As long as there is complete political control over the prosecution in Hungary, they will simply not bring corruption cases in Viktor Orbán’s environment to court, says Daniel Freund, a German Green MEP and perhaps the most vocal critic of the Orbán government in the EU.
In a wide-ranging interview with Gulyáságyú Média at the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, the politician said he believes that Hungary is no longer a democracy and he even went as far as to estimate how much EU money has been stolen in the country since 2010.
We asked MEP Freund to speak to Hungarians who do not want “foreign interference in Hungarian domestic politics” and also to those who think that no rebuke from the EU will have any effect on Viktor Orbán.
In the discussion, the MEP made the forceful statement that “Orbán and Putin are stealing money together”.
He also touched on the Hungarian prime minister’s blocking of Sweden’s accession to NATO, the activities up to this point of the new anti-corruption and transparency authority – established at the request of the EU –, the situation concerning freedom of the Hungarian press and the Public Education Status Law, which he said was “an attack by the government on Hungarian teachers.”
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Contents
Sweden, Russia, NATO, Orban, Putin
– Have you been following the policy of the Hungarian government toward Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership?
– What we have seen for a long time within the European Union is that Viktor Orbán has been misusing his veto to get concessions, extra rules for himself. We have seen it particularly on the sanctions against Russia since the full-scale invasion in Ukraine, where he has gotten individuals of the sanctions list.
Since last December, all of Europe, with the exception of the Hungarian government, has ceased purchasing Russian oil. Interestingly, this marks a notable shift where issues that were traditionally confined within the European Union, involving negotiations and decisions, are now extending beyond the EU’s boundaries to NATO. The Hungarian government has made it clear that they perceive the freezing of new funds as linked to their cooperation within NATO.
In a situation where we have a Russian invasion in Ukraine particularly where countries that have a border with Russia are extremely nervous and there is a feeling of insecurity. The reason why Finland and Sweden immediately after the invasion went like okay, well for a long time we weren’t in NATO, but this now changes things, we want to be in there. In that situation to basically exploit their vulnerability and say, “Yeah, okay, we can talk about it, but only if we get something in return”, is quite an extreme move.
– What do you think is the reason for these kinds of actions by Viktor Orbán?
– What I have heard from the Hungarian government is that Sweden and Finland were quite vocal in freezing new funds because of rule of law violations and corruption. And that this is sort of Orbán’s revenge for the European Union freezing new funds.
He also likes to be in the role of having to be persuaded.
If you look at EU member states on a spectrum measuring how critical they are of Vladimir Putin and how friendly they are to Ukraine, then Hungary is currently on the extreme end of that spectrum.
While the entire European Union is trying to organize financial, medical, logistical support for Ukraine, the Hungarian foreign minister is the only one who regularly travels to Moscow. The Hungarian government is building a Russian nuclear power plant while everyone else is organizing sanctions, I think that Putin and Orbán are stealing money together. That’s the reason why Paks II (a new Russian nuclear power plant in the heart of Hungary – the editor.) is still being pushed as a project. Given that Putin is committing war crimes in a country neighboring the European Union that is trying to become a member of the European Union, this behavior is just unfathomable.
Hungarian press freedom, government propaganda
– How do you assess the situation of press freedom in Hungary?
– I think there’s not much press freedom left. If you go outside of Budapest you don’t find a newspaper, a radio station or a television channel in Hungarian language that isn’t controlled by KESMA and thereby by Orbán and his allies.
If you compare it with the situation under Soviet rule, then yes, there are some websites, some online radio stations, and some blogs that are upholding the last sprinkles of independent journalism in the country.
We have the Internet and Hungarians can of course go and read news sources from other EU countries in other languages. But there is near absolute control by Orbán’s propaganda machine of the media that Hungarians consume.
– What is your position on the banning of certain media outlets from Hungarian government briefings?
– For me a very striking example was that during the last election campaign Orbán basically didn’t dare to have a television debate. I think the number of interviews that he has given to independent media outlets is zero.
I have seen that he occasionally speaks to media from other countries, but even that is a rather rare exemption. He seems to be afraid of people asking questions or voicing any kind of criticism.
What we see in Hungary which we don’t see to the same degree in any other member state, is full control of media through state subsidies, through government spending. I was there during the last election campaign, and the government actually puts up posters all over the country financed with government money during an election campaign. It’s unimaginable in any sort of functioning democracy. But there you have the Hungarian government putting up posters of Viktor Orbán in the middle of an election campaign. So half of the posters aren’t party-funded election campaign posters, but are government propaganda during the time of elections.
If you look at the revenue of the Orbán-controlled media, then a sizable share of the revenue they have actually comes from government advertising. Media outlets that don’t follow on the government exactly line not only don’t get any revenue from government information campaigns, but government also puts pressure, of course, on private companies that then feel, they risk their collaborational contracts from government circles, if they advertise in the “wrong” independent media.
