Asymmetrical Strategies

EU institutions are yet to make an earnest commitment to helping Hungary’s battered liberal democracy regain its strength. Nevertheless, the short-term alternative to a robust European response is the further consolidation of authoritarianism in Hungary.

Freedom House’s newest annual report has categorised Hungary, a country where a competitive authoritarian regime has come to replace liberal democracy during the 2010s, as only ‘partly free.’ Such a negative change in the status of an EU member state is unprecedented and ought to have manifold practical implications – as well as trigger much critical reflection.

Largely unprepared and for long years also rather negligent, European institutions have until now failed to offer a strategic response to the worsening anti-liberal challenge posed by Viktor Orbán’s ‘internal’ regime. It is now rather late but all the more urgent to develop a far-sighted policy regarding the future of the current Hungarian regime in the European Union.

An enabling role

The European Union has remained an often misunderstood actor in the sorry political developments that have unfolded in the country since 2010. It has often been assumed that there is an unresolved conflict between European institutions and Hungary’s wayward governments. But such a conflict has only been part of the story.