Orbán’s dangerously familiar discourse

Photo: Presidential Press and Information Office (CC) Commons.wikimedia.org

Both leaders have adopted an aggressive policy towards their neighbours under the pretext of protecting minorities who were unfairly placed outside their borders when they lost their lands under the Trianon Treaty or the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But one should not forget that Hungary is a part of the West. It is a member of NATO and the European Union. This means that Central Europe faces two possible scenarios: either Hungary respects its international commitments and adopts a less aggressive narrative towards its neighbours; or, it is the voice of Russia in the region, undermining both the EU and NATO on its eastern flank.

Goodbye liberal democracy, hello Christian Democracy

Orbán’s annual speech in the Romanian town of Baile Tusnad (Tusnadfürdő in Hungarian), in Hungarian Transylvania, reveals the main trends in Hungarian foreign and domestic policies and thinking. After having formulated the concept “illiberal democracy” in 2014 – taking its roots from the Putin-era concept “Russian sovereign democracy” and giving life to Fareed Zakaria’s warnings – Orbán has confirmed the rise of a model he created before the April 2018 Hungarian parliamentary elections and announced in his speech at the beginning of his fourth mandate: Christian Democracy (a rhetorical and ideological concept distinct from Western European centre-right Christian democratic politics).

Orbán’s formation of Christian democracy is unique in European political thinking in the sense that his Christian democracy is challenging the whole political and social architecture of the EU. Orbán has openly opposed liberal democracy – painting it as a model composed of multiculturalism, pro-immigration and promoting a fluid model of the family. In contrast, his Christian democracy promotes Christian culture and the Christian model of the family and is largely anti-immigration. His speech in Tusnadfürdő does not give any leverage for interpretation:

“In Christian Europe, work had prestige, man had dignity, men and women were equal, family was the basis of the nation, the nation was the basis of Europe, and states guaranteed security. In today’s open-society Europe there are no borders, European people can be readily replaced with immigrants, the family has become an optional and fluid form of cohabitation, the nation, national identity and national pride are seen as negative and obsolete notions, and the state no longer guarantees security… Liberal democracy has become ‘liberal non-democracy’: there is liberalism, but without democracy.”

He added that a sign of this lack of democracy is the censorship and restrictions on freedom of speech have become general phenomena in Western Europe.

A closer look at the speech shows the main pillars of Orbán’s conception of “democracy”: anti-media; scapegoating external enemies; a fear of a global complot against Hungary (the “Soros Plan”); a rejection of “decadent” western values; respect for traditional values; and a regaining of Hungary’s lost pride. The expression of western decadence varies in the political rhetoric. In Russia, the emphasis is mainly put on societal values and diversity within European societies, whereas in Hungary the focus is put on the lack of solidarity and “democratic” practices, though this kind of rhetoric has changed since September 2018 with an emphasis now on societal differences between Western Europe and the Visegrad countries. The result, however, is the same: Hungary and Russia consider themselves as the guarantor of European morality against allegedly catastrophic western decadence.

As a consequence of considering themselves guarantors of the righteousness of Europe, both countries tend to discredit any external influences not fitting the social model they have shaped. Therefore, similar liberticidal laws in both Hungary and Russia can be observed. One of the most recent examples is the law package against foreign-funded NGOs in Hungary, justified in the name of fighting money laundering. Mainly targeting organisations linked to the Open Society Foundation and large international NGOs (such as the Hungarian Helsinki Committee), the law was largely inspired by the 2012 Russian foreign agent law. These similarities in domestic legislation raise some questions: will Hungary adopt laws in the name of Christian democracy, such as the Russian law on gay propaganda, or on insulting religious sentiments?

Russkiy Mir and Határontúlimagyarok

Hungarian and Russian regional policies both find their roots in the idea of humiliation and the need to return to a glorious past. Hungary exacerbates the heritage of the Trianon Treaty (which defined Hungary’s borders after the First World War, leaving a large section of Hungarians outside the country) and the Hungarian minorities, whereas Putin considers the collapse of the Soviet Union and – as a consequence – the Russian minorities living throughout the former Soviet area as “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century”. Thus, the political narratives consider identity beyond current borders and absorb the neighbouring minorities through the philosophical skeleton of both the Russian World (Russkiy Mir) and the Hungarian from abroad (Határontúlimagyarok).

Territories that today belong to independent and sovereign countries (e.g. Slovakia, Serbia, Romania, Ukraine and Moldova) are subjected to nationalist discourse in Hungary and Russia, which provoke diplomatic tensions with their respective neighbouring countries. From Slovakia to northern Serbia, through Transylvania and Transcarpathia, Hungary adopts a particular policy for the “Hungarians abroad”, giving ethnic Hungarians citizenship but without a pro-active policy to induce them to return to Hungary.

Russia exploits three main ideas: the protection of the Russian-speaking (assimilated as Russians by Russian administration) minority throughout the former Soviet space; Russia seen as the new Constantinople, responsible for the protection of the Christian population in Europe and the Middle East; and the idea of a Russia world, taking its roots from the 18th century and covering all of southern Ukraine to Tiraspol in the Moldovan breakaway territory of Transnistria. The recent autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church marks a major turn in Russia’s notion of Moscow as the “Third Rome”. Moscow is no longer the protector of all the Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe and Orthodoxy cannot be considered, in the long-term, as a skeleton of domestic and international power. The autocephaly, supported by Constantinople, provoked an important reaction among the Russian Orthodox Church, which seeks to cut its relations with Constantinople. Putin already stated he will “protect” Russian believers in Ukraine.

