How Viktor Orbán Plays To Win

Name: How Viktor Orbán Plays To Win | The Resurgence of Central Europe (Foreword by Rod Dreher)
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The Resurgence of Central Europe (Foreword by Rod Dreher)

Thibaud Gibelin(Autor*in)

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How Viktor Orbán Plays To Win:The Resurgence of Central Europe
Thibaud Gibelin
Foreword by Rod Dreher
How Viktor Orbán Plays To Win:The Resurgence of Central Europe
Thibaud Gibelin
Foreword by Rod Dreher
Academica PressWashington~London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gibelin, Thibaud (author)
Title: How viktor orban plays to win : the resurgence of central Europe | Gibelin, Thibaud
Description: Washington : Academica Press, 2025. | Includes references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2024945076 | ISBN 9781680533194 (hardcover) | 9781680533200 (e-book)
Contents
Exordium xi
Foreword xiii
Introduction 1
The European Union facing a repressed Europe 1
The twists and turns of an encrypted Europe 6
Changing centuries 11
I. What is Central Europe? 13
Double membership 13
Bohemia in the Holy Roman Empire 16
Hungary and the Ottoman Empire n 19
Poland between Moscow and Berlin 23
II. First steps in the rubble 29
An anti-communist dissident 30
Hungary torn apart, or necessaryaccommodation to the international order 35
III. Asserting a civic Hungary 39
Neither right nor left 39
Conservatism against Reaction 40
A party of national interest 44
IV. The school of adversity 51
Modern experiences 51
Reasons for defeat 53
Political vulnerability in Central Europe 57
The end of the tunnel 58
V. The peaceful revolution 63
Rebuilding a sovereign state 63
Asserting ourselves on the international stage 67
What's left of nationalism? 69
Central Europe's resources in the current situation 74
VI. The new battlefield 77
A raw antagonism 77
The rule of law in question 79
Revealing the great energy game 82
VII. The tipping point of the migration crisis 85
Crash and tsunami in the Mediterranean 85
The rebirth of the Visegrád group 89
Hungarian disinhibition and Western deprivation 92
VIII. What's left of liberalism 99
The European superiority complex 99
Confronting George Soros 101
Liberalism: a spectre haunting Europe 105
IX. The face of theater is changing 109
2016-2020: Western marginalizationand national room for maneuver 109
2019: the challenges of an electoral transformation 114
Germany, a power for nothing? 117
France between inertia and aggiornamento 120
The populist leaven in Italy 124
X. Towards a new age of order 127
The metamorphoses of the void 128
The economy or the burden of contemporary man 130
Illiberal emancipation by itself 134
Conclusion 141
Bibliography 145
Index 147
Exordium
"An extraordinary imagination animated this cold politician: he wouldn't have been what he was if the muse hadn't been there
reason fulfilled the poet's ideas. All these men with great lives are always a compound of two natures, for they must be capable of inspiration and action: one gives birth to the project, the other accomplishes it."
François-René de Chateaubriand, Mémoires d'outre-tombe
People walk on their land and under the stars, and only secondarily on asphalt and under streetlights. One's origins never disappear, tradition never dies out
we reconnect with both. These eclipses, after all, are as necessary as winters: the most thankless historical circumstances reveal invincible permanences.
Viktor Orbán has found himself the medium of a sensibility that was thought to have disappeared. In him, disparate traditions have regained an intelligible meaning
the sense of origins has found the blossoming of becoming. Just when history was supposed to come to an end, it resumed its course in a land of misfortune and in a dissident who rallied to the change of regime in 1989. Viktor Orbán represents more than he is. He draws his strength from a tradition that is opposed to and strengthened
Foreword
Rod Dreher
Hungary's Viktor Orbán is the longest continuously serving leader of a Western democracy, and easily the most controversial. It is not hard to understand why. As a nationalist and populist of the political right, Orbán's convictions and governing policies typically run counter to the liberal governing consensus in Europe and North America.
When most of Europe opened its borders to masses of third world refugees in 2015, Orbán said no. He didn't refuse because he has a hard heart. He did it because he understood well that most of these people were not actual refugees, but third world men looking for a permanent foothold in Europe. And he knew then, as he knows now, that the survival of distinct European nations depends on stopping the unregulated flow of migrants.
When elites throughout the West changed laws to permit same-sex marriage, and to allow for teaching children - in schools and in popular culture - about the so-called virtues of homosexuality and gender ideology, Orbán put his foot down. Not here in Hungary, he said. The traditional family is the basis of civilization. Childhood innocence should be protected.
When NATO carried out its proxy war with Russia, via Ukraine, Orbán refused to allow Hungary to get involved. They called him "Putin's lapdog." In fact, Orbán knew that Ukraine could not prevail against Russia, that the West had unwisely provoked the conflict, and that continuing the war would not only destroy Ukraine, but impoverish Europe, and possibly lead to a wider conflagration.
So, here's the standard portrait of Viktor Orban, as seen without question in the Western media: a right-wing bully, dictator, and bigot who is Putin's European cat's paw. They also claim that Orbán's Hungary is a semi-fascist state where freedom is under siege, and the independent media faces clampdown.
Funny, but that's not how it looks from Budapest, where I have lived for the past three years. And it's not how it looks to many first-time visitors from elsewhere in the West.
While Western European capitals are ridden with migrant crime and dirt, Budapest is safe and clean. A man in from Germany said to me that unlike back home, there is active and joyful street life in Budapest
in German cities, people have withdrawn over fears of violent crime. A visitor from Paris told me on an after-dinner stroll through downtown, "I feel like I'm back in Europe again."
Where children in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries that have promoted LGBTQ+ ideology are suffering from off-the-charts anxiety, the mental health of Hungarian children is comparatively stable. Perhaps owing to the Orbán government's generous policies encouraging childbearing, marriage rates in Hungary have doubled over the last ten years, even as they have mostly collapsed elsewhere in Europe.
And now, as the Russia-Ukraine war grinds on into its third gruesome year, with the Russian economy booming and most of the world having defied the West's calls for a crusade, the Hungarian leader's early warnings about the foolishness of Western meddling have been borne out by events.
In the late summer of 2024, Britain was rocked by anti-migrant rioting that spurred a sharply authoritarian response from UK authorities. Judges began sending Britons to jail for having posted disfavored memes and comments on social media. Even as mobs of Muslim men rampaged through city streets shouting, "Allahu akbar" and looking for lone, Union Jack-sporting white Englishmen to beat up, the government and the media raged against alleged right-wing hooligans for causing the trouble, and fumed
None of this happened in Hungary. The country is safe and calm because the Orbán government - unlike successive UK governments - listens to and respects the will of the electorate, which says no to migration. And unlike in Britain, the birthplace of liberal democracy, no Hungarian has ever been thrown in jail for complaining about migrants on social media.
Plainly, Viktor Orbán is doing something right. His enemies in other countries can't admit it, because doing so raises an obvious question: why are they failing?
In my time in Hungary, I have encouraged American conservative leaders to visit Hungary and learn from Orbán's strategies. In How Viktor Orbán Plays To Win, Thibaud Gibelin, a French writer who has also been living in Hungary and observing Orbán's strategy up close, explains that the Hungarian prime minister is a visionary whose understanding of how the contemporary world works is based on a way of seeing it in a fundamentally different way from the globalist politicians and theorists of the pos
Orbán believes that the world is facing a realignment the likes of which hasn't been seen in five centuries. He believes that the survival of Western peoples, and their thriving, depends on the strength of individual nations. That, in turn, requires strong families, and cohesive communities made up of people who believe in their ancestral faith and in the goodness of their own people and cultural traditions.
More prosaically, Orbán understands that culture and politics are entwined in ways that most Western conservatives, as inheritors of the liberal tradition, do not see. In most liberal democracies, left-wingers have marched successfully through all the institutions of cultural formation - especially schools, universities, and the media - and use their institutional power to marginalize conservatives and to turn the younger generations into loyal servants of progressive causes and left-wing power-
What's more, Viktor Orbán is willing to fight, and fight hard. Perhaps it's because he got his start in politics as a young David facing down the communist Goliath. Perhaps it's because as the leader of a small central European country that has had to wage war for its very existence for a thousand years, Orbán cannot afford to see the world in sentimental liberal abstractions. His enemies in Washington, Brussels, and other Western capitals regard Orbán as a Magyar barbarian. In fact, he is the b
The United States is a mammoth country compared to Hungary, but the best parts of the American soul and way of life are under sustained attack by a hydra-headed enemy that many conventional American conservatives can scarcely identify. Viktor Orbán sees the foe clearly, and he has all his political life. He has a plan for victory. And he knows what time it is.
In these pages, Thibaud Gibelin tells the tale. This is not a story Americans will hear from their media or from establishment historians. But it is a tale they must hear, take to heart, and take to the political and cultural battlefield -- while there is still time.
Rod Dreher
Budapest, August 2024
Introduction
The European Union facing a repressed Europe
The twists and turns of an encrypted Europe
Changing centuries
One question hangs over the European continent: what is the future of its unity? It influences the future of every nation and the daily lives of hundreds of millions of citizens. For some, it remains an idea to be supported or rejected, but it is also an ongoing historical conditioning that we must accept in order to curb. Those who detach themselves from it submit to it, while those who attach themselves to it retain a chance to see their views prevail. The European Union (EU) is political inso
In Brussels and in European chancelleries, opposition is often confined to discrete pugilistic brawls, which sometimes spill over onto the airwaves and the stage. The media's polemical, publicity-driven approach to public debate inevitably impoverishes civil discourse. It imposes the false idea of a single alternative: the dismantling of the European Union on the one hand, and the establishment of a United States of Europe on the other. However crude, this simplification teaches us two things: t
The current dispute arises from a war of ideas. Liberal democracy has recently imposed itself on the countries of the continent. Broadly speaking, the European Union is based on two principles: democracy and liberalism. One is based on the sovereignty of the people, the other on the authority of law. Today, these two principles diverge, to the extent that half of the European Union is at war with the other. The right of peoples to self-determination clashes with the unlimited rights of the indiv
More than ever, Europe resides in its nations. Today's political fragmentation is at odds with the degree of integration of the single market, as if economic promiscuity were creating new frictions. The United Kingdom has already left the Union. Liberal utilitarianism is aggravating the disaffiliation of countries and individuals alike. Selfishness is at work everywhere, nowhere more so than in the economic arena. The reality of a European oikos is withering away, while the oxymoronic "economic
Let us recall where the European Union came from to understand why its de facto political stature is so uncertain. Its manifest destiny lies in the slim "Schuman Declaration" of May 9, 1950, which urged European countries to "make concrete achievements, first creating a de facto solidarity." The European adventure began modestly, as a union of producers of steel and coal - a meagre but important share of the civilizational capital of a continent admired as the beacon of the world forty years ear
Since Philippe de Villiers's well-documented essay, we know that the intentions of the "Fathers of Europe" were neither good nor innocent. These peaceful pioneers in the ruins of the Old Continent advocated "the establishment of an economic community and the leavening of a wider and deeper community between countries long opposed by bloody divisions." However "broader and deeper" the community may have become, it has been reduced to economics. Worse still, it has reduced Europe to it. Building t
The blame lies not so much with the founders of European integration as with their docile successors, who failed to nurture an imperfect graft of all that is noble about Europe. More seriously, the neoliberal turn taken by the EEC under the Delors Commission (1985-1995) refocused the European project on the single market and generalized competition. This orientation undoubtedly runs counter to the efforts initiated by Robert Schuman, accompanied by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer. At the t
The EEC became the European Union with the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. It still suffers from enormous handicaps in asserting itself as a political community, as its DNA demands an impossible neutrality. Defining otherness, distinguishing friend from foe, delimiting borders, territorializing power, subordinating growth to other objectives: these are all phobias that will blight the Union's future.
In the irony of history, which confers a belated radiance on dead ideas, as it does on stars, liberal Europe gave itself an "empire in spite of itself." Between 2004 and 2013, eleven countries of former socialist Europe and two islands in the Mediterranean joined, with further expansion in the works. The limits of the current European project are perceived with particular acuity by the nations of Central Europe, precisely because they did not initiate it.
*
The "Trente glorieuses" - the thirty prosperous years following World War II in Western Europe, preceded what we might call the "Trente fangeuses" ("thirty muddy years"), which witnesses the triumph of vulgar materialism. They also coincided with East Europeans suffering and dying under Soviet repression. In 1956, "for Hungary and for Europe," in the words of the telex sent to the world by the head of Hungary's press agency, this included the Hungarian Revolution. In 1968, Czechoslovakian leader
These struggles bear witness to the importance of spiritual resources. May these two forces go hand in hand, and may they never ignore each other: may Antigone stand before Creon if she is not at his side. The articulation of these two forces - law and faith, reason and spirit, lucidity and inspiration - largely determines the history of peoples. Particularly in the countries of Central Europe, distrust of the righteousness of foreign power is fundamental. This periphery of present-day Europe, h
This assertion deserves a brief illustration. Respect for the law is a cardinal virtue that the authorities in Brussels like to claim, especially when they condemn Central European countries for alleged "breaches of the rule of law," often backing up their criticism with financial threats. Yet the law is no less respected in Budapest than it is in Brussels. It simply draws on deeper sources than "protecting the individual from coercion." In the Hungarian example, law is one authority among other
*
The collapse of the Eastern bloc was a contradiction in terms in European history, as the people's victory over communism was seen as a plebiscite in favor of the Western model. History was thought to have come to an end, just as people were proving that it could be resurrected. The misunderstanding is colossal: Western Europe's subjection to the Atlantic bloc was sanctioned by an apparent triumph. It gave liberal Europe the feeling of having won, alongside the United States, while the laurels w
It was not a question of preferring one system or the other, but of rejecting one or the other once one was subjected to it. The Europeans of the time decided at their own pace, as allowed by circumstances. It is up to today's Europeans to decide what to do with this heritage, which belongs fully to them as it weighs on their shoulders.
