© REUTERS/ Eva Plevier

The European center-right took on a troublemaker in its own ranks on Wednesday when the European People’s Party (EPP) indefinitely suspended Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s populist Fidesz party. Fidesz will lose its voting rights within the EPP and its ability to put forward candidates for party positions.

In an effort to show that the EU’s largest political family can rein in its own extremes, Orbán’s party was put on notice—and expulsion after the European elections in May remains an option. But by not kicking out Orbán’s party, the EPP avoided, for now, giving a boost to the populist and anti-migration forces in Europe that are expected to do well at the ballot boxes. And Orbán has been able to spin to the ruling to show that he is still in control, calling the compromise a “good decision” and noting that the motion says Fidesz and the EPP “jointly” agreed on it.

In a heated three-hour debate among the around 260 national party delegates in Brussels on Wednesday, even Orbán’s closest allies within EPP supported a compromise decision to suspend Fidesz indefinitely. EPP members had gradually grown frustrated with Orbán, who has eroded democratic freedoms and the rule of law back home while criticizing EPP leaders for being weak and supporting migration. In his latest stunt, which propelled the EPP into action, Orbán oversaw a campaign against EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, a fellow EPP member and Orbán critic. In recent weeks, thirteen national parties have called for Fidesz to be expelled from the EPP.

The EPP and Fidesz agreed on an “evaluation committee” led by former EU council chief Herman Van Rompuy and including former Austrian prime minister Wolfgang Schuessel. They are tasked with determining whether Fidesz respects the rule of law and adheres to conditions set out by the EPP’s lead candidate in the European elections, Manfred Weber. The conditions include ending the anti-Juncker campaign and allowing the Central European University, a prestigious school founded by US billionaire George Soros and targeted by Orbán, to remain in Budapest. (Schuessel was himself rebuffed by the EU in 2000 for forming a government coalition with the far-right Freedom party, with a three-member team scrutinizing his decision.)

A Punishment or a Reprieve? 

But the EPP allowed Orbán to turn the suspension into a victory march. The wording of the document adopted by 190 members of the EPP’s political assembly lets Fidesz argue to his voters that, in fact, it decided to suspend itself. “We cannot be expelled, and we cannot be suspended,” Orbán told reporters after the meeting. Earlier in the day, Orbán had threatened to pull his party from EPP if it was suspended unilaterally, giving him leverage in negotiating his own punishment.

Back in Hungary, the network of pro-government media promoted Orbán’s interpretations of events as a victory. “No expulsion, no suspension,” was the headline of the news website Origo. “The pro-migration action has failed, they could not push Fidesz out,” was the title of another story. The public broadcaster has called EPP’s punishment a “huge victory”.

Orbán announced at his press conference that he is also setting up a three-member group with MEP Jozsef Szajer, EU State Minister Judit Vajda, and Katalin Novak, the state secretary for family issues, to report back after the elections on the issue of whether Fidesz should remain in the EPP. The team would be negotiating with the Van Rompuy group, Orbán said, although the EPP’s internal document on the decision mentions no need for negotiations. In Orbán’s world, it is Fidesz that decided to suspend its membership to assess whether EPP is true to its Christian democratic values. Orbán even told reporters: “We never had any campaign against Juncker,” giving an insight into the absurdity of the Hungarian government’s propaganda.

“Thirteen parties wanted to push the right wing of the party out,” Orbán said at the presser, arguing that it was thanks to his negotiations and willingness to compromise that party unity was preserved. “I hope we can lead a united campaign, and liberal ideas will not dominate the party, but it will be a balanced party family with Christian conservatives inside it,” he added.

Eyeing the Commission Presidency

Weber, who hails from the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) party, was keen to put the “Orbán problem” behind him as his campaign picks up for the EU commission presidency. The EPP camp is now trying to shift the harsh spotlight onto its rivals, arguing that the Socialists need to rein in their Romanian member party, the ruling Social Democrats, who have curbed judicial independence in Bucharest, and that the Liberals need to scrutinize their Czech member which has been dogged by corruption.

How did Orbán escape expulsion? He had threatened last year that he could easily set up an anti-migration political alliance outside of the EPP with like-minded parties, and his EPP colleagues took notice. There was real concern in the EPP that expelling Fidesz now could not only send the wrong message about party unity in the middle of the European campaign, but could also give a boost to populist, anti-migration parties in the run up to the vote.

Orbán has openly hinted at setting up a new party with Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), which is also shunned by the EU for putting the judiciary under political control. Italy’s interior minister Matteo Salvini, whose anti-migration League party is expected to be the second biggest national party in the next European Parliament, has also reached out to PiS and praised Orbán.

