Despite the international outrage after the Hungarian ‘corona coup’, the country is still pursuing its authoritarian practices to deal with the crisis. The first arrests for spreading fake news were made, the first privately-owned companies by the military have been taken over, but Europe is doing exactly what it has been doing for the last 10 years of the Viktor Orban regime: trying not to look at the car crash they helped to create through massive transfers of EU funds handed over to the Hungarian government.
The extraordinary measures passed by the Hungarian Parliament in late March enabled Orban to rule by decree, imprison individuals for ‘spreading untrue statements’ or disrespecting quarantine orders. It came as no surprise that the government passed legislation completely unrelated to the pandemic already in the first days after the emergency bill was approved. Such legislation included the ban of changing one’s gender, taking away the taxation rights of opposition-led municipal governments, or building museums in a public park of Budapest. Neither of these bills is a coincidence, as they provided the government with the political ammunition to increase its popularity or secure the cash-flow of oligarchs through public construction projects in opposition-led towns and cities.
The government has pushed the limits even further by arresting individuals who criticized the measures against the pandemic on Facebook. One 64-year-old individual asserted that easing the lockdown would result in increased deaths, whereas the other person simply wrote that in his hometown “1170 beds were emptied” to make space for corona patients. The latter is a fact, the former is a reasonable assumption. The police arrested both individuals in their homes, seized their laptops and took them to the police station for questioning, just to be released without being charged. It is unlikely for the government to try the mass imprisonment of dissenting voices, but even such occasional arrests are enough for many to self-censor themselves in order to avoid a ride in a police car and having their belongings confiscated.
However, it is not only laptops and minor technological gadgets that are being confiscated in Hungary. Last month, the military has taken over a privately-owned packaging company, traded on the Budapest Stock Exchange. The management of the company already had disagreements with the government before the pandemic, so it is likely to be a revenge move with the aim of sending a message to all entrepreneurs in the country; fall in line, or else. All management rights are exercised by the military and the owners’ rights are suspended. This followed a March announcement by the government to send military advisors to ‘strategic companies’ that included utility providers, supermarkets, and pharmaceutical companies. The list was expanded to almost 200 companies, with multinational corporates such as Tesco, Bosch, and many others included.
Despite these unprecedented measures in Hungary, Vera Jourova, Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, said that Hungary did not violate any EU legislation. One has to wonder how far the Orban regime needs to go for EU leaders to realise the autocratic nature of Hungary’s governance style? The European Parliament will host a debate on the situation in Hungary, but Orban declined to participate and sent his Minister of Justice, Judit Varga, to deputise.
It is not the role of the European Parliament or indeed any other EU leader to foster regime change in Hungary. This can only be achieved by Hungarian citizens themselves, no matter how unfair the landscape of political competition is. However, those who actively support the Hungarian regime, by providing a political shield for it within the European People’s Party, or continuing to finance the Orban government and their oligarchs through EU subsidies, need to assess their role in enabling this autocracy which continues to tighten its grip over Hungarians.