Hungarian corruption prosecution, the work of the Integrity Authority
– My understanding is that you are satisfied with the work of the newly established Integrity Authority. I read an interview – from the time you visited Budapest with a delegation from the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control – in which you said “we have seen progress, we have had a very forward-looking discussion with the head of the Integrity Authority”. Coming from Daniel Freud, that is a compliment. Do you remain positive about the work of the Integrity Authority?
– We went in May with the mission from the Committee on Budgetary Control, and we met a number of government ministries and ministers. We met different authorities: we met the Court of Auditors, and the Integrity Authority, we also met representatives from civil society, and journalists. (The Integrity Authority is a body set up in November 2022 by the Hungarian government under pressure from the European Union to control the use of EU budget funds. – the editor.)
Among all the very difficult meetings, the meeting with the Integrity Authority was not as bad as many of the other meetings that we had. That’s more how I would frame this. I have been reasonably critical of the Commission’s approach which sees the Integrity Authority as sort of the silver bullet in fighting corruption in Hungary. That is an expectation which is by no means warranted. Even if Hungary had the best Integrity Authority in the world, as long as there is full political control over the prosecution, they will just simply not take corruption cases in Orbán’s environment to court. And even if by some miracle that were to happen, the case would land in an appeals court in front of a judge who has been appointed by Orbán in order not to sentence whoever his son-in-law, his father, his child and friends – for corruption.
So given all these caveats and the low expectations for the Integrity Authority, the exchange with the head of the authority was refreshing. He said some of the right things.
I have seen since we were there press reports that there have been problems with procurement and tendering at the Integrity Authority itself.
It’s an ongoing assessment of whether anything works or not. What I can say overall is that the Hungarian government agreed with the European Commission on 27 different reforms. The establishment of the Integrity Authority is one of those 27 reforms.
As of today, the last assessment was done by the European Commission in December, just before the member states’ governments decided to freeze two-thirds in total of the EU funding for Hungary. Since that assessment was done, there hasn’t been a single additional milestone that has been fulfilled. So, as things look, the overall picture today is that there has been little to no progress in making the justice system more independent in fighting corruption more effectively.
Public Education Status Law
In areas that aren’t necessarily covered by these reform agreements, we clearly see additional attacks. Not least all with the example of a new legislation going after teachers in Hungary, which is a full-on attack on civil rights, on everyone’s right to hold an opinion and to also express it, which basically creates a situation where the government can search computers or mobile phones of teachers and if they find criticism of the government to throw them out of their jobs.
This is worse than what we have seen under Soviet control in Hungary and this should not exist in the European Union.
Hungary: a democracy or not?
– Are you aware of the recently published plan by the State Audit Office to cut state funding to opposition parties ahead of next year’s European Parliament and local elections?
– No, I hadn’t heard about that, but I know, that in the past, there have been repeated attacks and also moves during COVID to cut the funding for political parties.
Again, something that in a normal democracy would not happen. But there have been a lot of changes to the electoral rules over the last few years. And in a very strategic and smart way, they basically bend the election rules to a degree where this is no longer a democracy.
From gerrymandering over how joint lists function to, the move to put the European and the local elections onto the same day by moving the local elections by almost six months.
All of this is done to make it easier for Fidesz to have better results, from money to access to voters. And in the end, it’s a toxic mix. The near full control of media, the meddling with election rules, the cutting their funding and rerouting state funding to their own campaigns, as I said earlier, all of this doesn’t manage to give them 80 percent of the votes, but enough given how the rules are so that you can with a reasonably small voter base have two-thirds of the mandates.
Foreign interference in Hungarian internal affairs vs. a weak-handed EU
– You are the face of the European Parliament’s criticism of Hungary. What would you say to Hungarians who do not want so-called “foreign interference in Hungarian domestic politics”?
– A majority of Hungarians haven’t elected Orbán, haven’t voted for Orbán. Orbán always tries to say that he and Hungary are the same thing, but they’re not the same thing. I know that most Hungarians think very differently about Europe, about the European Union, and about European democracy than Orbán does.
We’re together in Europe and we have a European Parliament, we have the governments and the (European) Council, and all of us together, we make laws, we make rules, we work on big problems together as 450 million Europeans. There is no internal interference, there is European democracy.
When I try to get majorities for my amendments, for my proposals, for my laws, I need votes from members of the parliament from all corners of Europe, from different political groups in order to build a majority.
We also need those laws that we make together as Europeans. We need to make sure that those laws then apply across Europe. For example, if we say every European has certain unalienable rights, that you can’t be discriminated against, that you have a right to free speech, that if you have a dispute with an administration you have a right to a fair trial in court. These are unalienable rights that Europeans hold wherever they are in the European Union.