Nevertheless, the East-West divide in the EU is not simply a legacy of the Cold War. To believe so would be to endow communism with a conservative virtue it never had. Post-war regimes diminished Central European countries culturally, politically, and economically. Socialism worked towards the advent of a materialist, post-national era just as much as liberalism. This fundamental convergence between the two ideologies explains East Germans' ingenuous fascination with capitalist abundance, as por
*
There is indeed a major Europe on the continent: the Carolingian core, with its high concentration of population, wealth, power, and skill. This megalopolis, extending from the mouth of the Rhine to the highest of the Alps and from Paris to Frankfurt, has remained more or less the heart of the continent since the fall of the Roman Empire. There is also a Europe Minor, on the eastern flank of core Western Europe. But is Western Europe today living up to its birthright? Do the countless setbacks o
The Visegrád Group (V4) comprises four European Union countries: Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. The group has a population of 64 million over an area of 530,000 km,² the size of metropolitan France, on the eastern flank of the Germanic world, and on the borders of the former Soviet Union.
In 1335, the kings of Bohemia, Hungary, and Poland joined forces at Visegrád, a fortress overlooking the Danube north of Buda, to counter the encroachments of their powerful neighbor, Austria. This was the historical reference point when, on February 15, 1991, a cooperation treaty was signed between these same three countries to prepare for their entry into the European Union. The concerted dissolution of Czechoslovakia on December 31, 1992, led to the reshaping of the V3 into the V4.
We need to delve into the long history of these countries to understand what Viktor Orbán is all about. To make sense of the evolution of the Visegrád group - particularly its aptitude for international cooperation - Poland and Hungary had been major Christian states for centuries. The Czech Republic, formerly known as Bohemia-Moravia, was also a kingdom with important privileges, albeit within an earlier limited supranational state, the Holy Roman Empire. Slovakia formally emerged in European h
*
For the V4 countries, the collapse of communism opened up an obvious and exhilarating prospect: a return to the European family, which they had joined a thousand years earlier and within which their nations had grown and prospered. No treaty, no legal strictures, no forced economic march - just a simple return to themselves. You might as well imagine a man returning home after a long prison sentence: he would not ask how the house has been fitted out or how the household chores are organized. He
But as we have already mentioned, liberalism, freed from socialist competition, has revived a revolutionary dynamic. This was boosted by the lightning conquest of new markets and the takeover of Eastern industries at the cost of unemployment for millions of workers, to rebuild a productive apparatus complementary to and dependent on Western capitalism.
Central Europe submitted to the law of the victor and put on a brave face on the liberal paradise imposed upon it. As long as the stupefaction of peoples dazed by communism was maintained, as long as the West's successes made its principles indisputable, as long as promises outweighed distress, the certainty that "there is no alternative" - as Margaret Thatcher put it with regard to liberal globalization - could remain.
This state of affairs has been evolving since the 2008 financial crisis, which launched an upheaval in Europe and around the world. The decline of liberalism began to take shape: the dogmas of Western Europe were shaken before they could be assimilated by the peoples of Central Europe. Since then, every failure of the system has called for a response forged hic et nunc by nations in an uncertain world. The global crisis spawned by the Covid-19 pandemic marked a significant milestone along the ro
*
Some men play a catalytic role in history. They give an era its face. The insurrection of reality appears in Central Europe in the shape of Viktor Orbán. From dissidence to the communist system in the 1980s, to dissidence to the liberal model in the 2010s, the political trajectory of this extraordinary leader follows or anticipates the evolution of mentalities in Hungary and Central Europe. Viktor Orbán is already a page of history, but a living page whose reading not only offers us valuable ins
The continuing success of the Hungarian Prime Minister shows that he is neither isolated nor lost. In neighboring countries, too, national elites supported by their people aspire to a more nation-protecting Europe, preferring the immense heritage of the Christian centuries to the conditional pleasures of mass consumption. This wish may not be unanimous, but events from 2014 to 2024 prove it, starting with the rejection of Brussels's lax yet coercive migration policy: nothing could have happened
*
I do not intend to reassure Western Europeans with the illusion that others will bail them out. The figure of the rustic Central European is not destined to take the same place in the imagination of many pessimists as the migrant occupies in that of "progressives." My aim is to help demonstrate two things: that it is politically possible to do well in the Europe of the 2020s, even within the imperfect framework of Brussels
and that a movement that transcends the EU and will outlive it is now em
It would be wrong to judge the European Union solely by its setbacks, and indeed Central Europe has good reason to look back with pride on much of the past twenty years of EU institutions. At a time when the balance of power is first and foremost economic, when the means of power are inseparable from the capacity to finance it, Central Europe has grown considerably richer. The former Soviet satellites are leading the way in terms of all continental economic indicators: growth in industrial produ
European structural funds, of which the V4 is a net beneficiary, contribute to this upturn. But transfers from Central Europe to Western economies more than offset this expenditure. The distribution of roles between the winners and losers of European integration is far more complex than one might imagine. In addition to contributions to the EU budget, we will see which sectors of the economy and which segments of the population reap the benefits of the collective effort.
It is worth remembering that labor costs in the V4 countries are only 35% (in Poland) to 45% (in the Czech Republic) of the EU average. Even on a purchasing power parity basis, GDP per capita is 65% (in Hungary) to 80% (in the Czech Republic) of that of the EU15. This situation of inferiority is patiently endured by the tens of millions of workers who prefer austere remuneration to expatriation.
Since the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian empire over a century ago, this region has remained fragmented or oppressed under a foreign yoke. It has proceeded toward regaining its former stature thanks to the infrastructure linking the continent: the building of a European economy that is once again united does not run counter to the tradition of these countries. Finally, a unified continental perspective, achieved through twenty years of effort, deserves praise.
*
Economics and politics have their own laws. The Europe of Visegrád intends to subordinate the former to the latter. In the years or since their accession to the EU, new member states grown richer without really suffering from the vagaries of their supranational allegiance. But in the long term, the deployment of liberal logic implies the evolution of social structures and mentalities under the pressures of dominant financial pressures. Western countries preceded the V4 on this path, but the hist
The Visegrád group's rebuff may seem anecdotal at first. Refusing to welcome a few thousand migrants simply means missing an opportunity, if we agree with liberal elites that they are a precious resource. This controversy is shaking Europe because, under Viktor Orbán's prodding, Europe is rediscovering itself for what it once was: a framework for the flourishing of its constituent nations. Central Europe is awakening to the EU's dual personality: a haven in which to endure and a project to which
In other words, a dominated Europe is becoming aware of a dominant Europe within it, and the balance of power is rapidly shifting: the prospect of a different policy is conceivable because it is desired by the continent's peoples as reflected by their elected governments. It is remarkable that the parties in power in Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, and (until very recently) Warsaw all belong to likeminded political formations. The Hungarian Fidesz Party has long been a member of the European Peopl
That the opposition is not limited to popular discontent, but involves a coalition of democratic states, is evidence of a de facto revolution in governance. This response is coordinated within the current framework of European institutions, proving that it is not entirely incapacitating. We have come a long way since 2010, when Viktor Orbán, armed only with a constitutional majority, regained power in a ruined and disoriented Hungary. In July 2018, the Hungarian leader, triumphantly re-elected,
Faced with the return of history, the European Union is paradoxically becoming a sounding board for the major issues of our century, and a forum for cooperating nations, rather than a superstate governing in "ever closer union." The new force at work is that part of Europe is being reborn. The future prospects of the alternative now being created are as unknown as they are contested. They could be immense, for Europe has many rival examples in its history and enormous resources in its people.
History is not only unfolding before our eyes: it is unfolding within us. My hope is that readers of this book will realize that they themselves are part of this tormented destiny, giving birth to a new century. Rather than reducing it to abstractions, may these pages make Europe visible, allow ideas to mature from facts rather than sink into the nothingness of numbers and dogma. May thought once again become an adventure steeped in reality rather than an escape or abstraction like Ulysses's cur
At the source of our reflections, a certain sensibility is asserting itself: that of a youth far removed from the idols of the old century - our ancien régime, as it were. The page we are turning bears a name often confused: liberalism. Here, we need to be clear, and Jean-Claude Michéa's contribution to the question seems decisive. Liberalism is leaving history for what it has become. Western youth is drinking its dregs
it has seen only the shadows of the virtues it was supposed to embody. It i
This "illiberal" catharsis is tantamount to freeing ourselves from the twentieth century, and Central Europe stands out as the region of Europe best qualified to show us the way. Indeed, its constituent countries were neither the genesis nor the main players in any of the ideologies that tore Europe apart: communism, liberalism, fascism.
Ideologies are intellectual products, endowed with perishable qualities, between which a choice has to be made. It is a recipe: ready-to-civilize. But the very notion of ideology is foreign to us. That a human brain should try to understand the finer points of collective existence seems to us an imposture
the individual cannot subjugate the group. That an enlightened generation should have definitively grasped the truth, disregarding the centuries of which it is the heir, in order to condition
An enemy of ideologies cannot propose a new one. I do not pretend to reveal the truth. My aim is simply to familiarize the reader with a kairos that is, on the whole, favorable for Europe and its nations so that they once again fit into the chronos, to return our civilization to essential continuities, to reconnect with an order that reconciles a taste for action with a sense of the unchanging, to reconcile us with trends that elevate us and call us to live.
I. What is Central Europe?
Double membership
Bohemia in the Holy Roman Empire
Hungary and the Ottoman Empire n
Poland between Moscow and Berlin
It is not enough to present a statesman through his political career
the facts must also be placed in their historical context, which explains them as much as they prolong it. There is no point in recounting the history of Central Europe here. An abridged account would only remind specialists of the centuries. We prefer a fragment that exposes the essential: the tragic condition of peoples who are both unique and too weak to survive in isolation. The Czechs faced Germanic hegemony. The Hungaria
Slavs populated Bohemia and Moravia as early as the fifth century, becoming Czechs. The Polans joined their tribe with other populations in the Vistula basin, the cradle of Poland. The Magyars, sweeping in from the Pontic steppe at the end of the ninth century, conquered the Carpathian basin under their leader Árpád and soon founded the Kingdom of Hungary. A comparison with the kingdom of France immediately reveals the diversity inherent in Europe at the time. France rediscovered in Christianity
In Bohemia and Poland, as in Hungary, if the aristocracy rallied to the Cross and entered into a Western alliance system, it was to maintain itself, not to deny it. The continuation of these peoples in the Christian order is reminiscent of the German case, with three nuances: the Germanic world had been imbued with Roman references on its southern and western flanks since the High Empire, its size has preserved a great deal of internal diversity and, above all, it has incorporated itself into th
Catholic Europe brings together peoples who are ethnolinguistically related, but this kinship is no guarantee of understanding: that understanding came from the elements born of common belonging to the Christian West, which give these countries mature traits.
Primitive identity was gradually enriched by the leaven of history. The family bond at the root of social order found its political incarnation in the prestige of a family that became a metaphor for the nation: the dynasty. As institutions became more complex and political, the analogy between family, dynasty, and nation became more symbolic. This phenomenon made a decisive contribution to the formation of European countries and of Europe as a whole, as illustrated by the kinship links between t
The event took place in 1335. Thirty kilometers north of Buda, in his castle overlooking the Danube, Charles-Robert of Hungary received the Bohemian King John I and the Polish King Casimir III. This was a time when the Premyslids (1306) and the Árpáds (1301), the national dynasties that had integrated Bohemia and Hungary into the European order, had come to an end. John I of Bohemia reached an agreement with the King of Poland to determine their respective zones of influence: the King of Bohemia
The clearest and earliest example of national assertion can be found in Bohemia. There is a simple reason for this: the Kingdom of Bohemia was an integral part of the Holy Roman Empire, i.e. within the political framework of the German lands. This Western orientation was definitive. After two centuries of continuous assertion, the Golden Bull of Sicily, promulgated by Frederick II of Hohenstaufen in 1212, established Bohemia's privileged position within the Empire. The royal title became heredit
Germanic populations exerted considerable influence in the Czech lands. Parallel to the political construction of Bohemia-Moravia, the medieval period was marked by an extraordinary German dynamism: the Drang nach Osten or "drive to the east." While the Czechs cultivated the country's most hospitable region, central Bohemia, the border regions remained virtually empty of people. Peasants were gradually moving in. This was not colonization by Germany, but simply an expansion of Christianity. This
This concomitant maturation of the nation and Western Christianity was a crucial phenomenon throughout the region, culminating in the Czech lands during the reign of Charles I of Bohemia (1346-1378). His reign was marked by peace and a general flourishing of the country, miraculously spared the Black Death. Prague doubled in size under his reign and was adorned with monuments that are still admired today. At this time, largely German-speaking provinces such as Silesia, Lusatia, and Brandenburg c
The crumbling of the medieval order threatened this prosperous kingdom, which was about to sink into religious divisions, political chaos and, ultimately, foreign domination. From this point of view, Bohemia deserves to be considered as the first European country to confront the problems of the modern period, which was marked by denominational and national issues. A dynastic friendship linked the kingdoms of France and Bohemia in the fourteenth century: the political modernization under Charles
This long-awaited bomb exploded through the fate of Czech reformer Jan Hus. The Hussite wars (1417-1437) triggered by the reformer's martyrdom inflicted the first tear in the mantle of Catholicism, and exposed the Czechs to the ambitions of their neighbors. This was not just a religious fever (like the Cathar or Waldensian heresies), but an attempt to nationalize religion a century before Martin Luther in Germany and Henry VIII in England.
But it was too early, or Bohemia was too small. Divisions between Catholics and Hussites, and among the latter between different sensibilities (Utraquists, Taborites, etc.) undermined the country. These divisions became even more pronounced in the following century with the Reformation. In two hundred years, marked by periods of attrition and revival, Bohemia went from absolute freedom supported by its arms to complete subordination to the House of Austria and its Habsburg rulers.
