Orbán’s culture wars divert, disturb — and evade
serious repercussions
The Hungarian prime minister is sparking global
outrage with his latest broadside against immigration, but remains relatively
secure politically and needed internationally.
BY LILI
BAYER
July 29,
2022 4:39 am
Viktor
Orbán is striding back into the global culture wars — deflecting from economic
woes at home and aware the EU is unlikely to challenge his rhetoric.
The
longtime Hungarian leader, a onetime liberal who is now Europe’s leading
far-right figure, prompted cries of outrage this week after he declared Hungary
does not want to be a “mixed-race” country.
The remarks
— which leaned on language once considered taboo in mainstream Hungarian
society — added to the mountain of hot-button social issues Orbán has been
building for years. He has demonized immigrants, faced cries of anti-Semitism
and ostracized the LGBTQ+ community — often when he is trying to shore up
domestic support.
Abroad,
Orbán is also fostering ties to conservative and far-right figures, painting
himself as a lonely figure standing athwart the West’s “woke movement.” Next
week, he will even speak on the same bill as former U.S. President Donald Trump
at a Texas stop of the MAGA-friendly roadshow, the Conservative Political
Action Conference (CPAC).
The
Hungarian leader is not opening this culture war front in a vacuum. Back home,
the prime minister is grappling with a growing number of problems.
Hungary’s
government is in dire need of pandemic recovery funds the EU is withholding
over corruption concerns. The country’s currency has hit record lows.
Households are struggling with rising prices. And a tax change has sparked
protests.
In his
speech, Orbán made an explicit appeal: Do not let these concerns distract you
from the more epochal problems.
“I ask you
not to be misled, not to be deceived,” he implored the crowd in Romania, where
he was speaking. “There is a war, an energy crisis, an economic crisis and
wartime inflation, and all of this is drawing a screen in front of our eyes, a
screen between us and the issue of gender and migration.”
He then
punched the point: “It is on these issues that the future will be decided.”
For Orbán,
the tactic is a calculated gamble.
Despite
concerns about Hungary’s economy and democracy, Orbán remains in a relatively
comfortable political position, having just won reelection and controlling much
of the local media landscape. And while Brussels could withhold some funds from
Hungary over legal concerns, European policymakers want to keep the Western
camp together as Russia’s war rages in Ukraine.
“A
government with a two-thirds majority,” Orbán pointedly reminded people last
weekend, “cannot be toppled.”
An economy teeters
Hungary’s
economy is in bad shape — and many Hungarians are growing visibly worried as
prices surge. Inflation stands at a nearly 24-year high, hitting 11.7 percent
in June compared to last year. Meanwhile, the country’s currency, the forint,
is the worst performer in the region.
The
crumbling performance has turned attention to Orbán’s financial steerage.
“Hungarian
monetary policy is not independent and not credible,” said Júlia Király, a
professor who served as deputy governor of Hungary’s central bank from 2007
until 2013. The currency’s depreciation, she said, is “partly the result of the
very loose monetary and fiscal policy before the crisis.”
The
problems go deep.
“We have
high inflation, high deficit and a deteriorating current account,” said Péter
Ákos Bod, a former minister who served as governor of Hungary’s central bank in
the early 1990s and is critical of the current government.
“That’s a
perfect storm for any macroeconomist,” he said. “You should tell the truth to
people that, ‘Sorry, that happened, and then we have to economize on things, we
have to correct imbalances’ — that has not been done yet, just partly.”
The
Hungarian prime minister is embroiled in a rare war of words with a close ally
warning that Orbán’s ‘openly racist’ remarks must be stopped.
Orbán is
mostly pledging to shield the country’s economy. Hungary, he said last weekend,
can be “a local exception in a global recession.”
Yet the
country’s finances are especially vulnerable due to questions over whether the
country will be able to access billions from an EU pandemic recovery fund. The
money has thus far been withheld over the EU’s worries about corruption and the
way Hungary issues public contracts.
Negotiations
are currently ongoing between Brussels and Budapest to determine whether Hungary’s
reforms are sufficient to address the EU’s qualms.
Adding to
the situation is a longer-term spat between the EU and Hungary. The European
Commission in April took the historic step of triggering a new mechanism that
could deprive Hungary of regular EU funds over rule-of-law violations.
“EU money,”
said Király, “is crucial.”
Amid the
uncertainty, signs of social unrest have multiplied.
A slew of
street protests has broken out over the government’s unexpected decision this
summer to rapidly change the tax system, significantly raising income taxes for
hundreds of thousands of Hungarians.
Families
are also anxious about changes to the government’s flagship policy of capping
utility prices. The move will mean higher costs for households with above-average
gas and electricity consumption.
Economists
said higher utility prices are necessary, but chided Orbán’s government for its
timing and approach. Other government moves have simply left the experts
puzzled.
“As an
economist,” Bod said, “I’m sometimes at a loss.”
Provoke the culture wars
While
economists scratch their heads in Hungary, Orbán has gone global with his
identity politics and clash-of-civilizations rhetoric.
His
“mixed-race” speech prompted outcries of anger from civil rights groups and
even one of his own longtime advisers, who quit in a dramatic fashion,
brandishing Orbán’s comments as racist and anti-Semitic in a resignation letter
leaked to the press.
Foreign
officials also directed ire at Orbán, albeit more indirectly.
“We are all
part of the same race, the human race,” European Commission Executive
Vice-President Frans Timmermans tweeted without mentioning Orbán. The U.S.
embassy in Budapest issued a blanket condemnation of “all ideologies, policies,
and rhetoric that give oxygen to the doctrines of hate and division.”
But while
governments can scold Orbán (explicitly or not), there aren’t many concrete
steps they can take.
The EU can
take countries to court over specific local laws — a long and winding process.
And it can, theoretically, slash regular budget payments to rule-of-law truants
— as it is currently threatening to do with Hungary. But it can’t directly take
similar steps over the political speech of national leaders.
During
Orbán’s speech, the prime minister also claimed the war in Ukraine “would never
have broken out” if Donald Trump and Angela Merkel were still in office. And he
urged the EU not to take sides between Ukraine and Russia, underscoring his
position on the EU’s fringes.
But his
grander message was one of identity.
“This is
the great historic battle that we are fighting,” he said, pointing to
“demography, migration and gender.”
The
Hungarian government did not respond to questions about the prime minister’s
rhetoric. During a visit to Austria on Thursday, Orbán appeared to try to
address the furor around his comments. “I can sometimes express myself in a way
that can be misunderstood,” he said, insisting that his anti-migration stance
has to do with “cultural” differences.
Both
specialists and critics said the Hungarian leader is likely deflecting from
economic challenges and riling up his Fidesz party base, even if his next
election is four years away and his political opposition has eroded under a
tightening control of the information landscape.
Orbán
“wants these symbolic topics to dominate the discussion, and draw attention
away from possibly more and more austerity measures that the government has to
implement,” said Péter Krekó, executive director of the Budapest-based think
tank Political Capital Institute.
“Austerity,
of course, never really helps to keep popularity,” Krekó added. But “with
symbolic fights,” he said, Orbán can “keep the core of the Fidesz electorate
and try to minimize the losses — and that’s mainly the strategy now.”
It’s a
dangerous ploy, Orbán’s political rivals warned.
“Unfortunately,
in history, we have seen it several times — that when there are turbulences,
there is an economic crisis, then hate policy is something which can preserve
the power of the ruling party,” said Klára Dobrev, a member of the European
Parliament from Hungary’s opposition Democratic Coalition party.
“It’s a
one-way road,” she emphasized, “from democracy to illiberal regimes, to the
dictatorship or aggression.”
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