"Hunxit" - real possibility or just another tantrum of Viktor Orban?
There has been talk about Hungary exiting the European Union; but is it really a possibility or the current events had lead to another resultless witch-hunt from FIDESZ?
By current events I mean the Sargentini report. Hungary has been named the least democratic country of the Union, and the debate has also pointed at the fact that Victor Orban and his party were accused of being corrupt on multiple levels.
There has also been a topic on wether the money that the EU had been lending to the country really went to the cause that it was lent for or did it land in the pockets of the politicians in power? Of course there has to be proof before any accusations are made towards the party and Orban.
Before I begin my article, I have to state that I do live in Hungary and these cases affect me as much as any other Hungarian. I have been living here for most of my life and I have witnessed this person rise to unimaginable power along with his close knitted friend group.
Therefore I cannot promise that my views will be neutral on the matter. I have watched people lose their homes, get poorer than ever before, and the rich getting richer than ever before. People in favour of the party had gotten disgustingly rich when people tried to flee the country because it offered a work environment that was impossible to live in allowing ridiculously low wages as well as seriously high apartment prices both rent-wise and purchase-wise.
People argue that FIDESZ had been elected fair and square. I disagree... if we take a look at history, we stumble upon a common phrase "divide and conquer". It most probably had been the secret motto of the party in my opinion; no other party had the chance to grow enough to be a serious threat to the reign of Orban in the past, because the opposition consists of several small parties, and not one big enough to stand up to FIDESZ. Also, Orban has launched a whole propaganda flood before every election to secure the most votes, sending out "favours" like food stamps and such, meanwhile he never attended a SINGLE DEBATE where his party might have been judged for their misconduct.
How can a party win and hold their power, state that they won an election fairly, when they played dirty? The other parties didn't have the money of the taxpayers to blow on the election campaign - also, what justifies giving out food stamps? Isn't that bribing? It is. Therefore the election was FAR from being fair. And that is just the half of the shit that went down during only the most recent election. There is so much more, like how there are billions of forints well hidden on accounts in the name of their relatives or how FIDESZ invited "Hungarians" who were born and live on foreign land to vote. Obviously, after several contributions from the party towards their communities, like building schools and kindergartens and calling them the "real Hungarians". Honestly, wtf.
Well to start out CEU is in a critical condition due to the government crippling their rights. It has been somewhat resolved in recent times, and the school stated that they will resume their work and provide services in the next school-year, enrolling students for 2019/2020. However the fact that it doesn't close its doors to the public is far from meaning that it will stay in Budapest. The Prime Minister (Orban) had revealed that since the school had operated on multiple campuses, they will be opening up on a new location in Vienna, where they will continue their operations. To put it in a more understandable light that is not sugarcoated: CEU is moving out of Hungary, settling in Austria.
The migration issues has also been a favoured whim of the EU parliament in the recent past. It has been very controversial in Hungary, since Mr. Orban takes great pride in "stopping the muslim invasion" on Europe. There have been videos, commercials, large billboards, small billboards - basically any platform that the govt. could reach were covered with anti-immigrant propaganda. To me that doesn't just mean that they were anti-immigrant, but also that they are incredibly racist. - To clarify, I am honestly okay with immigration as long as it is legally done through the right channels and procedures. Illegal immigration to me just seems like shady business. HOWEVER, the government has been beating the table screaming at the top of their lungs that "we must protect the christian Europe". Ok. Let me just ask how many times had these people set foot in a church? Because I am fairly sure that most of Europe is no longer can be considered christian. The older generations, maybe - sure they outweigh the younger populations by quite a large amount - but I wouldn't go as far as calling Europe generally a christian territory.
Also there has been this anti-Union campaign telling people that Brussels wants to destroy the country by forcing Hungary to let in a certain amount of immigrants. To me it just seemed that they asked the country to take their share of the workload and help balance the crisis. But they responded as the lazy member of the group project - "Not my problem". This general idea that the Union wants no good for the country had been spread across media - since the government owns most channels in television, printed press, online press and radio - and many Hungarians to this day stand with the party on the opinion that Hungary should leave the European Union.
But is it really an option?
Hungary's public debt to GDP ratio is roughly 74%. If we take all Hungarians and and divide up the debt own, an average person owes over 3.000.000 forints at the moment. Obviously, people owe more than that, because many have no debt at the moment... but will inevitably have it, since it is impossible for the average person to buy a home, let it be a flat or a house, on their own. By average I mean people who earn below 400.000 Fts (after tax had been taken away) that is about $1400, which is average in foreign countries but a very good salary here. The average Hungarian earns roughly 800$ a month. So since there are things people need but cannot afford, the debt is skyrocketing second by second.(see here and here). In Hungarian work environments, that is debt that cannot be paid back(if we include how much interest it will build up) maybe in even a full lifetime.
Therefore Hungarians leave. They look for work environments that allow them to live a life that is not weighed down by immense amount of debt. We need the free flow of workforce to be able to do that. Obviously, that is something that the government would prefer to stop, since Hungarians leave, but foreigners don't come here to pick up the workload.
A lot has changed in Hungary since 2010, and FIDESZ began to morph into a rather illiberal government to the Russian example, rather than following the western patterns. The criteria of EU membership is clearly defined and in case of breaching that criteria, infringement procedures can be installed. At the moment, there are over 70 cases against Hungary.
But as much as Viktor Orban tries to turn the public against the Union, the people stand still as one of the strongest supporters of the EU percentage-wise. Jan Niklas Engels said the following:
By current events I mean the Sargentini report. Hungary has been named the least democratic country of the Union, and the debate has also pointed at the fact that Victor Orban and his party were accused of being corrupt on multiple levels.