The compromise allows both Orbán and the EPP to await the final results of the European elections and rethink their strategy. Fidesz MEPs will continue to be allowed to sit with the EPP in the European Parliament for the few remaining sessions in this term. As the EPP is expected to lose dozens of MEPs in the next elections, Fidesz MEPs could provide useful support in the future for Weber’s quest to find a majority that supports his bid for the commission presidency. 

By sidelining Orbán, Weber also aims convince the other EU leaders—whose backing he needs for the commission top job—that he can rein in the populists. Indeed, Weber wanted to demonstrate to his potential allies that Orbán will not push the EPP to the right, and Hungary’s self-described “illiberal” leader cannot set the agenda for the entire party. “Fidesz will have no say any more on the EPP’s political approach,” Weber told reporters after the meeting.

However, critics—even within his own party—say Weber is not tough enough and the suspension only kicks the issue of dealing with Orbán further down the road. “Shameless move by Manfred Weber: a suspension just in time for the European elections, after nine years of attacks on rule of law by Orbán, and an evaluation in the fall, just before knowing if he needs Orbán’s votes to get the European Commission presidency,” former Green MEP Rui Tavares said in reaction to EPP’s rebuke. Tavares’s 2013 report in the European Parliament already warned about Orbán’s rolling back of democratic freedoms.

Despite Weber’s efforts, the questions persist: who is in charge of the EPP, and is the tail wagging the dog? 

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© REUTERS/Stephane Lecocq/Pool

It was a classic elephant-in-the-room situation: In early November, Europe’s largest political alliance, the European People’s Party, held its all-important pre-election congress in Helsinki with speeches from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Several EPP heavyweights talked about upholding democratic freedoms and values, but notably, no-one explicitly named the target of their warnings—the person sitting right next to them: Hungary’s illiberal premier Viktor Orbán.

The EPP was keen to display unity at the congress as it heads into the European Parliamentary elections next May. The gathering followed months of speculation over whether the EPP could split after the election, with some liberal-minded deputies joining a yet-to-be formed alliance with France’s president Emmanuel Macron, and whether Orbán and his ruling Fidesz party would leave to lead their own alliance with other like-minded European nationalists.

The EPP has had an Orbán problem for years. The Hungarian premier has been systematically undermining rule of law and democratic values in Hungary, and challenges those same fundamentals in the European Union. Ongoing demonstrations in Budapest for independent media and courts, and against a labor law increasing overtime hours, will cause further headache for Europe’s largest political alliance. This week, opposition MPs were violently thrown out of the public media’s headquarters in Budapest, the central propaganda-machine for Orbán, after they vowed to read protestors’ demands on air. Orbán, who has never faced political consequences on the European level for his actions, is unlikely to back down, putting the EPP in an uncomfortable spot.

The EPP is the powerhouse party in Brussels and much of Europe. Its politicians head the three most important institutions in the European Union and command seven governments in the (still) 28-member EU, plus they hold the Romanian president’s post. The EPP has sheltered Orbán for years, with the party’s president Joseph Daul, an influential French politician, amicably referring to Orbán as the party’s “enfant terrible.”

The EPP’s Red Lines

Initially, EPP members were arguing that keeping Orbán close would tame the Hungarian prime minister, who likes to see himself as a “street-fighter,” and curb his autocratic tendencies. It set out what it called “red lines” over Orbán’s targeting the Central European University in Budapest, but failed to act when the CEU did decide to move to Vienna as the Hungarian government refused to secure its future in the Hungarian capital. Despite mild EPP criticism, Orbán kept running his anti-EU, anti-liberal, anti-migration campaigns, and continued to centralize power back home. Liberal-minded EPP members in the European Parliament grew increasingly annoyed with the lack of disciplinary action, and saw Orbán as a dangerous pull for EPP to the right.

The frustration with Orbán boiled over last September, when the majority of EPP members in the European Parliament, including its leader, Bavarian Manfred Weber, who is running for the presidency of the EU commission, voted to launch a sanctions procedure against Hungary under Article 7 of the Lisbon treaty for breaching EU rules and values. But the procedure is unlikely to lead anywhere, as deciding on biting sanctions depend on fellow member states reluctant to challenge each other’s internal measures.

Despite calls to kick Fidesz out, the EPP party leadership refused to tackle the issue, arguing that according to the party rules, seven member parties from five different member states need to come forward with a request. No such request has been made. Petteri Orpo, the leader of the Finnish National Coalition Party, tentatively said that if there were other six parties, his group would join in calls for Fidesz’s expulsion.