The Hussite wars ended with a compromise: the Compactata. In 1458, the Czech George of Podebrady (1420-1471) was elected king by the Diet
the crown of St. Wenceslas thus regained complete freedom and a certain stability. But dynastic alliances inevitably favored the Habsburg neighbor. The combined advantages of imperial dignity, geographical proximity, and Germanic power irresistibly drew Prague into Vienna's fold. The Austrian rulers' skillful policy was further enhanced by historical circumst
Louis II of Hungary died in 1526 as the Ottoman army conquered his country. But he was also King of Bohemia and a close relative of the Archduke of Austria, Ferdinand I: the latter thus inherited both crowns and the decisive role of Christianity's bulwark against Islam. This exceptional situation gave Ferdinand access to north-west Hungary without a blow being struck
it also enabled him to demand numerous extraordinary contributions from Bohemia to contain the Ottoman thrust and gave the Habsbu
Since 1517, Luther's Reformation had been spreading throughout Europe, and in Bohemia religious conflicts had been rekindled. The Habsburgs became champions of the Catholic Church. Tolerance of the Hussites and Protestants, whose divisions strengthened Vienna's power, fluctuated. In 1618, a restriction of Protestant rights led to the second "Defenestration of Prague," the event that triggered the dreadful Thirty Years' War. Emperor Ferdinand II decided to subdue the Czechs: the Battle of White M
Slovakia's "infra-state" history deserves our attention below.
In contrast to the ambivalence of German-Czech relations, a clear antagonism characterized the Turkish-Hungarian face-off. Ottoman power had been a source of concern for Europe since the eleventh century, when Turkish abuses in the Holy Land prompted the first Crusade. The battlefield shifted from Asia to Europe in 1346, when the Ottomans seized Gallipoli, a town on the European side of the Hellespont. Moving deeper into Europe, the Ottomans isolated Byzantium from the Balkans, where their raids
The face-off between the Ottomans and the Hungarians before the defeat at Mohács in 1526 illustrated three trends leading the country to disaster: disdain for the Orthodox Balkans, the vagaries of succession, and disordered ambition.
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The Capetian dynasty of Anjou-Sicily succeeded the Arpadian dynasty, which died out in 1301. Charles-Robert I (1288-1342) not only enriched his kingdom with Italian influence, but also forged a privileged alliance with Venice and used the Dalmatian coast as the basis for an ambitious maritime policy. Hungary could then join forces with its Balkan neighbors, as outlined by the marriage of heir Louis I (1326-1382) to Elisabeth of Bosnia in 1353. But the gulf between the Catholic and Orthodox world
In two battles, Maritsa in 1371 and Kosovo Pole in 1389, the Balkan powers were defeated: Serbia, reduced to a vassal of the Ottoman Empire, retained a degree of autonomy
Wallachia acknowledged its tributary status to the Turks
Bulgaria was invaded. Only Byzantium remained.
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Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368-1437) was a younger son of the great King Charles I of Bohemia, whom we have already met. Two years after his election to the Hungarian throne, the defeat at Kosovo Polje convinced him of the imminent Ottoman threat, and he decided to organize a European crusade. The army left Buda in July 1396. The crusaders trampled on besieged Nicopolis on the Bulgarian side of the Danube. Discipline slackened, and the unexpected arrival of a Turkish army at the end of September
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Before the sad epilogue of independent Hungary, two fine figures in European annals embellish Hungarian history in its heyday: John Hunyadi (1407-1456) and Mathias I the Just (1443-1490). The prowess of Jean Hunyadi, a Transylvanian warlord and later regent of Hungary, raised hopes for the reconquest of the Balkans. He repulsed a Turkish army in Transylvania, near Sibiu, then crushed it at the Iron Gates in 1442. In July 1443, the Hungarians raced south, capturing Nis and Sofia, then crushing th
The battle of Varna, on November 10, 1444, turned to the Sultan's advantage. A new campaign four years later failed on the Kosovo plain, with the Christians still fighting outnumbered. The capture of Byzantium in 1453 galvanized the Ottomans, who laid siege to Belgrade, the key to Western Christendom, in 1456. Jean Hunyadi victoriously defended the city and pursued the enemy as far as Sofia, thanks to volunteers rallied by the monk John of Capistrano. These successes were to have no lasting effe
The fight against the Turks resumed under the reign of Mátyás Hunyadi (1458-1490), John's youngest son. After several successes, Mathias granted a truce to Sultan Bajazet and turned against Austria.
Before succumbing to foreign interference, Hungary had itself interfered in the politics of neighboring states. Far from supporting Bohemia's independence under George of Podebrady, Mathias took advantage of its weakness. Under the pretext of fighting the Hussites, he seized territories from the Crown. In so doing, he not only lost an ally willing to join the fight against the Ottomans, but also alienated the Emperor, since attacking Bohemia was tantamount to meddling in imperial affairs. Mathia
The vagaries of succession and the illusion of invincibility led Hungary to disaster. Benign during the reign of Louis I, worrying under Sigismund, the election of foreign kings proved dramatic during the last 35 years of independent Hungary. Particularly in an elective monarchy, the king is not the dispenser but the guarantor of the nation's political rights, which are symbolized by the Crown. Succession, or election, authorizes the coronation ceremony, conferring sovereignty on the king. The h
Medieval Hungary did not anticipate the formation of the great groups that Central Europe would have to confront. It failed to find a definitive solution to the Turkish threat, which could only be resolved by removing it from Europe, while Austria and the Hussites simply needed to be contained. As a result, Hungary was isolated. The Turks were extending a foreign world into Europe, in which the peoples of Europe had no political horizon, where their civilization found no resources, and where the
In some respects, Poland is Hungary's twin sister. Both nations joined Christianity around the year 1000 and assimilated into the Latinate order. Both enjoyed complete political freedom outside the imperial bosom, the nerve of which lay in the landed aristocracy.
The destinies of the two countries diverged in three stages from the late fourteenth century onwards. While the collapse of the Serbs at the battle of Kosovo Pole (1389) exposed Hungary to the Turks, Poland joined forces with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1386) to oppose the encroachments of the Teutonic Knights. At this time, Lithuania extended into old territories of Kievan Russia, giving the Polish-Lithuanian dyarchy assets of a great power. This was followed by the important victory over the
At a time when the valiant efforts of John Hunyadi could not prevent the fall of Byzantium, Poland launched a thirteen-year war against the Teutonic Order, culminating in the Second Peace of Thorn in 1466. The order was forced to cede Danzig, Pomerania, and several commanderies to the Polish king, while recognizing itself as his vassal for its remaining territories. The Teutonic Order was reluctant to pay homage to its suzerain, but a third circumstance confirmed Polish hegemony in Northern Euro
Sensitive to Luther's theses, the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Albert of Brandenburg, embraced the Reformation. He secularized the order and thus founded Europe's first Protestant state. Banished from the Empire by Charles V, he was forced to turn to his Polish suzerain, Sigismund I, and secured his support in exchange for the homage he paid him in April 1525. Poland thus fanned the flames of division in its Germanic neighborhood
it also broke Catholic unity from within, a year before th
Poland would later discover its tragic destiny: the sixteenth century was golden on the banks of the Vistula. Favorable economic conditions allowed the fruits of the Renaissance to flourish. The shores of the Baltic were thriving in their old commercial habits. The German world was exhausted in confessional quarrels, and Muscovy was slowly rallying the Russian world under its control. Poland's heyday was marked by the union of Lublin in 1569, when it merged with Lithuania to form the Republic of
These remarkable assets did not, however, result in a French-style centralization and government by raison d'état. Far from restricting the role of the nobility, as the Valois and Bourbons did in France, the Polish monarchy yielded to the pressure of noble demands. From the outset, the monarchy and nobility had been reciprocating services: military devotion in exchange for political prerogatives. This unbreakable alliance kept the German urban patriciate at bay at home and the Teutonic military
Poland was no stranger to war with the Turks. The south of the vast republic was regularly raided by the Crimean Tatars, vassals of the Sublime Porte. The late triumph of the Counterreformation led Poland to become more involved with the Ottomans. The latter had attempted to invade the Republic of Two Nations in 1621 and again in 1633, but without success beyond the Carpathian Mountains. Above all, the Turks' second siege of Vienna, in 1683, was lifted thanks to the help of John III Sobieski's P
At the same time, modern Russia entered the European scene with a bang. Peter the Great, who came to the throne in 1682, built a capital on the Baltic Sea, St. Petersburg, which soon eclipsed Sweden's northern hegemony. From the outset, Poland was Moscow's competitor because of its sovereignty over traditionally Orthodox lands. Poland's identification with Catholicism led to the creation of the Uniate Church in 1596, which brought many peasants from Belarus and Ukraine into the Roman fold while
The country's long decline led to the first partition of Poland in 1772. The border regions to the east and northwest, populated mainly by Orthodox on one side and Germans on the other, passed into the hands of Russia and Prussia, respectively. As "compensation," Austria took over Galicia, the region bordering the Kingdom of Hungary, where the peasantry was largely Ukrainian. The vice tightened on the remaining core. France, in the midst of its revolution, was unable to prevent the complete dism
Much of Poland remained under Russian domination and was subjected to increasingly harsh rule, from a simple protectorate to an attempt to absorb it into the bosom of a power that was certainly Slavic, but profoundly foreign. Russian elites cherished the dream of bringing their "lost" brothers back to the homeland of all Slavs. In response to the Polish uprisings of 1830, 1848, and 1863, St. Petersburg tightened its grip on national freedoms. As in Hungary's case with the Ottoman Empire, Poles f
The west of the former Republic of the Two Nations retained more of its franchise under Prussian rule. It was here that the uprising of 1848 was organized, before spreading throughout the country. But German unity, achieved in 1870, led to a tightening of the German yoke and an attempt to Germanize the Polish population.
Only in Austria did the situation evolve towards greater autonomy after a long reactionary period. It was not the uprisings of 1848-1849, but the Prussian victory over Austria at Sadowa (1866) that triggered the change. First, German unity was achieved not only without Austria, but on its back
second, the loss of prestige for Vienna forced Emperor Franz Joseph to redistribute the cards within the empire to the benefit of non-German populations. The result was the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of
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To summarize, Bohemia, undermined by internal divisions, was subjugated by Austria. Hungary, vanquished as an independent power and partially restored under the Habsburgs, became part of a supranational Danubian entity. Poland discovered its limits in the face of the great Russian and German entities on either side. This absence of projection is indeed a turn of civilization, a historical education whose opposite example can be found in Western Europe: while Hungary was fading at Mohács, Spain c
II. First steps in the rubble
An anti-communist dissident
Hungary torn apart, or necessary accommodation to the international order
At the opposite end of the Central European spectrum, Viktor Orbán has been favored by fate. His youthful commitment to opposing Soviet domination coincided with the collapse of the Yalta settlement, and Russia moved away from the Carpathian basin for good. Twenty years later, the structural crisis of the liberal West gave him room for maneuver, which he skillfully exploited to build an illiberal state. The favorable circumstances allowed Viktor Orbán's political career a meteoric rise.
Although insufficient to explain such success, we can recognize the champion of illiberalism's solid political qualities: a flair for action and the use of power and an awareness of both his abilities and his limitations. He has an intimate, popular disposition to understand what is being done and what is not and a common decency served by an aptitude for action and power visible in a country of ten million inhabitants. His detractors define him as an autocrat. No doubt a propensity to use power
Viktor Orbán is of average height. For a long time, playing soccer on a regular basis kept him athletic. His image has become much stronger since his return to power in 2010. His hair has lost its brown color, but his face retains the same character. Viewed from three quarters, the nasal bridge extends into the two graying eyebrows, which slope like oblique eagles toward the temples, giving the face its singular unity. You can guess how much the ideas under the brow owe to the flair that fires t
Viktor Orbán was born on May 31, 1963, in Székesfehérvár, a town close to his family's village, Felcsút. Fate's first gift to Orbán was to offer him no comforts, but a childhood full of challenges and rural simplicity. He did not have running water until he entered high school. The Orbáns lived in a house at the end of the village, which attests to their working-class status, a situation that hardened young Viktor. He has a fighting temperament. He pulls no punches and goes against the tide. Cha
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Viktor Orbán's remarkable liveliness prompted his parents to set him on an ambitious course. At the end of elementary school, he took the entrance exam for the English-speaking section of the renowned Gymnasium Teleki Blanka in Székesfehérvár. His success was a welcome surprise for a child of modest origins. The Gymnasium occupies an imposing building that radiates the prosperity and aristocratic elegance of Central Europe, in the image of Countess Teleki Blanka, who gave her name to the school
In the summer of 1981, Orbán began eleven-and-a-half months of military service. The year he spent in garrison service was the decisive stage in his transition to anti-communism. At the time, the Hungarian army was one of the most poorly organized forces in the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. Orbán's regiment was stationed in Zalaegerszeg, a pretty Transdanubian town between Lake Balaton and the Austrian border.
