Polish Re-Democratisation as “Building Back Better”
Since the new Polish government took power, it has taken first steps to restore the rule of law. These have been quite different in nature, from the soft appeals to comply with the case law of the CJEU to more uncompromising and confrontational measures, like taking control of the public broadcasting TVP. It is clear that restoring a damaged liberal democracy requires a different mindset than fighting its demise. While the latter aims to strategically delay the anticipated undemocratic endeavours, the former must constructively rebuild. I call this ‘Building Back Better’, akin to the UN risk-reduction approach employed to avoid future disasters.
Continue reading >>
Frozen
After years of inaction, the European Commission and Council jointly acted to freeze EU funds totaling more than €28.7 billion for Hungary and more than €110 billion for Poland at the end of 2022, citing rule-of-law violations. Surprisingly, the decisions were taken not just (or even primarily) using the new Conditionality Regulation designed for that purpose. Instead, they used a variety of other legal tools to which rule-of-law conditionality was attached. It remains somewhat mysterious, however, precisely which funds and what proportion of those funds have been suspended, and how those suspensions have been legally justified. This post, a shorter version of a SIEPS paper that will be published soon, describes what we know about the complex set of funding suspensions intended to make EU Member States pay for their rule-of-law violations.
Continue reading >>
A House in Disorder
In this post, I’ll explain what has been going on as the House of Representatives has cast an unprecedented number of ballots for Speaker of the House. There are quaint legal reasons why all of this is happening. But then I want to ponder what this says about the ability of the Republican Party to govern the United States because this early-days shutdown of the House follows a pattern in which, for nearly 40 years, the Republicans have wanted to both dominate the federal government and shut it down.
Continue reading >>The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Commission needs to get its message out to Hungarians loud and clear that it is trying to fight corruption in Hungary so that EU money can be used to benefit the Hungarian people and not just Orbán’s circle of cronies. Hungarians would definitely appreciate that if they knew it. But the Commission’s press release today has been drowned out by Orbán’s use of state funds to flood the zone with his message that the Commission doesn’t care about the Hungarian people and is responsible for all of the economic pain they feel.
Continue reading >>
In Hungary, the Law Changes Every Day but It Doesn’t Get Better
The EU Commission has agreed with us that the laws that we have analyzed in our series of four blogposts did not in fact constitute an effective anti-corruption plan. And the Commission has attached a €13.3 billion price tag to non-compliance. Now the Hungarian government is scrambling to unlock this cash by introducing two additional laws that attempt to address the Commission’s concerns. But these new laws repeat the errors of the prior laws. They create the appearance of an independent corruption-fighting system while digging in political allies at all of the chokepoints and tying up whistleblowers and anti-corruption fighters in red tape. The new laws do not make things better and they may even make things worse.
Continue reading >>
Trusting Hungary with Billions of Euros
It’s crunch time for the Conditionality Regulation at the European Commission. In its College meeting on 22 November, the Commission is scheduled to discuss whether Hungary has actually made the 17 changes it proposed in order to avoid cuts to its Cohesion Funds. What the Commission chooses to do will depend on whether it believes that Hungary’s anti-corruption program will in fact allow Hungary to be entrusted with billions of Euros without having a sizeable fraction of those Euros pocketed by cronies. We believe that Hungary’s reforms are designed to be ineffective and will not even begin to halt the massive corruption that is the hallmark of Hungary’s kleptocracy.
Continue reading >>
Are Hungary’s EU Funds Being Cut (or Not)?
The news about whether Hungary will receive EU funds (or not) these days is confusing. One day, we hear that the European Commission is proposing to lower the boom on Hungary by cutting a large chunk of its Cohesion Funds under the general EU budget. The next day, we hear that the Commission is nearing an agreement to approve Hungary’s Recovery Plan in order to greenlight the release of funds. Is the Commission using or surrendering its financial leverage to require that the Hungarian government honor the rule of law? Will the Hungarian government negotiate its way out of funding cuts by really loosening its autocratic grip on power, or would any reform be illusory?
Continue reading >>Useless and Maybe Unconstitutional
In part III of our analysis of the anti-corruption framework, we will look at another aspect of the Hungarian “reforms”: a new procedure that seems to allow the general public to challenge in court the decisions of Hungarian public prosecutors to drop corruption cases. The new procedure is nearly impossible to use and adds little value to existing controls on the public prosecutor. In addition, the Hungarian Constitutional Court may declare it unconstitutional in any event.
Continue reading >>
Corrupting the Anti-Corruption Program
In this blogpost, we’ll analyze the Anti-Corruption Task Force, sometimes translated as the Anti-Corruption Working Group. This is another institutional innovation that the Hungarian government proposes to establish in order to transform a kleptocracy into an accountable government. Like the Integrity Authority, the Anti-Corruption Task Force also looks like it might be a good idea on first glance but its significance dissolves on closer analysis. The Task Force is structured like hens trying to organize a safety plan when the local foxes have packed the meeting and dominate the discussion.
Continue reading >>
How NOT to Be an Independent Agency
The Hungarian government is trying to convince EU institutions that it is taking adequate steps to ensure proper spending of EU funds going forward. At the center of this effort is a new ‘Integrity Authority’. The law establishing this authority, Bill T/1260, just passed the Hungarian Parliament on 3 October 2022. We have carefully read the laws enacted so far that establish a new anti-corruption framework and can confidently say that neither the Commission nor the Council should accept what the Hungarian government is offering because the proposed changes do not begin to alter business as usual in Hungary. In this blogpost, we will analyze the ‘Integrity Authority’ which forms the centerpiece of the government’s program, showing that it is not independent from the government nor are its powers real.
Continue reading >>
Will the Commission Throw the Rule of Law Away in Hungary?
The Hungarian government is publicly saying that it is nearing a deal with the European Commission to unlock the Recovery Funds that have been withheld because the Commission has not yet approved Hungary’s plan for spending those funds. Apparently, Hungary has agreed to four conditions that will allow the €7bn worth of grants and about €8bn in low-interest loans to be approved. But if those are any indication of the price that the European Commission will extract for comprehensive violation of the rule of law, the European Commission is making a colossal mistake.
Continue reading >>
What Culture Wars Hide
The American Conservative Political Action Coalition (CPAC) is meeting in Budapest on 19-20 May. The meeting signals that US conservatives have chosen Hungary as proof of concept for the politics they want. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is proudly illiberal and proudly politically incorrect. Having won his fourth consecutive election in April with his largest parliamentary majority yet, Orbán demonstrates to American conservatives that his brand of politics can triumph.
Continue reading >>Escaping Orbán’s Constitutional Prison
Backsliding democracies around the world all face the problem of how to restore the rule of law. Precisely because it is already embedded in European law, with deep Hungarian roots that have long honored European traditions and its international law obligations, Hungary has the option of simply embracing European law to provide a legal path back to the rule of law
Continue reading >>