Original Financial Times article (behind paywall)
The European Union will sabotage Hungary’s economy if Budapest blocks fresh aid to Ukraine at a summit this week, under a confidential plan drawn up by Brussels, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.
Brussels has outlined a strategy to explicitly target Hungary’s economic weaknesses, imperil its currency and drive a collapse in investor confidence in a bid to hurt “jobs and growth” if Budapest refuses to lift its veto on the aid to Kyiv, the newspaper reported, citing a document drawn up by EU officials.
Notorious for many bitter feuds with the EU during his 13 years in power, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has become a vocal critic of the bloc’s support for Ukraine and boasted about his ties with the Kremlin since Russia went to war in Ukraine in February 2022.
The document seen by FT declares that “in the case of no agreement in the February 1 [summit], other heads of state and government would publicly declare that in the light of the unconstructive behaviour of the Hungarian PM . . . they cannot imagine that” EU funds would be provided to Budapest.
This all seems so implausible.
They can’t cut funding but they can enact all that?
strategy to explicitly target Hungary’s economic weaknesses, imperil its currency and drive a collapse in investor confidence in a bid to hurt “jobs and growth”
How? Supposedly there is a document outlining all this, then why not mention how this is supposed to work?
And how are these plans supposed to compel Hungary to do something if they are secret?This is stupid:
- Orbán doesn’t care about Hungarian economy.
- This will just help Orbán, because he can legit say now that the EU hurts Hungarians on purpose. Not him, but all Hungarians. He was telling this for years, without any proof, but now EU just did him a favor, thanks…
Whatever the EU does will help Orban. So why not try this approach? Hell Orban is already doing half the work, making sure the country’s economy goes down the shitter.
Just accept the fact that no matter what the EU does, Orban will stay popular. The brain of the average Hungarian voter is mush anyways.
The brain of the average Hungarian voter is mush anyways.
Sometimes i wonder if that is a regional culture thing in that part of Europe considering the kind of people Austria and Bavaria vote for in large numbers too.
How would you deal with Orban then?
The current freezing of EU fund things are somewhat working. And he can’t use them to make himself look like a victim. He likes to speak about himself as “We Hungarians”, and this just helps him with that.
This stops working when the matters that Orban is vetoing are time-critical. Like military aid for Ukraine.
Orban is creating a situation where the EU has two bad alternatives to choose from, and he doesn’t think they’ll turn on Hungary. But they might, because at this point, most of Europe seems like they’d prefer Ukraine being in the union over Hungary. So if Orban calls the EU’s bluff, there’s a very good chance that the EU will call Orban’s bluff and kill their voting rights, with full knowledge that it would strongly push Hungary towards leaving the Union. It’s a trade off; everyone’s done the math at this point. We’ll see how it actually pans out in the coming weeks.
Ah! Secret EU plan against Orban! Well FT, if you don‘t produce more of this document, and any kind of proof that this is more than a research paper, I call BS. There is so little in this article supporting the monstrous claim that the EU is secretly planning to devalue Hungary‘s currency, that I get the feeling that this is the expression of an anti EU agenda by the FT itself. There you go, that‘s my monstrous assumption.
It may be me, but this all doesn’t sound like a stable relationship. Plus, it will give other EU members (especially where the growing ultra right wing anti-EU parties are reigning) more reason for their own Brexit-like plans.
Which countries are that though?
Poland has a pro EU government now, albeit society remains split. Still if they wouldn’t align with the EU, they would have to align with Russia. They are fiercly against that.
Slovakia and Hungary are in the same boat. Orban doesn’t really want to leave the EU. He knows that aligning with Russia would kill the countries economy and he either gets to rule over rubble or the people will kill him.
They instead want to play the EU and Russia by playing both sides for as much opportunistic gain as possible. By not playing, the EU calls the bluff.