Military service was a catch-up session for comrades reluctant to embrace communism. The harsh, clumsy propaganda of the staff soon exasperated conscripts like Orbán, whose skepticism of the system quickly turned to detestation: "It was in Zalaegerszeg that it became clear to me that the state was badly organized, and that change was necessary." It also cemented strong friendships. A blond, elegant young man agreed on everything with the foot soldier Viktor Orbán: the artilleryman Gabor Fodor, w
The most intense moment of his year in the army came in December 1981, when Poland was in turmoil. The huge Solidarnosc movement nearly toppled the communist regime in Warsaw. The armies of the Eastern Bloc stood ready to intervene. The Zalaegerszeg garrison received its mobilization order on December 11. Departure was imminent: the Polish crowd had to be subdued in order to fall into line. Orbán, who greatly admired the Polish dissidents, mourned his likely duty, but the proclamation of martial
In 1982, Orbán moved to the capital and enrolled in law school at Eötvös Loránd University. He plunged into the whirlwind of student life, in tandem with his friend and roommate Gabor Fodor. They were intelligent, sociable and enterprising
student life offered them all the best aspects of the 1980s in this "most livable shack in the socialist camp," as Kádár-era Hungary was described. The two friends studied in a privileged setting, a sort of academic principality where professors and students,
Orbán became president of the student council and excelled at organizing university life, albeit in an authoritarian manner. A memorable clash pitted him against László Kéri, his teacher and future political opponent, who found him intractable. In the spring of 1985, Orbán and his friends managed to fool the university administration. They asked permission to hold the Fourth National Student Meeting at the university. The director imagined that the previous meetings had been legal and made no ob
In 1987, on the advice of their teacher Mr. Felczak, Viktor Orbán and his friends decided to found a political party. On March 30, 1988, at a confused public meeting, the young rebels discussed the initiative. Some of the communists present were outraged at this act, which was carried out under the complaisant eye of intelligence agents, but the majority of those present voted in favor of the formation of an independent political party. This was the birth certificate of the Alliance of Young Dem
An international press conference was held in Budapest on April 6. The team of six Fidesz spokesmen insisted on the legality of their action. Their sense of justice and the rule of law played an important role in Orbán's political actions. Summoned to appear before the public prosecutor, he was reluctant to comply on the grounds that there was no legal justification for the summons. He later agreed to attend, accompanied by a number of Fidesz leaders, and treated the magistrate casually, quibbli
The decade of agony for Europe's socialist regimes differed entirely from Western declinism, which had become a veritable science. Writing about "collapse" filled entire shelves in bookshops, acting as a therapy to keep everyone on their toes and nothing changing. When Orbán recalled that he felt the end was near, he said "he would see it in his lifetime." The end of the Eastern bloc remained unthinkable for the vast majority of the population, however,
Orbán's historic good fortune lay in having delivered the most important speech of his life at the age of 26. On June 16, 1989, the reburial ceremony of Imre Nagy and five other dissident ministers executed by Soviet repression in 1956 took place on Heroes' Square in Budapest. Viktor Orbán was chosen to give a speech on behalf of Hungarian youth. With the Eastern bloc still intact, the young Fidesz spokesman called for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary. Broadcast live on radio and tel
Considered the main organization for dissident youth, Fidesz was invited to take part in post-regime negotiations. Orbán then led the Fidesz list in the first free elections, held on March 25 and April 8, 1990, entering Parliament alongside 20 fellow party members. Viktor Orbán has held public office ever since.
The political context that the Fidesz generation apprehended in 1990 seemed like a vast field of ruins - the twentieth century - after which everything had to be rebuilt. The contrast was the basis of their optimism: the future belonged to them, and yet "if youth is to enjoy the ancient heritage of its fathers, it must conquer it in order to possess it." Goethe's formula indicates the crushing task facing the Fidesz generation. In which Hungary did Viktor Orbán begin his political career? Certai
The Cold War victors soon extended their influence eastwards, toward the Orthodox world. Although golden, market democracy took on the appearance of inevitability, as lightning strikes down on those who recoil from it. All the deleterious trends of the century came together in the disastrous wars in Yugoslavia. Nationalism was once again being used as a battering ram for political fragmentation
the rights of peoples masked NATO intervention, which supported separatist Islamic forces on European
The system in force in the West guarantees private ownership of the means of production and a multi-party system. But beyond that, the same ideological underpinnings prevail as in the East. Where communism is confined to a sequence in Russian history, liberalism in the United States and United Kingdom is a "home-grown" ideology. It is perhaps the only thing that is, given that the Anglo-Saxon countries long benefited from a perpetual becoming guaranteed by divine benevolence and commercial succe
What matters to Hungarians is to win, even if that means switching from one international system to another. But only the fickle elites pull their weight, obediently relaying Western interests as they once served Moscow
in Hungarian, "regime change" means "gangster change."
Subordination does not mean surrender. Hungarians remember that their nation's survival in Austrian space was once a century-long struggle. If there is a fundamental difference with the reckless Serbia, which was crushed in the dismantling of Yugoslavia, it lies in Hungary's political skill - quite unique in Europe - for negotiating as well as fighting.
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From the Turkish conquest in 1526 to the expulsion of the Ottomans from Hungary, ratified by the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, Hungary experienced various forms of subjection. Transylvania, a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, retained a large degree of autonomy and, in the eyes of Hungarian historiography, ensured the continuity of an independent national history
the Hungarian plain, up to and including Buda, was under Muslim rule
but in the northwest of the country, which fell under Austrian
This history of conflict, initially between Hungarians who favored accommodation (the Labancs) or rupture (the Kurucs), bore the seeds of a new equilibrium. According to historian Géza Pálffy: "Through this little-studied series of compromises throughout the seventeenth century, the elite of the Kingdom of Hungary proved that it was possible both to find conciliation with the Habsburg ruler and preserve the fundamental interests of the Hungarian state and orders."
This conciliatory perception of Austro-Hungarian history was illustrated by the construction of Heroes' Square, built during the era of the Dual Monarchy, which featured Austrian sovereigns (Ferdinand I, Charles III, Maria Theresa, Leopold II, and Franz Joseph). In the 1950s, the authorities of socialist Hungary replaced these statues with those of Etienne Bocskai, Gabriel Bethlen, Imre Thököly, François II Rákóczi and Lajos Kossuth: another time, another historiography.
A remarkable singularity is the Hungarians' assertion of good faith in the Central European ensemble that respects them. During the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), Empress Maria Theresa was besieged from all sides. The Hungarians had the opportunity to stab the beleaguered empress in the back. Instead, they came to her unexpected rescue. At the Diet of Pressburg in 1742, the Hungarians agreed to make a decisive contribution to the war effort in response to Maria Theresa's feminine pl
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These historical antecedents help to explain why Viktor Orbán rides the tiger, why oppressive European involvement has never been an option for him, and why he never abandons the perilous alternation of offensives and concessions that has been the ordinary course of Hungarian foreign policy for centuries. Ingenuity entered the service of the simple ambition to live as a Hungarian, which is not a minimalist ambition. At times, Hungarian freedoms seized on favorable circumstances, while at other t
III. Asserting a civic Hungary
Neither right nor left
Conservatism against Reaction
A party of national interest
The Budapest Parliament stands on the east bank of the Danube and abuts Lajos Kossuth Square, like a link between the unchanging river and the immortalized leader of the 1848 Revolution. The building was erected between 1885 and 1904, as a majestic statement to Vienna and the world: Hungary intended to assume its destiny. It is an astonishing palace, dedicated to national representation in the illiberal kingdom of St. Stephen.
The Hungarian Parliament illustrates a complex reality and offers useful lessons for sorting out the confused and contradictory notions of reaction and national emancipation, tradition and popular sovereignty. These were all necessary elements in the political maturation of modern Central Europe throughout the nineteenth century. As for the twentieth century, it was to be more a test of drowning in a deluge of ideologies.
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Let us go back to Hungary's first post-communist elections. The parliamentary majority went to Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) led by József Antall. Founded in 1987, this party aimed to push for internal reforms. It was the party of the old right, heavily persecuted since 1944, which in 1990 returned to a country that had been completely turned upside down, and with which it shared only one wish: to put an end to socialism. The wind of history sweeping away the Communists propelled Antall to th
This detachment illustrates less a youthful insolence than a romantic temperament that was particularly keen in Hungary, where Reaction was one of the faces of foreign oppression.
It is important to understand the evolution of Austrian guardianship in contemporary times. Napoleon's final defeat in 1815 was seen as a return to normality on the continent - and particularly in the Austrian Empire. But revolutionary excess gave rise to the opposite excess of reaction. The reactionary leaders sought as much as they could to erase the Revolution, even though it was part of an evolution whose beginnings had been evident throughout the continent even before 1789. Reaction can res
The coalitionists had their minds elsewhere: an unshakeable reaction guaranteed their status as victorious powers. At the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), Austria, Prussia, and Russia agreed to ensure the stability of the new European order. Vienna established itself as the guardian power of the German Confederation, the suzerain of Italy, and the undisputed mistress of Central Europe.
Prince Clemens von Metternich (1773-1859) dominated Viennese political life during this period. First as Foreign Minister from 1809, then as Austria's Imperial Chancellor (1821-1848), he led a regime that was as tough as it was transient, since the empire had to set an example of unchanging order. Austria embraced the paradox between traditional intentions and effective modernity. As a modern state, it compressed subjugated countries in a patchwork under altar and throne. Its peoples became the
The burden of the Holy Alliance falls mainly on "that heroic Poland on which the ingratitude of kings weighs." During the revolutionary wave that swept across Europe in 1830, Austria did not lend a helping hand to neighboring Poland in the name of the Holy Alliance, even though Catholic sentiments argued in favor of such an arrangement. Failing to assimilate irremediable political fractures, Austria was exposed to the importation of innovations tried and tested in the west of the continent: nati
In Buda, Sandor Petöfy declaimed his poem "Debout, Hongrois!" ("Stand Up Hungarians"), rallying the enthusiastic support of his audience: "Never again will we be slaves!" Led by Lajos Kossuth, the insurrection turns into a war of independence. Austria was forced to ask for help from the Russian army, which crossed the Carpathians in the spring of 1849. The respite granted to the Habsburgs by force would be swept away by force. In 1859, Austria lost its Italian possessions on the battlefields of
Austria suffered a considerable loss of prestige, and the Reaction failed. A necessary internal recomposition followed. The Germans, a minority in the empire and excluded from the Germany Bismarck was building in the north, had to reconsider the very nature of the Austrian state. To do this, they needed a privileged interlocutor: Hungary. In 1867, bitter negotiations between Vienna and Budapest led to the re-foundation of the Austrian Empire as the Empire of Austria-Hungary. Cisleithania (the Au
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Much water has flowed under the Danube's bridges since then. The wreckage of the imperial and communist eras has been succeeded by the era of the all-powerful market, in which Hungary intervenes as a national state. So it is not the same heavy-handedness that threatens to hamper the building of Hungary in the twenty-first century. The enthusiastic youth of Fidesz is confronted with the fatalism and inertia inherited from socialism. The reawakening of a conservative political consciousness in Hun
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While Orbán is keen to rid Hungary of old divisions, the same cannot be said of the advocates of liberal ideology, even those within the ranks of Fidesz. This trend is based on a segment of the population that is urban, well-to-do, and seduced by the American model at its height. It gives the impression that anti-communist dissidents were calling for the establishment of a new society based on the West's. This is a misinterpretation: some later rallied to this cause, but until 1990 all were grop
In its embryonic stage, Fidesz saw itself as the party of youth, the only one capable of regenerating the whole of old Hungary, rusted through by socialism. It experimented with a "neither right nor left" approach, but this aspiration to transcend the divide came up against the country's long-standing political polarization. The liberal Alliance of Free Democrats (SzDSz) colluded with the socialists (Hungarian Socialist Party - MSZP), i.e. the left inherited from the communist regime, and urged
Between 1990 and 1993, the attempt to create a national synthesis of liberals and conservatives united by good will came to nothing. Young Hungarians were derided for their centrism: they sought the "Belgian way" (so as not to have to choose between Flanders and Wallonia)
they were called children of divorced parents. Orbán gradually realized that the only way to build an independent political force was to break with the liberal galaxy. At the end of these years of trial and error, a major poli
Orbán's detractors accuse him of having chosen his political camp more out of pragmatism than conviction. In a sense, that is true: an ideological hat does not suit him. The national cause that matters to him is both irreducible to theory and subject to infinitely varied circumstances, such as the ascendancy of globalist logics. The socialists and liberals were in the service of international finance capital, an option that was neither socially responsible nor favorable to Hungarian freedoms. Fi
Viktor Orbán was elected president of Fidesz at the Debrecen congress in April 1993. Whereas Gabor Fodor wanted to calm conflicts, Viktor Orbán wanted to resolve them - and win. In his victory speech, Orbán asserted the need to take a "national-liberal" path. Fidesz's turn to the right dates from this period. Gabor Fodor was ousted from the promised presidency of the National Committee in favor of the Orbánist József Szajer
ties were strengthened with Zsolt Bayer, an eternal fellow traveler and
Following the Debrecen Congress, Orbán, at the age of 30, experienced an all-out war waged against him by the press: Nepszabadsag, a liberal, formerly communist newspaper that had hitherto gone easy on Fidesz began a merciless campaign on May 24, 1993. The aim was to denounce its national-populist turn and to accuse Fidesz of corruption and of having compromised with the ruling MDF. Corruption was suspected in connection with a former casino that had been converted into the party's headquarters
The Hungarian urban class had little sympathy for the party's conservative tendencies, and Fodor's criticism of his former comrade went from strength to strength, making him more popular than Orbán, even though he was sidelined in the party, which he left in November 1993. While Orbán found himself isolated and powerless in the face of the unexpected and combined hostility of opinion leaders, his relations with Prime Minister Antall improved. Negotiations with the MDF, in power but in disarray,
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The difficulties of the post-socialist transition explain the pendulum swing in the 1994 elections. Fidesz fell to just 7% of the vote. Victory went to the former communists (MSZP) with 33%, followed by the Liberals (SzDSz) with 19.7%. These two parties formed a strong coalition, to the great satisfaction of the liberal West. Their alliance attested to the compatibility of the two foreign-inspired dynamics. As Orbán concluded, "Birds of a feather flock together." In his eyes, a crypto-communist
Orbán conceded defeat and put his party's presidency back on the line. Reappointed, he built Fidesz into a power-grabbing machine. In 1995, the party presented a coalition program with the MDF. The party changed its name to Fidesz Magyar Polgári Párt (Hungarian Civic Party). From 1994, the various right-wing parties began to come together on the basis of national traditions and Christian democracy. Fidesz's doctrinal content was already moving away from the liberal economic catechism: "Hungary d
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In the eyes of the conservative side, Viktor Orbán's transformation into the leader of their sensibility is first and foremost suspect. He could not be more conservative, in the narrow sense of the term, than the MDF, no more Christian than the KDNP (Christian Democratic People's Party), and no more populist than the FKgP (Independent Civic Party of Smallholders and Agrarian Workers).
