Viktor Orban and the room where it happens
It seems too good to be true, that the leaders of the European Union’s member-states managed to agree on the start of Ukraine’s (and Moldova’s) accession process, using a simple trick to avoid a veto from Hungary. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz asked the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to leave the European Council’s hall, “to go for coffee,” allowing the other 26 leaders to take their momentous decision and Orban to proclaim that he did not agree with it. “Hungary does not want to be part of this bad decision,” he declared later. Orban claimed, also, that he can still obstruct Ukraine’s long road to accession, even though his country is to receive 10 billion euros in funds that the EU had frozen because of his government’s undermining of Hungarian institutions.
At first glance, all are winners. Ukraine can hope for EU accession, the Union made a step toward attaining greater weight on the international scene, and Orban can brag that he forced the other Europeans to deliver the frozen funds even as he did not agree with the decision on Ukraine. This conclusion is correct but naive. The “invention” of a unanimous decision based on the physical absence (not the abstention or veto) of one member shows that when the European leaders find themselves in an impasse from which they want to escape, they can get creative. As the European visionary Jean Monnet wrote many years earlier, “Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises.” We saw how the debt crisis in Greece and other countries led to the establishment of institutions and mechanisms that reinforced the eurozone and, in turn, the whole European project. Similarly, Russian aggression must be dealt with, as it is an existential threat to Ukraine and possibly other neighboring countries (albeit members of NATO and the EU), and, thus, to the whole of Europe. That is why Hungary’s obstruction of Ukraine’s political and economic reinforcement had to end. Thus, the solution of Orban’s coffee run. This battle is not over, though, as Orban has managed to delay until at least next month a decision on 50 billion euros of crucial economic aid for Kyiv. Still, the European Council was able to send Ukraine the positive message that it needs, and to make clear that the Union will not be paralyzed by the selfishness of one member.
The trick employed on December 14, however, shows in practice the principle of “reinforced majorities,” which seems slated to replace the unanimity that is demanded today for major decisions. Most Europeans may be pleased that Orban was circumvented, as he misses no opportunity to undermine the EU. What will happen, though, when the abolition of the veto leaves member-states unable to block decisions which they believe will harm them? When all are not “in the room where it happens,” where the debate is held and decisions taken, how will equality and justice be guaranteed? The case of Hungary today shows that the Union must not be paralyzed because of one member. But it also makes clear that “flexibility” in decision taking must be offset by guarantees of the protection of those in the minority.
