Hajra, magyarok! Hajra Magyarorszag! Hungary has broken ranks with the European Union and may it’s spirited defiance continue.
Not long ago Hungary was being toasted in the West for opening its border with Austria to East Germans. This bold move led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
But Western elites are not happy with the independently minded Budapest any longer. But bullying Hungary does not make many headlines because it’s so-called “democratic” Westerners doing the bullying.
The Hungarian parliament approved a law to build the South Stream gas pipeline from Russia without the approval of the European Union, and the ruling Fidesz Party largely ignoring enraged foreign owned banks and energy companies.
The refusal of Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Fidesz to join the new US and EU Cold War against Russia has been met with anger and rage in Washington and Brussels.
Hungarian officials have been banned from entering the US, while the European Commission is trying to pressure the authorities on South Stream with legal action against the Hungarian government for its law restricting the rights of foreigners to buy agricultural land.
Viktor Orban is a nationalist and a conservative but that doesn’t really matter. Only obsequious servility to Uncle Sam and the Euro-elites matter, all in the name of “freedom” and “democracy.”
Fidesz returned to power in 2010. The previous Socialist administration was hugely popular in the West because it played lapdog to Washington and Brussels and the international banks, even taking out an unnecessary IMF loan.
Fidesz and its coalition allies, the Christian Democratic People’s Party, (KDNP) rather introduced a $855m bank tax, the highest in Europe, leaving the financial elite foaming at the mouth.
Orban clashed with the IMF too, with his government rejecting new loan terms in 2012, and paying off early a loan taken out by the previous government, to reduce interest payments.
Russia is Hungary’s third biggest trading partner and ties between the two countries have strengthened in the last couple of years, to the consternation of western Russophobes. In April, a deal was struck for Moscow to loan Hungary €10 billion to help upgrade its nuclear plant at Paks.
Orban’s policy of improving trade and business links with Russia, while staying a member of the EU and NATO, has however been put under increasing strain by the new hostile policy towards Moscow from Washington and Brussels.
Orban also spoke up for rights of the 200,000 strong Hungarian community living in Ukraine.”Ukraine can neither be stable, nor democratic, if it does not give its minorities, including Hungarians, their due. That is dual citizenship, collective rights and autonomy.”
Hungary’s Ambassador was immediately summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Kiev. Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland – the US’s most obedient servant in Eastern Europe – quickly called Orban’s comments “unfortunate and disturbing” in order to impress his masters. Little did it matter that it was strictly none of Tusk’s business.
In August, Orban accurately described the sanctions policy of the West towards Russia as like “shooting oneself in the foot.”
In October, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto also questioned the sanctions on Russia, revealing that his country is losing 50 million forints a day due to the policy.
Hungary has made its position clear, but for daring to question EU and US policy, and for its rapprochement with Moscow, the country has been punished.
It’s democratically elected civilian government which enjoys high levels of public support, has ludicrously – and obscenely – been likened to military governments which have massacred their opponents. “From Hungary to Egypt, endless regulations and overt intimidation increasingly target civil society,” declared US President Barack Obama in September.
Last month there was another salvo fired at Hungary – it was announced that the US had banned six unnamed Hungarian government officials from entering America, citing concerns over corruption- without the US providing any proof of the corruption.
“At a certain point, the situation, if it continues this way, will deteriorate to the extent where it is impossible to work together as an ally,” warned the Charge D’Affaires of the US Embassy in Budapest, Andre Goodfriend.
The failure to provide any evidence, understandably caused outrage in Hungary. “The government of Hungary is somewhat baffled at the events that have unfolded because this is not the way friends deal with issues,” said Janos Lazar, Orban‘s chief of staff.
“I am inclined to think that it is a punishment for the fact that we talk to Russia,” said Gabor Stier, the head foreign policy editor of the leading Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet.
“America thinks that we are corrupt, but we are a sovereign state, and it is our business. Many people in the United States do not like that Viktor Orban is very independent…..Corruption is just an excuse.”
The 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by Transparency International, reveals that Latvia, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Bosnia-Herzegovina are all below Hungary, as indeed is Italy. Yet it’s Hungarian officials that the US is banning.
‘Is Hungary, the EU’s only dictatorship?’ asked Bloomberg View in April. The BBC ran a hostile piece on Orban and Fidesz in October entitled ‘Cracks Emerge in leading party’.
The piece looked forward to the end of Fidesz rule.
While earlier this week, the New York Times published an OpEd by Kati Marton, whose late husband Richard Holbrooke, was a leading US diplomat, entitled ‘Hungary’s Authoritarian Descent’.
You’d never guess that the Hungarian government wasn’t the flavor of the month in the West would you?
Will Hungary be the next country to be the target of a US/EU sponsored regime change?
Attacks on Orban and his government are sure to intensify but the more the West attacks, the more popular Orban becomes as the defender of Hungary’s national interests.
Hungary gave the West everything it wanted in 1989, and its “reformist” leadership was richly rewarded. But it seems that for the West it’s never enough.