It was up to Fidesz to breathe new political vitality into these elements, which would materialize through the blossoming of the middle class. Viktor Orbán's spearhead ideal was "civicmindedness," a notion that overcomes the divisions on the Hungarian right. The "Polgár" (citizen) has become a key idea. The role of the state is to help those who help themselves, those who honor their civic responsibilities.
At the same time, neoliberal policies were eroding the left-wing government's popularity. Fidesz protested against the burden placed on the middle class. It criticized the government for following economic policies recommended by international institutions: "the government must represent our interests to the IMF, not the other way around." A critique of the economic model imposed on Central Europe since 1990 was emerging. Foreign direct investment (FDI), celebrated by liberal orthodoxy, caused c
Fidesz was not content to simply reach out to the traditional pre-World War II middle class. It is also concerned with the communist-era middle class, adrift under the laissez faire approach of the liberal-socialist coalition. The latter openly wielded power for the benefit of the large-scale, mainly foreign, economic players.
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To succeed, Orbán's path required considerable reinforcements. Various players were organizing the intellectual consolidation of Fidesz, including the Századvég Foundation, which was tasked with providing reports and analyses for the conquest of power two years later. Another group, headed by András Wermer, was responsible for electoral strategy. A veterans' council (Vének Tanácsa) provides training for Viktor Orbán, meeting weekly from 9pm until very late at night. János Horváth, the dean of th
For Viktor Orbán, the 1998 elections represented a huge challenge: the validation of the political direction he imposed on an undecided right or a complete loss of credibility after eight years in opposition. The poor results of the outgoing government were mitigated by media indulgence
conversely, the consistency of the conservatives' political program was hardly perceptible to the majority. It was Orbán's personality and popular background that most eloquently defended his political line.
The socialists' main campaign argument was that there was no alternative, whereas Fidesz dwelled neither on the past (communism, from which all but a few die-hard activists had fled) nor on the present (the scandals that marred four years of leftist coalition government): entirely on the task that awaits the country. Fidesz agreed with what was honorable about the communist era, notably the possibility for everyone to have a job, a policy that Fidesz hoped to preserve, Orbán citing his own famil
On May 20, the debate between the two main candidates took place at the Budapest University of Economics: the socialist Gyula Horn (outgoing Prime Minister) and the conservative Viktor Orbán
a 66-year old former communist facing a young conservative of 35. The contest went clearly in the latter's favor. Accused by his opponent of defending the bourgeoisie through the figure of the "Polgár" (indeed, this is one of the definitions in Hungarian), Orbán retorted that he only has dictionaries from t
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Victory came on May 24, 1998. Fidesz grew from 22 to 148 deputies and took the lead of a conservative coalition reinforced by the MDF and the FKgP. The team forged by the anti-communist dissident movement of the 1980s formed Orbán's bodyguard ten years later, with the loyal Laszlo Köver serving as minister without portfolio in charge of the secret services.
The traditional character of Orbán's politics was already apparent at this time. He adopted the maxim of a famous nineteenth-century Hungarian, Count István Széchenyi (1791-1860): "We must dare to be great." In his time, this important national figure contributed to Hungary's modernization. Founder of the Academy of Sciences in 1825, the Count made considerable efforts to drain the Tisza marshes. From one century to the next, the ambition was similar: to restore Hungary's grandeur, to be somethi
In the past, England was the model of efficiency to be imitated
in the twenty-first century, Hungarians are not afraid to turn their gaze inward. Regaining greatness requires the development of a domestic market and the mobilization of the middle class as the country's economic engine. The mirage of foreign investment is dissipating in the face of a determination hic et nunc to build on local entrepreneurship. The government is combining lower taxation with reductions in the public deficit.
In four years of government, 12,000 new homes were built and 46,000 new jobs created. Industrial production grew by 23%. National companies were favored in the awarding of public contracts. When Austrian diplomats complained that their companies were being squeezed out and asked the Budapest government when they could expect to win public works contracts, Orbán replied: "when Hungarian companies win public contracts in Austria."
Despite a few national principles of political economy, Orbán's only ambition at the time was to integrate Hungary into the capitalist West. He clearly retained the Western tropism of his anti-communist youth. The prospect of EU and NATO membership seemed an unavoidable horizon given the legacy of communism and the benefits of pro-Western integration.
On the other hand, the government's national consciousness produced its first sparks. In 2000, the Hungarian state celebrated its thousandth anniversary. The millennium was celebrated in every Hungarian village. At the same time, the House of Terror museum inaugurated in Budapest underlined the wholesale rejection of the deadly ideologies of the twentieth century, with communism and Nazism both turned on their heads. Hungary was forging ahead, unwavering in its destiny.
IV. The school of adversity
Modern experiences
Reasons for defeat
Political vulnerability in Central Europe
The end of the tunnel
At the turn of the millennium, Fidesz's software still lacked a key element: resilience to hostility, both domestically and internationally. Mimicry of the Western system inhibited this identification of the civic nation with itself: Hungary lacked consistency. Its relationship with the EU was characterized by a candid amity. Setbacks soon played a decisive role in shaping the new Hungarian model suddenly established in 2010.
The liberal stagnation in Central Europe was all the more rapid because it prolonged a century of vicissitudes. Since the Great War, the Visegrád countries had gone from disappointment to failure. Emancipation was heralded in 1918, when Czech deputies issued the following declaration in Paris:
Our nation claims its independence. It relies on its historic right of statehood and is fully imbued with the desire to be able, in emulation with free nations, to contribute in a sovereign and democratic state, comprising its historic countries and its Slovak offshoot, to the new development of humanity, which will be based on freedom and fraternity. In this state, the Czech nation will grant full and equal rights to national minorities. We ask that all nations, including our own, be given the
The deprivations of war made the cup overflow. And yet, after the continual dismantling of custom in the nineteenth century, imperfect or incomplete historical rights were a virtual guarantee. Their liquidation proved to be an immense loss, for the false privilege of being a people like any other at a time of totalitarian ideologies. Admittedly, Bohemia gained nominal sovereignty and territorial gains with the formation of Czechoslovakia. But the decades that followed showed just how versatile t
Hungary was under no illusions. In the immediate post-war period, it was subjected to a communist dictatorship with far less pretense to democracy than the Czechs enjoyed, but above all, on June 4, 1920, it signed the Treaty of Trianon, which confirmed its defeat in the First World War in the worst possible way. Two-thirds of Hungary's territory was taken away, and 3.3 million Hungarians found themselves living abroad (in Austria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia).
By contrast, 1918 saw the resurrection of the Polish state, with borders approaching those before the partitions of the eighteenth century. Marshal Józef Pilsudski (1867-1935) stopped the Bolsheviks at the gates of Warsaw and built the Second Republic, but failed to resolve the territorial dispute with Germany before his death. In the ethnocultural checkerboard of Europe at the time, a unitary state could only assert itself at the expense of other peoples.
From 1914 to 1945, an infernal spiral trapped the Old Continent between Charybdis and Scylla. The countries of Central Europe were traditionally multi-ethnic. There were many Germans in Bohemia and Moravia
many Germans, Belarusians, and Ukrainians in Poland
Germans again, Slavs of different nationalities, and Romanians in Hungary
Hungarians in the countries mentioned
and Jews in every country. This human geography seemed no less immutable than the physical one. The "Thirty Years' War" of the
When Fidesz took the helm of state in 1998, it accepted the twentieth century's burdensome liabilities without a second thought. The aim was to bring the country into this seemingly inescapable framework, while protecting its vital interests. Viktor Orbán's first government represented a four-year incision in power after sixteen years in opposition.
The Fidesz government faced a challenging environment at home and abroad. Most of the machinery of power lay in the hands of former communists who had never really left positions of responsibility and regained the ascendancy in post-communist institutions during the previous mandate (1994-1998). The minutes of the first ministerial meetings found their way into the press: the cleaning ladies emptied the office bins on behalf of the Socialist Party. Officials' government cars broke down at the in
In 2002, many Hungarians had yet to benefit from the Orbán administration. Attacks from those nostalgic for the communist era and from the progressives converged, abundantly relayed by the compliant media. The dynamism of Fidesz offended a section of the population accustomed to the inertia of socialism. Orbán cultivated a combative style that did him a disservice in the eyes of some. His opponents described him as an autocrat
the nickname "Viktator" was already in circulation and suspicions of
Nevertheless, the 2002 campaign got off to a good start. EU membership was scheduled for 2004, with the expected structural funds, and a new mandate was needed to complete the Széchenyi Plan. Fidesz highlighted the work that has been done, including the construction of considerable infrastructure. The Socialists campaigned under the slogan "Hungary deserves better:" recent successes were said to be due to the general economic situation, while negative resulted were attributed to Orbán's governme
In 2000, Viktor Orbán left the presidency of his party to devote himself entirely to the exercise of power, so he remained in the background during the campaign. His record was supposed to ensure victory. In contrast to his duel with Gyula Horn four years earlier, the debate with the socialist Péter Medgyessy did not go his way. Finally, on April 17, 2002, Fidesz obtained a disappointing score. Despite strong mobilization in the run-up to the elections, the April 21 vote failed to reverse the tr
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The former Prime Minister realized the mistake he had made in relinquishing the party leadership and took matters into his own hands. On May 7, 2002, he called for the foundation of "civic circles" to discuss not ideological controversies, but what citizens can do for themselves. Csaba Hende, the first coordinator of this initiative, explained that the social dynamism crushed by communism was never restored. According to him, pre-war Hungary was like a fishbowl that the socialist regime turned i
In March 2004, Fidesz launched a major petition calling for the restoration of housing benefits, a reduction in the price of medicine, a halt to the privatization of hospitals and privatizations in general, a limit in gasoline price increases to 5% a year, and an increase in farm subsidies. Building a national system was the objective. The hand extended to the modest heirs of late communism was confirmed by the promotion of Pál Schmitt, a great sportsman of the communist era and Secretary Genera
Orbán did not rest still in opposition. Defeat did not lock him into bitterness, but rather multiplied his thirst for enterprise. A keen football fan, in 2007 he inaugurated a soccer academy, the Puskás Ferenc Academy, in his village of Felcsút. The former Prime Minister was responsible for rallying the major companies OTP and MOL to finance the project. He also called on Imre Makovecz, a leader in organic architecture, to bring an aesthetic dimension to the infrastructures erected to the glory
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In May 2004, Fidesz won Hungary's first balloting in European elections with 47% of the vote. This result led to a cabinet reshuffle and the appointment of Ferenc Gyurcsány as Prime Minister, a post he held until 2009. It was in Ferenc Gyurcsány that Viktor Orbán found his most formidable political adversary. They disagreed on everything, starting with their social predilections. The new prime minister was infatuated with the upper middle class, the other with the working-class, provincial Hunga
The Gyurcsány-Orbán duel was immediately vituperative. Shortly after his appointment, the new Prime Minister granted an interview to the various political party leaders. When Orbán arrived at his office door, where numerous journalists had congregated to cover the event, he was made to wait interminably for the head of government to deign to open the door. The humiliation was stinging.
In the run-up to the 2006 parliamentary elections, Fidesz attacked the achievements of the government with the slogan "The situation is worse than four years ago." The traditional debate turned into a disaster for Orbán. Assured of dominating his opponent by confronting him with a disappointing record, he found himself unprepared for the socialist's caustic assurances. Fidesz and MSZP still finished neck and neck, with 42% and 43%, respectively, but the MDF obtained less than the Liberals and al
While the conservative camp was moping about, it was a carefree time: the inevitable financial collapse of 2008 was not even suspected. In other words, while the liberal conscience was eating its cake, Orbán was forced to retreat and develop a resilience whose scope is now clear to see.
Even when left to their own devices, recent or long-defunct political structures carry a high risk of failure. This difficulty affects all the countries of Central Europe. This assertion calls for a brief presentation of Slovak history.
In the eighth century, the short-lived Kingdom of Samo, centered in present-day Moravia, included the Slavic tribes that would one day form the Czech Republic and Slovakia. At the time of the Magyar conquest, Slavic peasants lived in the valleys of the Tatras, a mountain range stretching from west to east and forming the northern part of the Carpathian basin. As fortune would have it, these mountains fell within the Hungarian orbit rather than that of Poland. A thousand years of subordination di
After the First World War, Slovakia became part of Czechoslovakia. As in Yugoslavia, the country's constituent parts were determined to pull out all the stops. The Ruthenians and Slovaks served first and foremost as a counterweight to wealthy Bohemia, just as the Croats and Slovenes in the south served as a counterweight to ambitious Serbia. Slovakia's first "independence" - in reality a German protectorate - resulted from the dismantling of Czechoslovakia by Germany in 1938. The newly independe
History has not allowed Slovakia to acquire a sense of statehood and political culture through a national elite. As a result, it is largely determined by the outside world, whether Brussels or its Visegrád neighbors. Bratislava, located on the Austrian border, is strongly under German influence, and the country's adoption of the euro has deprived this capital-starved economy of much room for maneuver. Hungarians on the southern edge of the country turn to Budapest, while the dyna
Slovakia's identity is emblematic of an era of widespread political dispossession. World maps are deceptive. In fact, from the Balkans to the Baltic, many of Europe's smaller countries have no politics other than that of the dominant power of the day. A comparison of Hungary and Romania proves that size is not the only element of political consistency. Although twice as populous and boasting a coastline, Romania's policies are largely dependent on the prevailing winds and the country's adjustmen
September 17, 2006. Suddenly, the situation was turned upside down. Hungarian radio made public a recording of confidential remarks by Ferenc Gyurcsány the previous May, at a meeting of elected members of his new majority:
We no longer have a choice. Not because we screwed up ... Not a little, but totally. No European country has screwed up as badly as we have. Obviously, we've been lying for the last eighteen months. It was perfectly clear that what we were saying was not true. We've done nothing for four years, nothing. You can't name a single significant measure we can be proud of, apart from the fact that we got ourselves out of trouble in the end.
