HUNGARY’S TORRID year is ending as it began – with the populist government fending off criticism from the world’s political and financial heavyweights.
The European Union, the United States and the International Monetary Fund have decried Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s apparent drive to take control of every major national institution. This comes amid warnings from some that he is removing all checks on his power and even threatening Hungary’s democracy.
In recent days, frustrated EU and IMF officials abruptly broke off talks on financial aid for Hungary, while Brussels challenged the government’s plans to tighten its grip on the judiciary.
And journalists went on hunger strike to protest at political meddling in the media.
José Manuel Barroso, the head of the European Commission, “strongly advised” Mr Orban to withdraw proposals for Hungary’s central bank that he said would threaten its independence and so contravene EU law.
The same issue prompted IMF and EU negotiators to leave Budapest earlier than planned, casting doubt on Hungary’s request for a financial “safety net” to support its ailing economy.
That spat took place just days after the EU and the US ambassador to Hungary raised serious concerns about a new constitution that is due to come into force in January, and which critics say will keep Mr Orban’s Fidesz party in power for the foreseeable future.
It will cement changes made by Mr Orban to strip authority from the constitutional court, and to install Fidesz supporters in top legal posts and allow them to decide which courts and judges will rule on which cases.
“The independence of the judiciary is over when a government puts its own judges on to the bench, moves them around at will, and then selects which ones get particular cases to decide,” Princeton University law expert Kim Lane Scheppele wrote of the reforms.
A powerful new judicial agency will be led by a judge who is both a friend of Mr Orban’s and wife of the Fidesz member who helped redraw the constitution; government loyalists also now run the state audit office and a controversial new media council.
These appointees have been given long terms of up to 12 years, meaning they could make running Hungary very difficult for any future non-Fidesz government.
The new constitution will also protect Mr Orban’s legacy by making many laws impossible to change without a two-thirds majority in parliament.
The government also plans to change constituency boundaries “in such a way that no other party on the political horizon besides Fidesz is likely to win elections”, according to Ms Scheppele.
Fidesz’s stranglehold will grow even tighter if it enacts proposals to make the Socialist party responsible for crimes committed by the Communist party that it sprang from 20 years ago.
The government has said that it will take into account the EU’s concerns over the central bank, and the weakened constitutional court has ruled against some parts of the changed media law.
But few expect much compromise from Mr Orban, remembering how he shrugged off criticism at the start of the year over a strict new law allowing a government-controlled council to impose big fines on media outlets that breach vague rules on fairness and decency.
This was accompanied by an increase in government control over Hungary’s main broadcasters, something that has now prompted four journalists to go on hunger strike.
Surveys suggest support for Fidesz has fallen dramatically this year, but many of those who long for another government will shudder at recent polls – they make the ultra-nationalist Jobbik group Hungary’s second most popular party, ahead of the beleaguered Socialists.