Clear Intentions

Orbán isn’t hiding his intention to pull the EPP to the right either. He made it clear in a speech in June 2018 that he does not want to leave the EPP and create what he called a “successful anti-immigration” party, but rather he wants the center-right alliance to turn his direction and return to its “Christian democratic roots.”

He argued that the EPP could either become a flavorless, colorless party stuck in an anti-populist coalition with the social democrats and liberals, or move to the right and continue shaping EU politics. “The other model which has been successfully tested in Austria and Hungary is taking up the challenge, is not creating such a people’s front, is taking the issues raised by new parties seriously, and is giving responsible answers to them,” Orbán said at the time.

The EPP attempted to portray itself in Helsinki as a united political force that can stop the threat of extremist and populism in Europe. Yet speakers at the congress were more interested in rallying EPP members against their socialist and liberal contenders than populists. The party leadership also knows that Orbán will deliver at the ballot boxes. His party alliance is expected to win well over a dozen MEPs to the party in May’s election, much needed by the EPP, which could lose 30-40 seats, according to projections.

Orbán argued at the party should respect winners. “What is even more important to understand: we have to win, not just survive, and victory must be wanted. Let us not listen to our opponents, and let us not measure ourselves by the standards of the leftist parties and the liberal media. […] The European elections must be won at home, in each of our countries. In order for the EPP to become the party of the winners again, we need winning prime ministers,” he told delegates.

EU council president Donald Tusk retorted in his speech following Orbán: “We all want to win the upcoming elections. But let us remember that at stake in these elections are not benefits and jobs, but the protection of our fundamental values. Because without them, our victory will make no sense.”

The most recent EPP argument for not stepping up criticism of Orbán cites Brexit. Party officials argue that the Brexit process really started when British Conservatives, led by David Cameron, left the EPP and formed their own group in 2009. This started the UK’s drift away from the EU core, they say. The same could happen with Hungary if Orbán is put under more pressure. Meanwhile, EPP president Daul insists on keeping the party as large and wide-reaching as possible. The continued support for Orbán’s autocratic measures will nevertheless further encourage the Hungarian leader. It might also signal an EPP shift to the right during and after the European elections.

The post Can Europe’s Center-Right Handle Orbán? appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

Opponents of Viktor Orbán’s brand of self-described “illiberal democracy” were cheering yesterday when the European Parliament voted to start a process stripping the Hungarian government of EU rights unless it stops its rule of law violations.

But behind the scenes, many within Europe’s mainstream conservative parties are worried that the vote may have just unleashed a monster. Depending on what happens next, yesterday’s vote could kick off a chain reaction that neuters Angela Merkel on the European stage and creates the most powerful far-right movement in Europe since the end of the World War II.

In other words, a development which is the exact opposite of what those cheering yesterday’s vote want to see. All eyes are now on Orbán to see how he will react.

Losing His Shield

To understand what’s coming next, we need to understand how we got here. This week’s invocation of Article 7—an emergency procedure designed to safeguard basic protections for democracy and civil liberties—is not a response to recent developments. Orbán has been dismantling democratic institutions in Hungary since his Fidesz party won a supermajority in the Hungarian parliament in 2010. What has changed is Orbán’s ambitions.

Until now, Orbán has been protected from EU criticism by the European Peoples Party (EPP), the pan-European group of center-right parties of which Fidesz is a part. It is the most powerful political group in Europe. Not only is it the majority party in the European Parliament, it also counts the President of the European Commission, the President of the European Council and the German chancellor as members. When Orbán took office, 15 of the EU’s 27 governments were under EPP control (that number is now eight).

Last year the Article 7 process was set in motion for the first time in EU history against Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) government, a close ally of Fidesz that is also dismantling democratic, judicial and media institutions. Law & Justice is not part of the EPP, it is instead part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), a euroskeptic group founded by David Cameron and the British Conservatives in 2009 as a break-away from the EPP.

But all attempts to censure Hungary for similar behavior were blocked by the EPP and its leader, Manfred Weber, who has tried to serve as a bridge-builder and keep the group together.

So what changed? It was Orbán’s behaviour. Now that he has consolidated his untouchable power in Hungary—solidified in April in an election OSCE observers said was based on “intimidating and xenophobic rhetoric, media bias, and opaque campaign financing”—he has set his sights on Europe.