The outcry was immense. Viktor Orbán, who was in Brussels at the time, told the opposition not to get carried away, while a wave of indignation led to rallies calling for the resignation of the government. It is possible that the publication of the recording was not accidental. State malpractice during the Gyurcsány era had become so widespread that drastic reforms had to be made at some point. The disguised public accounts presented to the European Commission placed the head of the Hungarian go
The scandal did not abate and calls for Gyurcsány's resignation continued throughout the autumn. Demonstrations by the radical right were filmed by the pro-Fidesz Hir television channel. Opposition media became fashionable, and nationalists made their mark on the political landscape under the banner of the Jobbik party. Conservative and radical right-wingers found a large popular audience.
It was in this context of unexpected political recomposition that the commemorations of the fiftieth anniversary of the Budapest uprising were prepared. Half a century earlier, the socialists' predecessors in power had been accomplices in Soviet repression. Communism, the Left, the party of the foreigner and incompetence all merged into one disgraced face: that of Ferenc Gyurcsány.
Far from eclipsing partisan quarrels, the commemorations of the uprising of October 23, 1956 rekindled memories of anti-Soviet resistance. Ferenc Gyurcsány was humiliated by the audience, who turn their backs on him as he vainly attempted to interact with the crowd. An afternoon demonstration degenerated into violence. Police repression, water cannons, and tear gas gave the day a particularly evocative air of insurrection. These events crystalized the discontent of Hungarians under a long-awaite
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Whole swathes of the electorate turned away from the left-wing parties, leading not only to the strengthening of Fidesz, but also to the assertiveness of Jobbik, to the right of Fidesz. The conservatives fleshed out their program in order to assert themselves in the general reshaping of Hungarian political life. Orbán worked hard and surrounded himself with remarkably qualified teams. Tibor Navracsics, leader of the Fidesz group in Parliament, established himself as a leading figure in the chamb
Fidesz organized petitions and demonstrations on the occasion of a reform of the healthcare system, attracting a large number of people beyond the party. In March 2008, the collection of signatures led to the organization of a referendum on three themes: the cost of medical consultations, the daily cost of hospital care, and the cost of education. Some 82% of voters rejected the government's proposals. In the run-up to the elections, the political groundwork was laid for the historic rematch of
The 2008 crisis hit the Hungarian economy hard. A Greek-style scenario of high debt loomed. The executive appealed to the IMF for a loan. In 2009, the Socialists, abandoned by the Liberals, found themselves unable to form a government. Ferenc Gyurcsány, who had lost even the indulgence of the Western media, was forced to resign, giving way to Gordon Bajnai to form a minority government until the 2010 elections. By 2009, it seemed certain that Fidesz would take power. Orbán worked to strengthen h
On April 11, 2010, the Fidesz-led alliance won 52.7% of the vote in the first round. Two weeks later, it won a two-thirds majority in Parliament (263 seats out of 386). Viktor Orbán confided to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that he would "like to take credit for the destruction of the left in Hungary, but the left has actually committed suicide."
V. The peaceful revolution
Rebuilding a sovereign state
Asserting ourselves on the international stage
What's left of nationalism?
Central Europe's resources in the current situation
In Viktor Orbán's eyes, the status quo regime could not be reformed, but had to be overthrown. He intended to replace the opaque grip of the socialist elite with a "system of national cooperation." His constitutional majority accorded him such an opportunity. "The new Parliament is more than just the sixth parliament that emerged from Hungary's free elections. The new assembly was in reality a constituent national assembly and a founding parliament of a new system." A veritable conservative revo
The peaceful restoration of thousand-year-old Hungary made history on April 18, 2011, with the adoption of the new constitution. The country's official name became Magyarország (Hungary), replacing Magyar köztársaság (Republic of Hungary). Above all, this fundamental law placed the new regime within the continuity of previous centuries. The preamble mentions the Holy Crown as the symbol of state continuity and national unity, enshrines the family and the nation as essential frameworks of communi
The desire to reconnect with the country's fundamental identity explains the path taken by Viktor Orbán in terms of religion. Unlike in Poland, the Hungarian Church served the communist authorities, and the rebellious youth behind Fidesz had little regard for the episcopate. During the socialist era, two events marked the youthful dissident. The spiritual dimension of the Polish Solidarnosc movement and his marriage in 1986 to Anikó Lévai, a devout Catholic. Fidesz's reconciliation with religion
The era of the "Hungarian People's Republic" was definitively over and entered the annals of history as a period of occupation that must be laid to rest. Such a version denigrates the MSZP as an agent from abroad: the war between the two Hungaries continues - so much so that Fidesz has learned its lessons of the exclusive behavior of its adversaries.
A raft of rapidly adopted laws facilitated the gradual sidelining of the former Communist elite. The retirement age for judges was lowered from 70 to 62. The aim was to remove certain incompetent judges, but above all those with ties to the previous regime.
The Magyar-speaking populations of neighboring countries were not only offered dual nationality upon request, but can also vote in parliamentary elections using the new single-round voting system. The 199 deputies of the unicameral Parliament are now elected, 106 of them in the country's constituencies, and the remaining 93 by proportional representation on the lists of the various competing parties. Hungarians from the Carpathian region abroad can take part in this list voting. Solidarity with
Viktor Orbán took over the reins of a country with no appreciable army or energy resources, colonized in many respects, with 2% of the European Union's population and 0.8% of its GDP. These obvious limitations explained the adjustments he then made. Thus, the desire to reduce the Hungarian Central Bank's independence from national representation came to nothing, until a more propitious opportunity presented itself.
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Major political reforms were spread over two years. But the government's first priority was to tackle the economic depression. To finance his program, Orbán pushed through emergency taxes on four sectors: banking and insurance, energy, telecommunications, and retail sales. These sectors were in the hands of foreign companies and generated large surpluses on the back of Hungarian labor. As the tax applied to profits, i.e. the bonuses of the richest, the ideological vindictiveness of the "no borde
The Hungarian government's heterodox economic policy came under immediate attack from the opposition and Brussels. Accused of betraying the fundamentals of capitalism, Viktor Orbán retorted that he was simply building a national economy capable of participating viably in the European economy. The Hungarian model is a compromise, compatible with the German ordo-liberalism imposed by European competition and regulations across the continent. The exaltation of the nation and the value of work were
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When it came to power, the MDF was only willing to support conservative media. Viktor Orbán judged this wait-and-see attitude harshly: "The fact that a right-wing government came to power after 40 years of socialism was a gift from history. Not knowing how to make the most of this opportunity was beyond redemption." The media remain largely the preserve of an urban, intellectual left. Heirs to the communist era, they deplored the supposed infringement of freedom of expression when the right publ
A business community has been sorely lacking in the party's media presence. Fidesz treasurer Lajos Simicska took up the challenge. The weekly Heti Válasz was born in 2001
Hir TV was founded in 2002. These pioneering media were joined by the daily Magyar Hírlap, bought in 2005 by businessman Gábor Széles, and the Echo TV channel, also founded in 2005.
Back in power in 2002, the Socialists were openly hostile to right-wing media. Some outlets went under, and numerous resignations illustrated the Hungarian media's spoils system. Ferenc Gyurcsány refused to grant an interview to Magyar Nemzet or any like-minded newspaper. In an official letter, the head of government advised state-owned companies not to advertise in right-wing newspapers. The situation was reversed in 2010. Even the left-leaning public broadcaster, Lánchíd Radio, Magyar Demokrat
Competition is not without its rules. Established in 2010, the Media Council (Médiatanács) oversees press freedom, replacing the old system, which was rife with corruption and nepotism. The new institution is similar to France's Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA). The president is appointed by Parliament for a nine-year term. The institution ensures fair treatment of news and respect for human dignity. Since 2010, and the current situation has confirmed the plurality and freedom of informa
Relations between Viktor Orbán and Brussels first came into conflict when Hungary took over the rotating EU presidency in the first half of 2011. Liberal media vindictiveness was unleashed, notably because of new legislation governing the press. At that time, far from having any influence on European affairs, the Hungarian Prime Minister was trying to contain the pressure from Brussels on his national policy.
This pressure is growing. Shortly after Hungary's new constitution came into force, on January 18, 2012, Orbán appeared in the European Parliament for his first debate. In the eyes of many Hungarians, the Prime Minister played the role of a resistance fighter in the face of a new empire. He is the advocate of the nation against the foreigner, a role well served by the anger of certain MEPs. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, for example, did not realize that he is rallying Hungary behind its Prime Minister by
The EU's Achilles heel lies in its out-of-touch dimension and democratic deficit. The Hungarian Prime Minister is making sure that this weakness is exploited with all the popular fervor he enjoys.
Brussels's recriminations against Hungary's reforms led to the adoption of the Tavares report on July 3, 2013. The day before, Viktor Orbán had again gone to the European Parliament to defend the direction the country had been taking for three years with undeniable success. The Hungarian government conceded a few concessions, and the Tavares report, although adopted, remained unimplemented. Orbán's asymmetrical struggle with the European institutions can be summed up as "two steps forward, half
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Under pressure from Brussels' institutional politics, Orbán has been multiplying his neighborly relations as well as his global prospects. "Little Hungary" is part of several overlapping or superimposed areas. First, the Carpathian Basin, where 2.4 million Magyars still live outside the borders inherited from the Treaty of Trianon: Hungarian influence extends here without irredentism, inviting neighboring states to develop in a positive way. Next comes the Visegrád group, which guarantees the de
Hungary's national revival has given the domestic and international opposition the opportunity to denounce a nationalist drift. But the opposite is true, all the more so for, torn apart by decades of witch-hunting and reduced to the status of a scarecrow, nationalism is probably not to be found where it is denounced.
Nationalism does not consist of people power mixed with love of country, or it would not have had such a deep effect on history. Such a definition is more suited to original socialism, whose main figures were fundamentally anti-modern.
As we understand it, nationalism is not a constant in European history, but a novelty that emerged with the French Revolution, as the ancien régime collapsed and was overtaken by a new mobilizing ideology. Nationalism responds to liberalism. It provides the glue necessary for the continuation of collective life, at a time when liberalism is destroying the order that enshrined the nation by establishing a "social contract." It is a patriotism deformed by the needs of modernity. It incorporates a
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There is no question here of putting nationalism on trial. Rather, it is a question of grasping it in its present-day character and at the end of a proven evolution. Indeed, as nationalism has accompanied the liberal movement, it is no stranger to our times. The French Revolution set itself an extraordinary ambition: to transform a country of 25 million subjects, built up over thirteen centuries of monarchy, into a republic of equal citizens. It thus threw out the communal baby with the feudal b
Nationalism also corresponded to a wave of enthusiasm. In its deployment, it is less an ideology than the political expression of a vigor that intoxicates the whole of Europe. It was the result of a flourishing of European societies, particularly France. Imbalance and vitality are two complementary aspects of the national movement. It found both discipline and apotheosis in the advent of Napoleon Bonaparte, the heroic face of the new era. Nationalism was the youth of Europe. In Italy and Germany
Nationalism takes different forms in different countries. Beyond exalted national sentiment, it was always driven by the imperative need to reunite the body politic following the dismantling of the revolution. In Germany, the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation left Germans in an unprecedented and leaderless political vacuum. A keen observer of the early nineteenth century was not mistaken when he wrote:
"Those whom the dissolution of the German Empire and the act of confederation of the Rhine have lowered from the rank of dynasts to the condition of subjects who impatiently put up with having for masters those whose equals they were, or believed themselves to be, aspire to overthrow an order of things of which their pride is indignant, and to replace all the governments of this country by a single one. With them conspire the men of the universities, and the youth imbued with their theories, and
This idealistic fever makes light of the historical heritage - imperfect, no doubt - in which a collective consciousness of the countries of Europe had been built up, a consciousness of identity long perpetuated by the Habsburgs in Central Europe.
It is a common misconception that there is a gulf between nationalism in France and nationalism in Germany. Revolutionary France was responsible for the rebuilding of German unity in three ways: through the historical frameworks it had dismantled, through the feelings of revenge inspired by the triumph of its arms, and through the new ideas it spread with its conquests. The Germanic world, once unified in the Holy Roman Empire, is returning to a unitary destiny through the modern nation first ex
Three significant aspects of nationalism in Europe should therefore be borne in mind: 1) it was born with revolutionary ideology
2) its contagious nature was part of the expansion of modernity
and 3) its adaptation in different countries led to a separation between peoples formerly united in the bosom of Christendom.
Identity can be defined as man's concrete relationships with his own people, his past and his territory. Turning identity into an ideology seems contradictory from the outset. Yet this is how a deleterious trend in nationalism can be explained. An exclusive, self-centered, unitary aspiration leads to the rejection of all otherness. Nationalism feeds a first totalitarian tendency, born of revolutionary unanimity, which can be called "the ideology of the self." Nationalism thus pays the price for
The rejection of all otherness is matched by the denial of all otherness, the ideology of sameness. Self-affirmation and denial of the other both stem from revolutionary unanimity and form the twin matrices of totalitarianism. A denial of the other that is now supported by the liberal West.