It is my duty as a member of the European Parliament to make sure that it works, that no one is infringing on those rights, and no one is trying to take those rights away, and that particularly access to a free and fair trial at court exists whether that court is in Lisbon, in Paris, or in Budapest, or somewhere in the countryside of Hungary.
This is not foreign interference, this is Europeans protecting our European rights.
– On the other hand, is there a message for Hungarians who feel that none of the EU’s rebukes of Viktor Orbán have had any effect?
– I think what we’re doing has an effect.
I know that the European Union for many years ignored what Orbán was doing and actually Angela Merkel and many other conservative politicians were holding out a protective hand. And CSU members, German conservatives in Bavaria were giving him standing ovations for what he was doing to people seeking shelter in our countries from war and from prosecution.
We have been too slow. I think still today we’re not fighting back hard enough. It is a success that now two-thirds of EU funding is frozen and linked to those reforms. Even if all those reforms are fully done, we won’t have restored democracy, the rule of law fully in Hungary.
This is going to be a long battle, and it’s a long battle that the European Parliament, that the European Union even, cannot win alone. But what we can do at least is we can stop funding the destruction of Hungarian democracy with EU funds. And that’s something where we have made great progress. For me, one of the big tests will be the elections in Poland.
If you look at where Orbán was standing a couple of years ago, part of the Conservative Party family, meeting with whomever, Berlusconi, with Sarkozy, with Merkel ahead of the Councils. The Hungarian government has reached a degree of isolation where no one is taking them seriously anymore. They are the pariahs on the European scene and also within NATO. No one thinks of them as democrats or good allies.
There is a real fear of having a Putin puppet around the table. This hasn’t yielded a complete change in Hungary yet, but the pressure is mounting and
more and more Hungarians are also understanding that this is not the right way for their country, that politically it’s difficult that it puts at risk good cooperation with Europe and maybe ultimately EU membership for the country.
Hungarians understand that economically Orbán is a disaster. Yes, there has been inflation in pretty much every European country after we tried to get free off Russian fossil fuels. But inflation in Hungary is more than twice that of most EU member states. There is more economic pain in Hungary and that is because Orbán is stealing the money that should be going to ordinary Hungarians. People understand that.
We all need to work together to bring about political change in Hungary.
– What do you think when the EU funds will arrive to Hungary?
– The moment Viktor Orbán does the necessary reforms, starts repairing the rule of law, and he starts fighting corruption, then this money can flow. If you ask me right now, do I see a real willingness on his behalf to cary out those reforms? No, I don’t.
For now the answer is that lots of money is on ice, but the actual effect so far has been quite limited. Right now all those construction sites that you see in Hungary with the sign “funded by the European Union”, that is all money from the last budget. That will continue until the end of this year.
So the real bite will come on the first of January. That’s when construction companies, for example, will not have the follow-up project when social projects will not have the follow up funding from the European Union.
Erasmus-students are already feeling right now that they are no longer part of this great exchange happening between all Europeans. Hungarian universities and Hungarian students are excluded from that already, so they are the first ones in a way to feel the effect. But the wider effects will be starting to arrive basically early next year. That’s when it will really be felt.
I don’t want this, I want the money to go to Hungary, but obviously I don’t just want it to end up with Orbán’s son-in-law, his father, or his childhood friend, Lőrinc Mészáros, because we know that too much of this money is not going where it’s supposed to go.
– It would be interesting to see how Prime Minister Orbán’s oligarchs, who take most of the state- and EU subsidies in the construction industry, would react to not having new jobs.
– Well, I’m not worried, they’ve stolen enough. We’ve calculated that since Viktor Orbán came to power in 2010, Hungary has received 49 billion euros from the European Union. Transparency International estimates that around 24-25% of this money has been stolen. These are huge sums, not just a few million.
They have used that money to buy up entire industries in the country. So even if the EU money stops flowing, they control much of the economy already. If you’re a multi-billionaire, you’re not the one that’s going to suffer. The people that are going to suffer are ordinary Hungarians who are being deprived of this fund.
Exchange of views with the Fidesz?
– Are you talking to Fidesz MEPs? Do you have personal contact with them, or do you not even say hello to them – so I imagine – in the hallway?
– They mostly don’t show up whenever we’re discussing resolutions and amendments in the committee meetings. I see very little of them.
They then go on Hungarian television and insult me as a Nazi or whatever. I have been to Hungary now nine times during this legislature in the last four years. And when I go, I routinely ask for meetings with the Europe Minister, Justice Minister. For a long time they didn’t even reply to me. Now they say no, so they are the ones not seeking the dialogue.
I have tried. It’s not like, on those few occasions, where I have interacted with for them, they really tell you anything of substance. But I remain open for dialogue.
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