Orbán has given speeches in recent months calling on the EPP to move further to the right and embrace his fight against liberal democracy and multiculturalism. He has not-so-subtly suggested that if it doesn’t, he will look for political allies elsewhere. He has publicly disparaged CDU leader Angela Merkel and developed close ties with her critics, particularly Horst Seehofer, the head of her Bavarian sister party the CSU. He has also been courting Austria’s chancellor Sebastian Kurz.

Meanwhile, he is developing a clear alliance with Poland’s PiS and Italy’s Lega, both of whom are not in the EPP.

The fear until now has been that that if the EPP angered Orbán by voting for Article 7, he would leave the group and take his 12 MEPs with him. He might also take other countries’ MEPs. There has been speculation that Kurz’s Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) might leave with him. There have even been whispers that the CSU might leave with Orbán to join a new party—something that would most likely cause the German government to collapse.

With such dangerous possibilities, the EPP had calculated that the risk of invoking Article 7 was too great. “He may be a bastard, but for the moment he’s our bastard,” an EPP staffer once said to me, quoting Nixon.

That calculation changed when Orbán seemed to be suggesting that he will leave the group anyway before next May’s European Parliament election. His demands for the EPP to lurch right were unacceptable to the group’s leadership.

And so, the EPP decided to call Orban’s bluff—betting that despite the prime minister’s bluster, Fidesz does not want to leave the largest political group in Europe.

Orban’s Next Move

But it is a bet few in the EPP feel confident about. In the parliamentary halls in Strasbourg this week, there are whispers that Orbán may be about to leave, possibly within days.

What seems more likely is that he will bide his time for now and start courting various forces on the European right about the possibility of forming a new political group to the right of the EPP. Such a group could be formed in the next seven months to be ready for the European election, or he could wait until after the election to see the relative strength of each party in terms of number of seats.

Given his stated eagerness that this election be fought on ideological federalist vs nationalist grounds, it seems likely he would want his new alliance in place before the election – to give voters a clear choice.

Orbán has two options. He can start a brand new group, or join the existing ECR. Both are fraught with complications.

There are currently 12 recognized “europarties.” In order to be official, a party must have received at least 3 percent of the votes cast in at least seven member states in the last European Parliament elections. Attracting the requisite number of parties from the requisite number of countries might be difficult for Orbán if he wants to start a brand-new europarty—and would probably require the ECR to disband. The requirements for forming a corresponding group in the parliament are even more stringent.

Given that the ECR was founded by the Tories, and the United Kingdom, post-Brexit, won’t be in the next European Parliament, the ECR’s continued existence has been called into question. But PiS, the only party in the group other than the Tories of any significant size, insist they want to keep the ECR alive.

For this reason, it might be easier for Orbán to join the ECR, with the tacit understanding that he would remake the group in his own image as its ideological leader. Without the Tories the ECR will be completely dominated by his Polish allies, so this would be a logical step.

A Far-Right Juggernaut?

It’s fair to assume that Orbán’s new partner Matteo Salvini would bring his populist Lega party into the fold, and Five Star might also be convinced to join (they were previously in Nigel Farage’s EFDD group, expected to be retired after this term). The ECR already counts the Sweden Democrats, the Danish People’s Party, the True Finns, and N-VA as members, and until recently Alternative for Germany (AfD) was also in the group.

It’s also conceivable that France’s Front National and the Netherlands’ PVV may want to join the new group. Finally there is the big question—would Austria’s ÖVP and Germany’s CSU leave the EPP to join? And would other EPP members follow?

Were such a group to be formed, it would include governing parties of Italy, Poland, Belgium, Austria, and Hungary, and the important opposition parties of France, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands. In other words, the political group founded by the British Conservatives in 2009 would become the most powerful far-right political movement in Europe since 1945.

This is the doomsday scenario the EPP has been terrified of these past years. It is the reason they turned a blind eye to Orbán’s transgressions for so long. But in the meantime, his reputation on the European stage has only grown.

During the parliament’s debate on the Article 7 resolution on Tuesday, the chamber was overwhelmed by far right and euroskeptic MEPs, many of whom normally don’t show up to the plenary, heaping praise on the Hungarian leader. Several called him a “leader.”

It was clear that the debate was not about Hungary at all. At this point, it is about the future of Europe. And about one-third of the current European Parliament views Orbán as their ideological hero.

The future of Europe depends on what Orbán decides to do with this adoration.

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© REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi

During his time in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber hasn’t struck many as being presidential material. The mild-mannered leader of the European Peoples Party (EPP), the parliament’s grouping of center-right parties from across the European Union, isn’t known for taking bold stances, or for delivering fiery speeches.