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Viktor Orbán heads the Hungarian government and presides over Fidesz, which enjoys a constitutional majority in Parliament. He does not just dispatch current affairs, he governs. This concentration and visibility of power contrasts with liberal logic, which undermines the verticality of power while at the same time erasing popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty disappears without a visible successor. The head melts into the body. This confusion gives rise to a faceless counter-elite best chara
This development is no accident, since liberalism, which recognizes only individuals, claims to emancipate the people from their communal dimension. In other words, the perennial and irreducible dimension to which the peoples of Central Europe were confined in their reverses of fortune. For it was only the "legal country" that was shattered
the people of memory, mores, and culture endures under the denial of an elite that is effectively off the ground or sold out to the masters of the day. When
The liberal fog is lifting over continuities that have been shaken, but not broken. Central Europe is admirably equipped for the present, because its history has prepared it in a privileged way to overcome a modernity that is foreign and harmful to it. You can only destroy what you replace, and this region, both unitary and national, has never known an alternative model: neither a favorable order within which to forget its past, nor antagonistic national trajectories making its peoples irreconci
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The Visegrád countries have tamed ethnonational modernity to their liking. For them, nationalism has not delegitimized the nation, but has for a time modified its political expression. It has simply imposed itself as the framework for a collective existence that has been perpetuated for centuries. While the nation-state in Central Europe corresponds to the Western model, the country's profound identity is not limited to it. We can distinguish two opposing types of state: patrimonial or colonial
Not only are the peoples of Central Europe endowed with heritage states, but their shared history has given them a penchant for concerted action and the complementary use of their strengths. For this reason alone, the Europe they prefigure has greater political consistency than the Union that has been attempted in Brussels for decades. The West is exhausting itself trying to compensate through law for the emptiness caused by the loss of meaning and the general disaffiliation of men and societies
The demanding path of civilization is to cultivate together the people and the order in which they are rooted in history. Let us beware of pitting "what unites us" against "what separates us," for those concepts are mutually nourishing: they are not enemy principles, but mutually fruitful forces. Nothing irreconcilable divides us, and nothing unique standardizes us. The mirage of being exclusive undermines the healthy ambition to be distinct: wanting to be everything is the surest way to be noth
VI. The new battlefield
A raw antagonism
The rule of law in question
Revealing the great energy game
Viktor Orbán has been playing openly to win since his return to Hungary's premiership. His affirmation of a civic Hungary was accompanied by a theoretical content: illiberal democracy as opposed to liberal democracy. An ideological divide now runs through Europe's conservative camp, which separated Orbán from and the presidents of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker (2014-2019) and Ursula von der Leyen (2019- ). Ideological positions concealed unpredictable political options in the "pre
"It is a victory whose full impact is yet to be measured."
Viktor Orbán on the evening of his re-election, April 6, 2014
Hungary faced a key election year in 2014. Viktor Orbán, who was again up for reelection with the shadow of his 2002 defeat still lurking, knew he was in for a big challenge after four years of government against the tide. The parliamentary elections took place on April 6 and Hungary's European elections on May 25. The first round confirmed the success of the 2010 Fidesz revolution, with the renewal of its two-thirds majority in the Hungarian Parliament. The next priority was international. Afte
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History shined a brighter light on the present as Hungary made its comeback. It was no longer a question of existing in the eyes of the West or in the shadow of its hegemony. Rather, it was a question of opposing its drifts with a specificity that is rich in future. This clarification has been painful. Firstly, because the international environment was plunging Europe, in spite of itself, into decisive years, as Spengler described them. Secondly, because the suicidal tendencies of part of the co
A brief review of the European unrest of 2014 reveals the unravelling of the continent's liberal software as Hungary acquired a surprising political density, so much so that Viktor Orbán became the herald of Central Europe, if not global conservatism. The curves cross. The Carolingian metropolis sank into feverishness, while the Visegrád periphery learned to coordinate and gained self-confidence. The fragility of this evolution lay in its novelty. The retaliatory measures taken by Brussels (or t
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At the opposite end of the spectrum from the liberal mantra "laissez faire, laissez passer," illiberalism is understood as "taking back control." Its orientation is not dogmatic, but at least it is based on popular demands for respect and security. Viktor Orbán's opponents at home and abroad condemn him as a traitor to the West. The criticism is accurate in one sense, since the tailor-made Magyar model evades certain globalist standards. It pits political power, endowed with popular legitimacy,
Viktor Orbán was opposed to the nomination of Jean-Claude Juncker in 2014, despite his heading the EPP's list to head the European Commission. Only David Cameron shared Orbán's declared hostility to the Luxembourger, on the grounds that the latter defended a federalist agenda unacceptable to the United Kingdom, which would just two years later vote to leave the EU. On June 27, 2014, the European Council voted unanimously to appoint Jean-Claude Juncker, minus the Hungarian and British votes. In r
The Juncker Commission took office on November 1, 2014, while Matteo Renzi's Italy held the rotating presidency of the European Union. On November 14, the Commission issued a document proposing better guarantees for "rule of law" in the European Union. But the EU's strategic program, adopted by the European Council to set priorities for the 2014-2019 legislative period, include no action to be taken in this area. On December 16, EU foreign ministers agreed to hold an annual dialogue on "respect
The liberal order appeared to be serenely successful
it anticipated or remedied any alarming eventuality. The coercive framework taking shape intentionally established deterrence: in the hushed world of Brussels, Article 7 is regarded as a "legal nuclear bomb." Poland was the first country to be confronted with it, in relation to the reform of its judicial system. Then came Hungary's turn for its alleged breaches of the rule of law. Initiated in one case by the Commission and in the other by th
The crucial importance of the rule of law in the EU was demonstrated by the portfolio of Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President "responsible for better lawmaking, inter-institutional relations, the rule of law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights." A Dutchman and leader of the Socialists in the 2014 European elections, Timmermans became the bête noire of the illiberal democracies asserting themselves in the years 2014-2019.
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What is the rule of law? An institutional system in which public power is subject to the law. Hungary subscribes to this framework, without which the international animosity since 2010 would not have been confined to "suspicions," and the Venice Commission would not have amicably resolved its differences with Budapest. Hungary's political elites, however, also intend to contain subversive applications of a law that is abusively neutral. They adopt a practical rather than a dogmatic approach. The
At the opposite end of the spectrum are the dogmatic advocates of the rule of law, who favor disembodied international sovereignty over democratic sovereignty. The public authorities of each nation would be obliged, on the one hand, to obey an international law of indeterminate contours, and on the other, to protect the individual, defined by his or her choices alone. The fatal complementarity of international institutions and minority demands illustrates this subversion. That public power is de
Presented as egalitarian progress, the rule of law conceals other relations of power, and runs the risk of being debased to the benefit of a few: translucent in its neutrality, it quickly becomes opaque in practice. An invincible influence steers the interpretation of the law to the benefit of certain particular interests. This exposes the most vulnerable to the mercy of the most ambitious, the richest and the most mobile
in the words of Napoleon, both jurist and soldier: "the habit of the most
Excess is compounded by contradiction. The sovereignty of axiologically neutral law rests on a paradox: common obedience to every man for himself. A strange unitary aspiration around a dissolving principle: this is the final word of liberal communion - and its final word.
The rule of law covers, like ivy, conflicts driven by the eternal thirst for power. In liberal Europe, ideological correctness pays for its subordination to economic interests: they are the only authorized superego of our time. The energy question, explosive in 2014 in the context of the Ukrainian crisis, illustrates this eloquently.
Between 2007 and 2012, the European Union negotiated an ambitious association agreement with Ukraine, committing the country to Western integration. As the signing of the agreement loomed in November 2013, the pro-Russian Ukrainian government turned its back on the EU, with the intention of maintaining a pivotal role between the Russian world and the West.
This turnabout exasperated part of the Ukrainian population and irritated the United States. Demonstrations in Kiev soon became the scene of spectacular clashes with government forces
they culminated in February 2014 in the Maidan revolution, which overthrew the government of Viktor Yanukovych. Unrest broke out in the east of the country, and the Donbas regions, led by pro-Moscow separatists soon seceded and Russia annexed Crimea. The battle for Ukraine leads to war in Ukraine. The escalation o
The main victim was Ukraine - prey to be snatched up from east to west with no consideration for the misery of the people, not even in the eyes of their corrupt elites or the international community. The EU intended to link Ukraine's market to its own, not out of charity, but for the benefit of its companies. Instead it found itself shackled to a distressed country that became even more perilous after the renewed Russian invasion of February 2022. Only accession to the status of member state cou
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Brussels's real power lies in its role as an arbiter with regard to the subordination of member states to the internal European market. The interdependence of nations naturally increases EU prerogatives: any dysfunction then demands a European response inspired by the interests best defended in Brussels. With the Ukrainian crisis, European dysfunction is facing the return of history. Liberal criticism of politics is not enough to lead. The Ukrainian crisis has revealed the EU's strategic weaknes
Despite Brussels's pusillanimity and American hegemony, realpolitik continues to dictate. Russia remains an essential partner in the EU's energy supply despite the war. As Germany and Russia continue their energy rapprochement, who in the EU is paying for the collateral damage of the Ukrainian crisis? Those who do not have the strength to defend their interests. The countries of southeastern Europe are largely dependent on Russian gas and have been defending gas supplies via the Black Sea. The U
While American pressure presented a clear obstacle to South Stream, the EU created a paradox. Strangely enough, the Nord Stream project, South Stream's twin and direct supplier to Germany via the Baltic Sea, did not come under the same attack from the European Commission, or anything other than rhetorical opposition before its sabotage in 2022, after which Germany launched a criminal investigation and in August 2024 indicted one of the alleged Ukrainian perpetrators. It would seem that the oblig
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Until now, the countries of Central Europe have never been able to stop the decisions of the EU's major players. They balk, but eat their hats, and, as we shall see with regard to the migration crisis, are sometimes punished anyway.
VII. The tipping point of the migration crisis
Crash and tsunami in the Mediterranean
The rebirth of the Visegrád group
Hungarian disinhibition and Western deprivation
The Visegrád countries have formed a pole of resistance, taking advantage of a major fault of the liberal system: having allowed and defended the migratory tsunami of 2015. That event has left an indelible mark on the collective memory of the peoples of Central Europe, subjecting their leaders to a baptism of fire. It is the crucible of an alternative and audible political line and the challenge, through its Achilles' heel, of an ideology that has been hegemonic for decades.
On June 29, 2014, two days before the new European Parliament took office, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi proclaimed a new Caliphate in the Mosul mosque in the name of the Islamic State. The dazzling success of ISIS's radical jihadists illustrated the state of decay in Iraq since the American invasion in 2003 and Syria's weakness since its unrest began in 2011. That year's Arab Spring also destabilized the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Libya collapsed into anarchy with the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.
The first failure of the EU, and of the West generally, was to allow the destabilization of the east and even exacerbate it. The Arab Spring was celebrated as an affirmation of the modernity of these countries. The extreme left in France called for their spread north of the Mediterranean, while the former American Vice President and failed Democratic 2000 presidential candidate Al Gore called for "an American Spring." American-led NATO action led directly to Libya's destabilization.
Only the Syrian state, ruled with an iron fist by Bashar El-Assad, held its own in the turmoil. The Syrian civil war, or international war in Syria, owes its ruthlessness to the strategic as well as religious stakes underlying it. Here again, it was a question of energy and strategic assets. The overland transport of hydrocarbons from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean coast necessarily passes through Syria. The Syrian government's preference for the Iranian pipeline project, to the detriment
While the East escapes Western determinisms inherited from the last century, Europe pursues the mirage of a universal consensus around its demonetized slogans
it responds to the return of history with a more complete denial. The number of refugees worldwide rose from 19.4 million in 2005 to 53 million in 2015 to 281 million in 2024. Migration thus poses a global political problem, behind the moralizing smokescreen. From a certain point of view, it is even a highly immoral issue: the Internation
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This headlong rush was vindicated by the Aylan affair. On the night of September 2-3, 2015, a makeshift boat loaded with migrants sank between the Turkish coast and the island of Kos. Twelve of the 32 passengers died. Among the victims was a three year-old child named Aylan Kurdi, whose corpse was found washed up on a Turkish beach the following day and complacently photographed. A deafening press campaign was unleashed across the continent, as if every European shared guilt for his death, and t
Mention of migrant quotas had appeared in European texts as early as Spring 2015. On May 27, the Commission reported on the evolution of its migration agenda. It included a proposal for "resettlement" on a voluntary basis. Viktor Orbán immediately denounced this as a "crazy plan." On June 26, a European summit was held in Brussels. The "temporary and exceptional relocation over two years ... of 40,000 people" was adopted by qualified majority, despite opposition from Hungary, Slovakia, and the C
Taking advantage of the shockwaves generated by the Aylan affair, on September 9 the Commission proposed another plan for the distribution of 120,000 new migrants, three times the figure announced at the beginning of the summer. The choice of a certain number of relocations, between zero and all asylum seekers, seems arbitrary. But since it is part of a plan, observers expect to follow its application to understand its logic
but there is none. Media hysteria has simply unleashed the Brussels bu
The "distribution keys" sow the seeds of unease, as they select the quantities of migrants to be distributed as well as the host countries, which are requisitioned like barracks. That the mainspring of this dismal accounting is to be found in maudlin humanitarianism and the nauseating exploitation of a child's drowning only served to open our eyes to the extent to which liberal elites had gone astray. Migrant quotas are a precious testimony to liberalism at the end of its life: they signal the s
The Aylan affair was undoubtedly the historic turning point at which the liberal elites' relationship with migration tipped definitively into the absurd. At that moment, the countries of the Visegrád group had the choice of resigning themselves or standing up: by following Viktor Orbán's lead, they rescued everything in Europe that escaped resignation. A distinction has been made between a living Europe and the liberal precipice, between peoples whose very existence is suddenly questioned and th
Hungary lies at the southeastern end of the Schengen area, opposite Serbia, Romania, and Croatia (the latter two countries being both in the EU and outside Schengen). This situation imposes strict obligations in terms of border control. Greece, absolutely overwhelmed and economically devastated, is not fulfilling its mission. After all, the illegal immigrants want to reach the wealthier northern countries. But the terrible summer forced the reluctant countries of Central Europe to take the lead.
