR 10bn of EU funds and still holds a handful of vetoes. The lesson is clear: if you give Viktor Orban power, he will abuse it. He will use it to the detriment of the European Union. It is time to finally put an end to it,” Freund concludes.

November Trump victory more likely than June EU far-right landslide

However, as with five years ago, talk of the EU election leading to far-right parties taking over the EP is unlikely to become a reality. The EPP and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats remain strong in the polls, although the liberal Renew Europe grouping has lately been losing support.

Orban joining the minor far-right Identity and Democracy grouping in the EP would be a step down from EPP membership. His recent claim that he had asked to join the less extreme right-wing nationalist European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, which is dominated by the Brothers of Italy and Poland’s Law & Justice party, was denied by an ECR spokesman on Friday, 12 January.

EU member states can help steer Hungarian presidency

Ultimately, most of the EU’s key decisions will as usual be taken in European capitals during his EU presidency tenure, leaving little room for Orban to play politics. Regardless, Orban is increasingly seen as a ghost at the feast in Brussels.

Without a June 9 landslide for the far-right, or a Trump victory in November, Orban will look increasingly isolated. However, elections in Austria will also coincide with Hungary’s tenure and could see the far-right Freedom Party of Austria win. Moreover, Slovakia is now led by fellow populist Robert Fico, who may support Orban in EU votes.

Freund adds that “not too many chances for Orban and his government to actually leave his footprint on EU laws”. After Hungary’s six-month stint, Poland – currently a battleground of pro-EU and Eurosceptic political factions – is scheduled to take up the rotating presidency.