Instead he is known as a bridge builder, and this was the characteristic he chose to highlight on Wednesday when announcing his candidacy to become the EPP’s nominee for the next President of the European Commission, the EU’s top job.

“I will listen, I will try to manage a compromise and then I will lead, this is what I did as a group leader,” he told journalists at a press conference in Brussels. “I want to build up bridges, because I deeply believe that only together we can be strong, otherwise Europe has no chance in today’s world.”

The battle will be waged in just nine months at the next European Parliament election when, under the “spitzenkandidat” process, the nominee of the European political group who wins the most seats will (in theory) become the next Commission president, a position currently occupied by Jean-Claude Juncker. The EPP, the largest group in the parliament, will select its nominee at a convention in November.

Straddling the Middle Ground

Weber’s skill in straddling a middle ground is reflected in his motley crew of allies. A confidant of Angela Merkel, he received the German Chancellor’s endorsement to be EPP nominee right away. But another, more surprising endorsement may be coming soon—that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Orbán has been a vocal critic of Merkel during the refugee crisis. In recent months he has delivered speeches suggesting he may lead a revolt within the EPP and take his and other hard-right parties out, linking up with parties such as Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) and Italy’s Lega, which have been considered too far-right for the EPP.

There has even been suggestion that the CSU, the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s CDU, could leave the EPP and join Orban’s new hard-right European alliance—while staying allied with the CDU domestically.

It is perhaps no accident then that Merkel has chosen to throw her weight behind Weber, a deputy chairman of the CSU. He is a politician representing a Central European brand of conservatism who, like Chancellor Sebastian Kurz in neighboring Austria, is trying to find a middle ground between the nationalist and anti-liberal rhetoric of Orban and the pragmatic pluralism of Merkel.

This has often involved cozying up to the Hungarian prime minister. In July 2013, when the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee issued a report criticizing the erosion of fundamental rights in Hungary, Weber dismissed it as a politically motivated attack against Orbán by leftist parties. He also defended Orbán earlier this year after the prime minister said he had replaced liberal democracy in Hungary with “21^st-century Christian democracy,” saying Orbán is “not a bad European.”

Anti-Migrant Rhetoric

Weber has often parroted the anti-migrant language of Orbán as well, calling on Europe to maintain its fundamental Christian values. In April, Weber tweeted a photo of a Catholic church with a quote from himself saying, “If we want to defend our way of life we must know what determines us. Europe needs a debate on identity and dominant culture.” He has said the EU should enact a total ban on face coverings in the bloc.

Weber was the lead MEP on the EU’s 2008 migrant return directive, and fought hard for interior countries like Germany to have the ability to send migrants back to their country of origin, something that won him favor within the CSU and particularly with its current leader Horst Seehofer, another Orbán ally and a critic of Merkel.

But for those made uncomfortable by Weber’s ethno-nationalist flirtations, he has veered from Orbán’s politics in his steadfast defense of European integration. In June 2014, as Britain’s then-Prime Minister David Cameron came to the EU demanding an end to integration, Weber responded emphatically. “The EU is based on an ever-closer union of European peoples,” he said. “That is set out in the treaties. It is not negotiable for us. We cannot sell the soul of Europe.”

Such strong defense of the European project have won him fans in the more moderate wing of the EPP. It is this balancing act that Weber hopes will make him the nominee the EPP needs at a time when political tensions are threatening to break it apart.

Pleasing Both Sides

He was at pains to please both sides of the EPP divide in his tweets announcing his candidacy on Wednesday. “Europe is at a turning point,” he said. “Today, it’s about standing up for Europe …, because we are being attacked from outside and from within. It’s about the survival of our European way of life.”

However, there are many forces that will work against Weber. Rather than endearing him to both sides, Weber’s fence-sitting could serve to alienate both sides of the party—turned off by either his anti-migration rhetoric or his warm words for further European integration.

He will likely face at least two tough challengers for the EPP nomination—Michel Barnier, the EU’s Brexit negotiator who lost the EPP nomination to Jean-Claude Juncker in 2014, and Alex Stubb, the former Finnish prime minister. Both are expected to also throw their hat in the ring.

Even if he does get the nomination, the biggest battle may be after the election. The national EU leaders in the European Council, which under the treaties have the real right to appoint the president, have said that the Council will not be bound by the spitzenkandidat system. French President Emmanuel Macron has been particularly opposed to the idea, saying the EU erred in 2014 by going along with the new system being pushed by the parliament.

So if he gets the nomination, Weber may find himself having to bridge the greatest gap yet—that between the European Parliament and the European Council.

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