Western press hopes for the fall of PM Viktor Orbán and Fidesz?

Many press articles deal with PM Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian government. Most of them expect the current government to fall in the next Hungarian election.

The New York Times: Orban’s re-election is uncertain

For the first time in a decade, the re-election of PM Viktor Orbán is unclear, writes the American daily in their critical article. According to the article, the recently concluded EU debate has revealed that the governments of Hungary and Poland only care about retaining power, writes Magyar Nemzet. The writing is looking for an answer:

did German Chancellor Angela Merkel make a mistake when she reached a compromise with the leaders of the two countries?

According to the article, Hungary’s right-wing leadership was “orphaned” after US President Donald Trump was not reelected, and they prepared for a “suicide bombing” at the EU summit. The paper pointed out that, although Hungarian pro-government propaganda saw it as a success, it would take years to see whether Markel was right in thinking that releasing aid in the midst of a devastating public health crisis was a better way to protect European values than depriving illiberal governments of resources.

The Economist: New mechanism can “bite”

The agreement reached on the rule of law for EU payments under the diplomatic efforts of Germany, which holds the EU presidency, left the text unchanged, which could threaten Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s system based on “authoritarian buddy capitalism” built on EU funding of three per cent, writes the British The Economist.

According to the paper, the biggest concession made to the Hungarian and Polish governments is the possibility of judicial review of the mechanism in the EU, which is expected to take place in an accelerated procedure. Critics of the agreement, including György Soros, say that this and other minor concessions are essentially a sale of EU interests, and PM Viktor Orbán has indeed declared himself victorious in his overbearing style after the EU summit that brought the agreement. Along with the fact that 

the legal text of the mechanism “has not even been watered down”,

it clearly shows which party actually made the bigger compromise, writes the paper.  The rule of law mechanism now adopted, unlike previous similar attempts, may already “bite”, but only if it is actually applied, but this remains an open question for the time being.

Süddeutsche Zeitung: The CDU understands why Fidesz is important

Tamás Deutsch: Orbán’s confidante and at the same time the problem of the EPP, said Matthias Kolb in his article in the left-liberal German daily. Deutsch has been on Viktor Orbán’s side for thirty years, and now he seems to be escaping exclusion from the European People’s Party (EPP). Deutsch’s most important political capital is that he was one of the co-founders of Fidesz with Orbán in 1988. Over the past thirty years, they have moved so far to the right that Fidesz’s membership in the EPP was suspended last year. As head of the Fidesz delegation, Deutsch defends Orbán’s line without compromise. His typically crude statement has now provoked another crisis for the Christian Democrats. In Brussels, not only are the 12 Hungarians securing their EPP status as the largest faction, but membership will also leave negotiations open to Orbán, who can block many things because of the EU’s unanimity principle: for example, the Brexit Treaty or the fight against the coronavirus epidemic. This concern erupted primarily at the CDU, which gained a harsh rejection to avoid excluding Deutsch.

The CDU is also a central player in relations with Budapest, 

as another Fidesz founder, József Szájer, who, however, lost his favour. While Szájer is also considered by critics to be a brilliant strategist and an efficient organiser, Deutsch is more rustic.

Valeurs Actuelles: Hungary resists

Hungary has enshrined its traditional values in its constitution, the French right-wing weekly reported on the amendment to the constitution adopted on Tuesday. While much of Europe is gradually succumbing to lost progressivism, Hungary is still resisting. On December 15, parliament passed several amendments to protect the traditional family model and restrict adoption to married couples. The article reminded that same-sex marriage is prohibited in Hungary. The amendments included that “the mother is a woman, the father a man”. The text defines gender only as the sex you were assigned at birth.

“Education is conducted in accordance with the values based on the constitutional identity and Christian culture of the country,”

added this amendment. It also stressed that “children need to be protected from possible ideological or biological interventions in the modern Western world”. Legal registration of gender reassignment has also been banned since May. The Hungarian parliament has also passed a law that virtually excludes homosexuals from adoption. Viktor Orbán, a great “defender” of Christian values, is often criticised for his “self-proclaimed illiberalism,” and several international institutions have criticized his policies for alleged violations of European values.

• Viktor Orbán became the longest-serving prime minister of Hungary
• PM Viktor Orbán to veto the Brexit deal?

Source: Magyar Nemzet