The European Union’s rotating presidency will pass on July 1 from Spain to Belgium, and then six months later from Belgium to Hungary. The direction of EU affairs will therefore soon be in the hands of a centre-right Hungarian government that has wasted little time, since its massive election victory in April, in asserting its patriotic – some would say ‘nationalist’ – credentials.
Policymakers in Brussels are anxiously watching this development. They recall the unhappy experience of the Czech Republic’s EU presidency in the first half of 2009. The last thing they want is another turbulent presidency run by one of the 10 central and eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004-2007. It would give critics of EU enlargement even more ammunition to fight with.
Fidesz, the centre-right party that leads the new government in Budapest, faces daunting economic problems. Hungary required a $25bn international rescue package in 2008, and its medium-term fiscal outlook is by no means bright. Yet in spite of these challenges, practically the first important law passed by Fidesz was a measure that will make it easier for ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries to acquire Hungarian citizenship. Then the government pushed a law through parliament last Monday that made June 4 – the anniversary of the post-World War One Treaty of Trianon, which stripped Hungary of two-thirds of its territory – a “day of national remembrance”.
In theory, more than 2m ethnic Hungarians in Serbia, Slovakia, Romania and Ukraine will be eligible for Hungarian citizenship from next year. Not surprisingly, this law provoked an indignant response from Slovakia, with which Hungary has rarely enjoyed a stable relationship over the past 20 years. The main problem is that Czechoslovakia’s break-up at the end of 1992 resulted in the emergence of an independent Slovak state with a large Hungarian minority in its southern regions. Vladimir Meciar, the dominant Slovak politician of the 1990s, had a nasty authoritarian streak that exacerbated tensions with Hungary.
These tensions faded for a while after Meciar’s departure from office. But they are resurfacing after Fidesz’s election victory and ahead of a Slovak general election on June 12, in which some Slovak politicians find it tempting to play the retaliatory nationalist card. Thus Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister, said of the Hungarian citizenship law: “Slovakia is a sovereign country and we cannot tolerate Fidesz’s policy of a ‘Great Hungary’.”
The Hungarian-Slovak quarrel illustrates that even the warm embrace of EU membership is not always enough to calm political and cultural tensions that have deep-rooted historical origins. What can the EU realistically do to help? José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, met Viktor Orban, Hungary’s new prime minister, in Brussels this week and told him that he expected Hungary and its neighbours to sort out their problems “in a European manner”.
Barroso also pointedly reminded Orban that the Hungarian economy and public finances were still in “a very delicate situation”. Here, perhaps, is where the EU may have some leverage over Hungarian behaviour. But it is to be hoped that, with its EU presidency less than seven months away, Hungary itself will rise to its responsibilities.
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