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Viktor Orbán's anti-woke resistance has made him the 'splinter under the fingernail' of the EU

Hungary’s parliament will convene an emergency session on Monday to do something its western partners have waited for, often impatiently, for more than a year: to hold a vote, finally, on approving Sweden’s bid to join the NATO military alliance.

But Hungary’s governing party, led by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has signaled that it will boycott the session, blocking the chance for a vote and further delaying a decision on Stockholm’s bid. It’s the kind of obstruction of key policy objectives for which Orbán has become notorious within the European Union.

“We are the sand in the machinery, the stick between the spokes, the splinter under the fingernail,” Orbán said in a speech to tens of thousands of supporters in 2021.

That “stick between the spokes” tactic, and Orbán’s role as Europe’s perennial spoiler, has brought the EU to breaking point time and again as he has blocked crucial decisions to leverage concessions from the bloc, forcing its leaders to scramble to find workarounds.

ikidd ,
@ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

Just fucking embargo Hungary until he’s gone, and make sure Hungarians know how to end it.

He’s a speed bump that needs to be drove around.

dubyakay ,

How would Hungarian know how to remove him? Imagine Fox News being the ONLY available broadcaster in the country. 24/7 spouting EU bad, immigrants bad, King Orbán good. There is no escaping it, the government is in full control of the media.

If you look at the map, 2/3 of the country is rural, 1/3 is Budapest (and some other major cities). And that’s exactly how they vote every time too. Budapest is a bastion of enlightenment, but the rest is just dark ages.

ReaderTunesOctopus ,

That, plus not just the TV channels but all the radio channels, printed media and billboards. And guess who has the most money for online propaganda

Shotgun_Alice ,

In addition to that have you seen how difficult it is to vote if you’re a Hungarian national Living out side the country. Or if you are in the country during a vote and your id card says you live abroad you can’t vote locally but have to vote abroad. He’s rigged the game so him and the Fidesz party can live fat and everyone else that lives there just gets by without any real improvement to their life. Dude played the game and stacked the deck in his favor and I honestly do not know how change can come to Hungary. Even if he is no longer in government or passes he would just be replaced by one of his cronies.

aew360 ,

Human zit

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

anti-woke resistance

Really disappointing title from AP.

nicetriangle ,

Yeah this is just childish bullshit journalism. Orban is for sure a piece of shit but like… who wrote this trash?

white_shotgun Bot , (edited )

It doesn’t mention anywhere him being the penis on the forehead of Hungary

neidu2 ,

Time to invoke Article 7

assembly ,

If he is so anti EU, why doesn’t he just exit the bloc? I mean they watched Brexit so they know how it’s done. If his whole message at home is that the EU is bad, why stay? Hungary either needs to remove Orban or stick to their rhetoric and leave the EU.

fluxion ,

EU needs a way to vote these shit stains off the island. Full stop. That’s the only path forward. This will only get worse over time.

TheSanSabaSongbird ,

NATO needs a similar mechanism as well, but for similar reasons doesn’t have one either.

Squizzy ,

There is a mechanism wherein they can remove their vote, article 7 I believe but it has never been used. In my opinion it should be and unanimity should be removed in favour a super majority of member states.

theinspectorst ,
@theinspectorst@kbin.social avatar

For most things, the European Council already decides things by qualified majority voting (typically requiring the support of 55% of member states representing 65% of the EU's population). This was enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty. But extending QMV to matters that currently need unanimity would require treaty changes, which by definition would need every EU member to sign up. There are limited incentives for smaller members (let alone problematic members like Hungary) to agree to more QMV since unanimity gives them disproportionate influence.

mumblerfish ,

I think they were moving in that direction at some point. The PiS party of Poland, Orban in Hungary, was in discussions with Russia to start an alternative bloc to the EU, iirc.

slaacaa ,

Majority of Hungarians are still pro-EU, even a lot of his voters. Also, he still gets some EU funds, ending up in his and his friend’s pocket. There is no reason to leave, as long as he can stay in power in the current setup.

Shotgun_Alice ,

Honestly why won’t he leave the EU is simple. He gets money from the eu for projects that he can give to his cronies gets a kick backs from them to line his pocket. All while being able to use the EU as a scapegoat in Hungary when people don’t see improvement in their quality of life. Orbán can point at eu regulation and say, “look this is why your life isn’t improving” to the Hungarian people all while not actually doing much on his own to improve their lives. Orbán just wants to continue to hold his position and make money. He’ll shit on the eu all day long because it plays well with the majority of Hungarians all while getting a pay day. The eu does try to hold him to task from time to time but it really isn’t that effective. He’s rigged the game in his favor in Hungary so I don’t see change coming to Hungary anytime soon.

xmunk ,

Viktor Orbán is an excellent American politician, he’s insulated himself from internal attacks and is using his platform to just be a contrarian asshat. Hungary, internally, suffers from high unemployment and weak social safety nets.

These sorts of politicians destroy democracy, we always must remain vigilant of them.

JungleJim ,

How does this have anything to do with the US? Just USA=bad, right? Orbán is holding up USA policy objectives and you say he’d make a good American politician. You divide more than you unite.

xmunk ,

Viktor Orbán’s hollow hate filled politics are basically taken straight out of the GOP playbook.

JungleJim ,

No, Viktor Orbán and Hungarian conservatives and the American Republican party are both symptoms of the same global conservative problem. I’m not sure if you prefer blaming the USA, or if you just need somebody to be behind it all, but everyone has the potential to be evil like they are. All of us. We all have to choose to be better, no matter where we’re from. That includes not generalizing about people based on their nation of origin, like saying if it’s evil it must be because of the American thingy.

ghostdoggtv ,

Characterizing him as American is telling on yourself tbh

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

That “stick between the spokes” tactic, and Orbán’s role as Europe’s perennial spoiler, has brought the EU to breaking point time and again as he has blocked crucial decisions to leverage concessions from the bloc, forcing its leaders to scramble to find workarounds.

“We have Orbán fatigue now in Brussels,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters ahead of an EU summit on Thursday, where the Hungarian leader threatened to derail plans to provide Ukraine with a major funding package.

It has long been conventional wisdom within the EU that Orbán’s intransigence is purely transactional: that he is holding up key decisions as a way to force the bloc into releasing billions in funding that it has withheld from Hungary over alleged breaches of rule-of-law and democracy standards.

But Péter Krekó, director of the Budapest-based think tank Political Capital, said that while securing the funds is important to Orbán to shore up Hungary’s ailing economy, Europe’s longest-serving leader is motivated by more than just cash.

Daniel Freund, a German member of the Green party and lawmaker in the European Parliament, said Orbán’s serial blocking of crucial EU decisions shows that his veto power has given him influence within the bloc that endangers its very ability to function.

An anti-Islam populist and Orbán ally won elections in the Netherlands in November, while the far-right Alternative for Germany party has risen to second place in national polls behind Berlin’s mainstream conservative opposition.

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