There has also been a topic on wether the money that the EU had been lending to the country really went to the cause that it was lent for or did it land in the pockets of the politicians in power? Of course there has to be proof before any accusations are made towards the party and Orban.
Before I begin my article, I have to state that I do live in Hungary and these cases affect me as much as any other Hungarian. I have been living here for most of my life and I have witnessed this person rise to unimaginable power along with his close knitted friend group.
Therefore I cannot promise that my views will be neutral on the matter. I have watched people lose their homes, get poorer than ever before, and the rich getting richer than ever before. People in favour of the party had gotten disgustingly rich when people tried to flee the country because it offered a work environment that was impossible to live in allowing ridiculously low wages as well as seriously high apartment prices both rent-wise and purchase-wise.
People argue that FIDESZ had been elected fair and square. I disagree... if we take a look at history, we stumble upon a common phrase "divide and conquer". It most probably had been the secret motto of the party in my opinion; no other party had the chance to grow enough to be a serious threat to the reign of Orban in the past, because the opposition consists of several small parties, and not one big enough to stand up to FIDESZ. Also, Orban has launched a whole propaganda flood before every election to secure the most votes, sending out "favours" like food stamps and such, meanwhile he never attended a SINGLE DEBATE where his party might have been judged for their misconduct.
How can a party win and hold their power, state that they won an election fairly, when they played dirty? The other parties didn't have the money of the taxpayers to blow on the election campaign - also, what justifies giving out food stamps? Isn't that bribing? It is. Therefore the election was FAR from being fair. And that is just the half of the shit that went down during only the most recent election. There is so much more, like how there are billions of forints well hidden on accounts in the name of their relatives or how FIDESZ invited "Hungarians" who were born and live on foreign land to vote. Obviously, after several contributions from the party towards their communities, like building schools and kindergartens and calling them the "real Hungarians". Honestly, wtf.
Well to start out CEU is in a critical condition due to the government crippling their rights. It has been somewhat resolved in recent times, and the school stated that they will resume their work and provide services in the next school-year, enrolling students for 2019/2020. However the fact that it doesn't close its doors to the public is far from meaning that it will stay in Budapest. The Prime Minister (Orban) had revealed that since the school had operated on multiple campuses, they will be opening up on a new location in Vienna, where they will continue their operations. To put it in a more understandable light that is not sugarcoated: CEU is moving out of Hungary, settling in Austria.
The migration issues has also been a favoured whim of the EU parliament in the recent past. It has been very controversial in Hungary, since Mr. Orban takes great pride in "stopping the muslim invasion" on Europe. There have been videos, commercials, large billboards, small billboards - basically any platform that the govt. could reach were covered with anti-immigrant propaganda. To me that doesn't just mean that they were anti-immigrant, but also that they are incredibly racist. - To clarify, I am honestly okay with immigration as long as it is legally done through the right channels and procedures. Illegal immigration to me just seems like shady business. HOWEVER, the government has been beating the table screaming at the top of their lungs that "we must protect the christian Europe". Ok. Let me just ask how many times had these people set foot in a church? Because I am fairly sure that most of Europe is no longer can be considered christian. The older generations, maybe - sure they outweigh the younger populations by quite a large amount - but I wouldn't go as far as calling Europe generally a christian territory.
Also there has been this anti-Union campaign telling people that Brussels wants to destroy the country by forcing Hungary to let in a certain amount of immigrants. To me it just seemed that they asked the country to take their share of the workload and help balance the crisis. But they responded as the lazy member of the group project - "Not my problem". This general idea that the Union wants no good for the country had been spread across media - since the government owns most channels in television, printed press, online press and radio - and many Hungarians to this day stand with the party on the opinion that Hungary should leave the European Union.
But is it really an option?
Hungary's public debt to GDP ratio is roughly 74%. If we take all Hungarians and and divide up the debt own, an average person owes over 3.000.000 forints at the moment. Obviously, people owe more than that, because many have no debt at the moment... but will inevitably have it, since it is impossible for the average person to buy a home, let it be a flat or a house, on their own. By average I mean people who earn below 400.000 Fts (after tax had been taken away) that is about $1400, which is average in foreign countries but a very good salary here. The average Hungarian earns roughly 800$ a month. So since there are things people need but cannot afford, the debt is skyrocketing second by second.(see here and here). In Hungarian work environments, that is debt that cannot be paid back(if we include how much interest it will build up) maybe in even a full lifetime.
Therefore Hungarians leave. They look for work environments that allow them to live a life that is not weighed down by immense amount of debt. We need the free flow of workforce to be able to do that. Obviously, that is something that the government would prefer to stop, since Hungarians leave, but foreigners don't come here to pick up the workload.
A lot has changed in Hungary since 2010, and FIDESZ began to morph into a rather illiberal government to the Russian example, rather than following the western patterns. The criteria of EU membership is clearly defined and in case of breaching that criteria, infringement procedures can be installed. At the moment, there are over 70 cases against Hungary.
But as much as Viktor Orban tries to turn the public against the Union, the people stand still as one of the strongest supporters of the EU percentage-wise. Jan Niklas Engels said the following:
The economic reasons mentioned above are also very important when it comes to this subject. The Hungarian economy is very reliant on import goods, since agriculture is very dominant, and let's be honest, we are not the best at it.
Everything besides that (sometimes even that) is imported from abroad.
So all in all, the party is on their 4th term on power, and their roots run deep by this point. Can the Sargentini report really uncover some evidence of corruption that weighs enough so the EU Parliment can take action? Will they take action? Will Orban force his way out, dragging a whole nation with him? What would become of Hungary if the country were to leave the Union?
Those are all important that we really need to consider.
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