GUY VERHOFSTADT |
European politicians have mastered the art of wagging their finger, most recently at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and United States President Donald Trump. Sadly, the same cannot be said for Europe’s ability to formulate political solutions and implement common policies.
The refugee crisis has shaken Europe to its core, because, rather than taking collective responsibility for managing the flood of migrants and refugees into Europe, Europe has mostly shifted the burden to frontline countries. This has eroded European solidarity. Likewise, Europe’s inability to come together to stop Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s war crimes against his own people has left a void that Putin and Iran have filled in.
European leaders too often shout from the sidelines when they should be on the field, acting to defend common European interests. And as if their failure to ensure stability in their own neighbourhood was not enough, they have also allowed right-wing populist and nationalist movements to take off within the European Union itself. Poland’s de facto leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in particular, have been busily constructing illiberal states within the EU. Since coming to power in 2010, Orban has been using his large parliamentary majority to rewrite Hungary’s constitution for his own ends. Apparently, winning elections is not enough. He now wants to shred the liberal values that he once championed as a young centrist politician, and cement his control over Hungary’s political process.
In recent years, he has pursued this project through varied and ruthless means. The government regularly harasses or raids civil-society and non-governmental organisations. Media outlets that disseminate Orban’s propaganda receive tax breaks, while those that criticise him are taxed so heavily that they eventually have to give up. This means that EU money is effectively being used to stoke Euroscepticism.
In what is only the latest outrage, Orban’s government is attempting to shut down Central European University (CEU) in Budapest. Although CEUis just 26 years old, many of its departments already rank among the top 50 in the world. Nonetheless, Orban has refused to talk with Ignatieff.
In fine autocratic fashion, Orban has tried to smear CEU with hysterical reporting about the university’s foreign financing. And, because he wants to portray CEU as “un-Hungarian”, he usually neglects to mention that he himself received a Soros-funded scholarship to study at Oxford soon after the collapse of Hungary’s communist regime.
Invoking Article 7
Orban’s attack on CEU amounts to more than a violation of academic freedom. Now that he has weakened Hungary’s constitutional court and free press, he wants to undermine critical thinking itself. If he succeeds, he will have removed yet another check on his power. And, by shutting down such a prominent US-supported institution, he can send a message that no one who has stood up to him has won.
The European Commission can launch as many “infringement procedures” against Hungary as it wishes; Orban will simply ignore them with smirking pleasure. After months of discourse with the Hungarian government officials, the EU’s only option now is to invoke Article 7 of the Treaty of Lisbon, which could ultimately remove Hungary’s voting rights within the EU. Invoking Article 7 is not a “nuclear option”, as some have claimed. Rather, it is the logical response to a member-state government that has routinely violated citizens’ fundamental rights and EU values. From the standpoint of European parliamentarians, there is no reason why sanctions cannot be quickly implemented. The European Commission has already documented the facts of the case against Hungary, complete with arguments and counter-arguments. If two-thirds of MEPs now approve sanctions, the file will be forwarded to the European Council — at which point European heads of state will have no choice but to address the matter.
Europe’s credibility already suffers because some of its leaders hold ambiguous attitudes. But continuing to waver over Orban’s transgressions will have even more serious long-term costs. Europeans must aspire to be more than just participants in an internal market. They need to restore the value-based community that once helped them face down dictators like Francisco Franco, Antonio de Olivier Salazar, and the Greek colonels, and that united Europe after the collapse of Communism.
A value-based community has no place for governments such as those that now rule Hungary and Poland. The EU should invoke Article 7 as soon as possible, and with the broadest possible majority among member-states. And, after Orban, we must turn our attention to Kaczynski.
— Project Syndicate, 2017
Guy Verhofstadt is also the president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group in the European Parliament.
