Political Scientist: Orbán's ‘Peacekeeping Tour’ Could Become His Swan Song
- 23.07.2024, 16:20
Hungary will suffer greatly from this.
For Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, his “peacekeeping tour” could be his swan song. Political scientist Ihor Reiterovych said this on the FREEDOM TV channel.
He recalled that Hungary is largely dependent on the subsidies that come from the European Union. At the same time, Orbán, demonstrating his rejection of certain EU principles and values, understands that this will have a very strong bouncing effect on Hungary, even in the context of the frozen money that the country should receive from EU funds.
“Orbán's paradox is that he criticizes the European Union. He seems to be unwilling to act together with other European countries, while he has been sitting tightly on European subsidies for years, and his electorate is very dependent on them,” Reiterovych said.
According to the political scientist, in this context, countries that are truly committed to integration understand perfectly well that consensus-based interaction and agreements that operate at the level of the European Union are more advantageous than the position that Orbán is currently trying to take.
“I think that this so-called peacekeeping mission of his is, figuratively speaking, his swan song. In what sense? That is, he understands perfectly well that after all the procedures for forming new power structures in the European Union after the elections to the European Parliament are completed, and they are already at the finish line, and most of the appointments have already been made, now some formalities will still remain… He understands perfectly well that the reform of the European Union is inevitable. By the way, Hungary has put its hand to this reform, but not by directly participating in it, but simply by provoking, in essence, this reform. And this will lead to the fact that at the level of the European Union, decision-making by full consensus, when all countries absolutely support, and any country can have the right of veto, all this will sink into oblivion,” Reiterovych stressed.
He is convinced that voting procedures, decision-making procedures will be changed, and, most likely, decisions will be made simply by a qualified majority. After this, countries like Hungary will not be able to block general decisions of the European Union on their own.
“And Orbán understands this perfectly well. He knows that this reform will be brought to its logical conclusion. And now he is simply trying to take advantage of the situation, the time that he still has left to get some foreign policy perks for himself, as he believes, perhaps to promote some kind of “peace plan”, although it is not Hungarian at all, it is more likely Chinese. Well, and somewhere there to knock out some preferences for himself from those countries against which sanctions have been introduced today. That is, he believes that he is doing everything right. But in the long run, Hungary will suffer greatly from this. And, by the way, Hungary understands this, as evidenced by this trend of a constant decline in the rating of Orbán's political power,” the political scientist believes.
He noted that the reform has already been prepared and will be voted on and put into effect in 2025.