In these regional policies, Ukraine has a particular role for both Russia and Hungary: for Russia, Ukraine represents the birthplace of Russian identity (at least according to Russia’s rhetoric) with the importance of Kyivan Rus’, assimilated as Russia in the Russian political discourse, as well as the idea of Novorossiya, covering all of southern Ukraine, including Odesa. For Hungary, Ukraine, particularly Transcarpathia, is considered as the vereckeihago – the place where Hungarians first settled in Europe. The diverse history of Ukraine, combined with its lack of sustainable state-building throughout history and the current fragility of the state, puts the country in a very unstable position regarding its minorities while it struggles for its national identity in relation to the conflict occurring in eastern Ukraine. In this way, Ukraine is a laboratory experiment for nationalism studies regarding minorities in Central Europe.

Minority issues

One common weapon to manipulate minorities, though for different reasons, is “passportisation”. In Transylvania and Transcarpathia, the Hungarian government recognises numerous Hungarian-speaking people without requesting them to return to Hungary, thus allowing them leverage to interfere with Ukrainian and Romanian affairs and giving Fidesz more support for subsequent Hungarian elections.

Hungary and Ukraine witnessed a new wave of tension in recent unfriendly diplomatic affairs. After the rise of tensions in Transcarpathia following the adoption of Ukraine’s new education laws and violent declarations between Hungary and Ukraine on the issue, the Hungarian administration appointed a special representative for Transcarpathia. In late October 2018, Hungary softened its position by changing the title of the special representative to “authorised minister responsible for developing co-operation between the Szabolcs-Szatmar-Bereg County and Zakarpattia region as well as co-ordinating the programme for educational institutions”. This shifted the responsibility to cross border co-operation and is politically more acceptable and in line with international standards.

On October 24th 2018 Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, proposed an agreement to Ukraine on national minorities. This proposed bilateral agreement calls on both sides to give up on assimilating national minorities, as well as offering minorities the opportunity to study in their own languages, practice their religion and live within their own cultures. The implementation of this agreement, which remains uncertain, will be interesting to follow in countries where the primary policy toward national minorities is assimilation. The Hungarian policy toward Ukraine weakens the country by creating another front of instability and gives President Petro Poroshenko another reason to adopt an aggressive narrative to excuse the poor performance of the economy, thus de facto serving Russia’s interest in Ukraine.

NATO and the EU facing Hungary and Russia

For the first time, Russia publicly named NATO as a threat to its national security at the end of 2015. It follows the Russian strategy to stop the enlargement of NATO at its borders and prevent any kind of collaboration between NATO and former Soviet countries. Similar to the case of Ukrainian education law, we have seen a near-complete alignment of Hungarian and Russian rhetoric concerning Ukrainian-NATO relations. This is interesting to note, considering that Hungary has been the only NATO country to block closer co-operation.

Orbán’s current position on security issues in Central and Eastern Europe presents a new particularity since July 2018. He defends a two-speed NATO position towards Russia, one defending itself (Poland and the Baltic states) against a Russian threat and the other promoting enhanced trade relations (notably Hungary alone). Since the strength of the Alliance and its Article 5 is its unity against a threat, we can wonder if the two-speed conception of NATO can uphold European security guarantees. This approach exposes the correlations between Hungary’s policy and Russia’s interest concerning NATO, which could threaten the unity and effectiveness of the Alliance.

Concerning the EU, Russia aims to undermine EU integrity and multilateralism through several ways, the two most important being the financial support of anti-European integration sovereigntist parties throughout the EU and the active disinformation of campaigns targeting Europeans on various topics. By financing sovereigntist parties, Russia is trying to undermine the essence of the EU decision-making process. One of the most illustrative examples is the relationship between the Russian administration and the French National Front, in which technical and financial support is exchanged for advocating Russian interests in French foreign policy, such as softening the stance towards the annexation of Crimea and the justification of Russia’s domestic policy.

Hungary is following a similar path. In his speech, held at the beginning of his fourth term, Orbán confirmed his will to fight EU multilateralism: “We shall focus all our strength on representing the view that the EU must operate as an alliance of free nations, and must give up the fever dreams of a United States of Europe.” Hungary’s strongman counts on the 2019 European Parliament elections in May to promote his views inside the EU Parliament. Orbán takes advantage of the weakness of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union to forge an alliance with the Christian Social Union, Austria and, to a certain extent, Italy in order to create a political force inside the European Parliament that is able to counter the current structure of the EU. Against this political battle with its extended axis, French President Emmanuel Macron, though weakened by the Gilets Jaunes protest movement, still considers himself as the main political force capable of countering the sovereigntists, replacing a weakened Germany as Angela Merkel’s CDU party continues to lose its popularity among German voters.

By adopting a common philosophical and social framework, Hungary and Russia are securing their power on a short-term basis. One can question the sustainability of this aggressive policy. Scapegoating and using nationalist rhetoric are old political tools that, in the past, have led to the darkest hours of European history. However we should not forget the fundamental differences between Hungary and Russia; since Hungary is part of NATO and the EU, violating international law, as Russia tends to do, seems to be out of the question (as we can witness in the Ukrainian case). If one is violating international law, the other uses it for political destabilisation. These two approaches are radically different. Therefore, Hungary cannot be fully considered a Trojan horse in the Greek sense of the expression, but rather as something seeking to destabilise NATO. The question is if this is enough to bring a permanent end to the Alliance.

John Mastadar is a political scientist and holds a double MA in European studies from the Jagiellonian University and Kyiv’s Institute of International Relations.

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