After a noticeable lull during the winter, immigration rose again in 2016. Following Hungary's example, Slovenia, also a guarantor of the Schengen area, announced on March 8 that it would close its border to all illegal immigrants, with humanitarian exceptions. Serbia and Croatia followed suit. Macedonia immediately announced that it would accept the same number of illegal immigrants as Serbia (so as not to keep any).
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One of the major consequences of the migration crisis came in the autumn of 2015, with the holding of parliamentary elections in Poland. On October 25, both chambers of the Polish Parliament were renewed, with the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) winning 37.58% of the vote to the Civic Platform's 24%. This result came as a surprise both in Poland and abroad, as the polls had placed the liberal right in an advantageous position. But Donald Tusk, its leading figure, has chaired the EU Coun
This political change in Poland was of great help to Viktor Orbán. Beyond migration policy, the two countries shared the same vision of Europe, based on conservative values. Each country covers the other, widening the field of action and hampering Brussels's ability to retaliate. In the wake of the migration issue, other illiberal topics could be put forward. For example, on March 31, 2016, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo announced on the radio that she was in favor of an integral pro-life po
These measures drew noisy disapproval from Brussels. But on Monday May 21, Poland rejected the European Commission's ultimatum to settle the dispute between the Polish state and the Constitutional Court. Warsaw dared to take a haughtier attitude than Budapest: a question of the country's critical size and political culture. But in both cases, the rejection of migration has served as a springboard for the formulation of a broader political alternative. A policy of generous redistribution towards
As in Hungary in 2014, the verdict of the ballot box on October 13, 2019, for a time confirmed the political orientation assumed against all odds. The United Right, led by the PiS, won with 43.59%, renewing its absolute majority in the Sejm but narrowly missing out on the Senate. The election was also marked by the return to the Diet of a left-wing coalition (13%), embracing the principles of the open society in matters of gender theory and multiculturalism, which would go on to win back legisla
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While there have been obvious similarities between Poland and Hungary, the Czech Republic has presented a very different political picture. It is true that Bohuslav Sobotka's social-democratic government joined Viktor Orbán's fightback against the EU's migration policy. This option showed the extent to which the notion of social democracy does not cover the same reality in the center and west of the continent. But this old institutional party nonetheless felt the wrath of the populist wave in Oc
Under Orbán, Hungary systematically explored room for legal maneuvering. Since the Lisbon Treaty came into force, member states have been entitled to ask the European Commission to reverse a decision if they can show that it legitimately falls to the national level. This procedure requires the agreement of the parliaments of at least ten member states. To this end, on November 3, 2015, the Hungarian Parliament adopted called for the Commission to cancel the migrant distribution system proposed t
The legal aspect of the fight against migration was based on Hungary's 2011 constitution. On the fifth anniversary of its adoption, Orbán declared: "To be perfectly clear and unequivocal, I can say that Islamization is constitutionally prohibited in Hungary." He contrasted this clarity with Western Europe, "in denial about its past and future, and burdened by self-flagellation." The Hungarian position is clear-cut, but not proselytizing. Fidesz's policy may attract emulators and opponents, but i
The strength of Hungary's anti-migration measures lies in democratic legitimacy. On May 3, 2016, the Hungarian Supreme Court authorized a referendum on the relocation of migrants. On October 2, 2016, 98% of the votes cast confirmed the political line taken by the government. The turnout was 41.32%, close to that of the 2002 referendum on membership of the European Union, but below the 50% quorum required.
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In Bratislava, the SMER socialists was leading a coalition government at the time. In 2015, with the support of Slovak public opinion, Prime Minister Robert Fico took the Council of the European Union to court, challenging the plan to distribute 160,000 refugees among EU member states. The case was referred to the Court of Justice in Luxembourg under Article 263 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which allows each member state to appeal against any EU decision that in
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At the same time, the migration crisis is tearing the Liberals apart. On February 24, 2016, the Balkan states held a consultative meeting on the migration crisis in Vienna. The meeting was attended by representatives from Albania, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Greece was not invited. Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann declared that Athens was behaving "like a travel agency" by allowing migrants to pass freely through. Greece saw red and recalled its amba
The police authorities of Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia meet representatives of Austria, the Dutch Presidency of the European Council, and Hungary in Belgrade. Athens was invited this time but refused to participate. The talks did little to help Macedonia, which was reduced to begging other member states for logistical support.
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On April 19, 2016, Viktor Orbán was received by former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The architect of German reunification had at one time invited Fidesz to join the EPP. His vision of Christian democracy differed markedly from that of his successor Angela Merkel. Two days before receiving the Hungarian Prime Minister, Kohl declared in the Tagesspiegel: "The solution [to migration] lies in the regions affected. It is not in Europe. Europe cannot become a new home for millions of needy people ar
On October 18, 2015, it was the German Chancellor alone who traveled to Istanbul to negotiate the containment of the refugee flood with the Turkish leader. The emergency situation revealed a Germany that was hegemonic in Europe and inconsistent outside. Any unprecedented situation eluded the authority of law: relations were polarized by the balance of power, by the state of nature. Negotiation, designed to avoid conflict, led to capitulation. Worse still, Merkel had come to negotiate the curtail
A climate of anxiety therefore prevailed during the negotiations for the agreement debated in the Council during the winter of 2016. On March 7, the European summit welcomed a distinguished guest, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. The President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, declared that "the time for irregular immigration into Europe is over." In other words, migration must be organized, rather than stopped or reversed. In this sense, Merkel, Mark Rutte, and Ahmet Davutoglu att
The compulsory visa regime for Turkish citizens was thus maintained, a fact welcomed by Peter Szijjarto on behalf of his Central European counterparts a few days later in Prague: "Only countries that meet all the criteria can obtain the visa-free regime. From our point of view, it would be unacceptable for Georgia and Ukraine to benefit after Turkey."
The German Chancellor failed to conclude an EU-Turkey agreement ahead of regional elections. On March 13, the German federal states (Länder) of Sachsen-Anhalt, Baden-Württemberg, and Rheinpfalz held their parliamentary elections. The fledgling Alternative für Deutschland party made historic gains, entering all three assemblies. It was a thunderbolt for the CDU, which could not conceive of being challenged on the right, and for an entire country dominated by the ghosts of its past.
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Islamic attacks played a role in the evolution of Western public opinion and in the formation of a trans-European civic concern about migration. As early as the attack on Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015, Viktor Orbán announced his position on mass migration. The attacks of November 13, on a completely different scale and in the wake of the migration crisis, justified their intransigence in the eyes of Central European governments and strengthened their public support. In April 2016, Brussels it
For Hungary, the matter did not end there. After years of refusing to adhere to EU migration policies, in 2020 the Luxembourg court found Hungary in violation of them. In June 2024, a judge imposed a 200 million-euro fine to penalize Hungary, with an additional one million euros per each additional day of noncompliance. Orbán, whose party won the country's European elections that same month, shows no sign of paying.
These lessons allow us to approach the migration crisis with the necessary lucidity. First and foremost, Europe's economic weight makes it an unavoidable draw to the developing world. This attractiveness is a form of power. But the character of our age is to subordinate every other dimension of existence to it. Politics and war, to paraphrase Clausewitz, are merely the continuation of economics by other means. The obvious poverty of such conception exposes Europe to the risk of disappearing as a
Greater clashes between Brussels and the Central European bloc seem inevitable and will indeed take place. The orchestra is playing, the officers are drunk, and it is up to ordinary sailors to take the helm. The countries of Central Europe are making history and can use their unique role to shape European and global politics.
VIII. What's left of liberalism
The European superiority complex
Confronting George Soros
Liberalism: a spectre haunting Europe
The political response in Central Europe cannot be seen as ideological. The course of events is rather slow. There was no rush, but a response imprinted in history under the pressure of facts, a political work of circumstances, entirely dictated by the heavy and merciless necessity of not disappearing. This quiet dissent contrasts with the aberrant trajectory of liberal millenarianism.
The principle of resettlement is the fatal outcome of a number of joint trends: economic obsession, cosmopolitan obsession, increased migratory pressure, disregard for popular aspirations, misguided charity, and so on. Neither chance nor bad luck, but a tragic outcome. "The gods blind those they wish to lose." This sentence sheds light on the biased calculations of Jean-Claude Juncker, then a candidate for the presidency of the Commission, and the compulsory quotas they prefigure. His program st
We need to leave aside a biased analysis, which consists of extending curves over 45 years to justify a five-year program. Winston Churchill distinguished three forms of lying: by commission, by omission, and by statistics. The observation of a danger to the "economic productivity of the EU" is factual
long-term reflection would immediately prompt us to consider the essential point: that this decline indicates nihilism, a disgust with life, and that the public authorities must commit themselves
To fit the unprecedented chapter in world history that is the demographic explosion of the South into the tiny epilogue of a Europe rotting with old age, and to subject the vitality of the former to the effacement of the latter: this is perhaps the most extraordinary testimony to Europe's sense of superiority and by far its most vain illusion. Having conquered peoples because it was more powerful, Europe expects them to come and serve it because it is rich and old. This is why, far from shedding
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What remains of this system, established to guarantee peace and freedom? The Juncker Commission began its mandate by refining the framework of the "rule of law," insensitively binding the countries brought together in the Union. Never before has Brussels had more extensive, yet softly contested, prerogatives. So much so, in fact, that in spring 2015, the REFIT reform provided for less Community legislation, in a break with the Barroso Commission. Europe could then be seen as a tidy, unchanging s
By concentrating a phenomenon that had already begun and is continuing, the migration crisis is giving history a new lease of life. The last decade has shown that life is far more generous than Juncker may have feared. Neither exhausted nor resigned, humanity springs up greener and newer with each generation. Life is generous, and cruel. Attacks, assaults: so many lives cut short as we await the worst that awaits Europeans thanks to the insensitivity to reality that characterizes liberal elites
Juncker and his emulators evoke the antipathy inspired by the Jacobins, under the Napoleonic Empire, in the young Alphonse de Lamartine: "All these geometric men, who alone had the world and who crushed us young men under the insolent tyranny of their triumph, believed they had dried up forever in us what they had, in fact, succeeded in withering and killing in them, the whole moral, divine, melodious part of human thought." These men, Lamartine continues, proclaimed: "Calculation and force, cip
The reaction orchestrated by Viktor Orbán is an insurrection of common sense, the detachment of a star that has become a black hole. Like the circles of hell in Dante's Inferno, political orientation goes astray as the level of responsibility moves further away from the people, further away from the earth. This gradation is already perceptible between the countries of Central and Western Europe, and even more so with the Commission. The elite's detachment from the popular interest leads to radic
George Soros was born in Budapest in 1930 but left his homeland as a teenager at the end of the Second World War. The vast Anglo-Saxon world seemed better suited to him. He studied at the London School of Economics, where he took classes with the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper. In Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), Popper theorized about the model of liberal society to which Soros has devoted colossal resources since becoming immensely rich in the 1980s. Such is his financial power that the
The Open Society Foundations (OSF) are playing an active role in the migration crisis. Let us confine ourselves to the case of one OSF-funded think tank: the European Stability Initiative (ESI). When Angela Merkel declared on German television on October 8 that she had a plan to manage migration, she was careful not to add that this plan had been provided to her four days earlier by the ESI. Indeed, the text, titled "Merkel Plan," is still available on the NGO's website, dating from October 4, 2
The Hungarian Prime Minister is right to identify Soros as the main adversary of his policies
although he is a cosmopolitan, his Hungarian origins offer a privileged identification bias in the eyes of public opinion. Orbán presented his fellow citizens with the "Soros Plan." After a massive poster campaign, the Orbán administration organized a national consultation. Every citizen was given the opportunity to respond to seven postulates put forward by the government. On the strength of the 2.3 m
This campaign is also a political maneuver. It saturates the public debate and sets Viktor Orbán above partisan political debate. Above all, it demonstrates the responsiveness of the Hungarian state when its capacity for action is no longer constrained by common membership of a political space or by economic interdependence. Finally, this conflict illustrates the inexorable divorce between democracy and liberalism.
On the one hand, there lie the OSF's Soros billions and Pierre Moscovici, who deplored in October 2015 that "not enough intellectual and political work has been done on the former communist bloc countries' adherence to European values." On the other hand, there is Orbán's reaction, expressed in light of the unexpected election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in 2016: "What has happened is that reality has shattered ideology. We are returning to reality, which means respecting t
A society is only as liberal as its exhaustion. Napoleon's adventures left France drained and disillusioned, as Alfred de Musset poignantly depicted. The imperial comet consumed the sap of old monarchical loyalty. Chateaubriand made no mistake, lamenting the victory of decadent individualism over a sense of duty in Restoration Europe. Beyond the discrediting of nationalist fervor, the result was the decline of all forms of civicmindedness. The new era, ushered in by the beheading of a king, soon
Whether a resounding defeat or ideological disavowal, national destruction is always met by disintegration into relativism, skepticism, egotism. The result of this general decline is a more direct face-off between the isolated individual and the two powers at work in the contemporary world: the market and the state. Abandoned to this cruel fate, each generation pretends to emancipate itself from servitude while "the world unravels," to use Albert Camus's eloquent expression.
The liberal state recognizes only individuals and implements equality between them. In the same effort to standardize, it organizes the competition of all against all, i.e. the equality of individuals before the market. For beyond the authorized stirrings of blossoming nationalism, only "gentle commerce" connects people in a society emancipated from the shackles of yesteryear.
Society is inexorably falling apart, plunged into "the icy waters of selfish calculation." Marxism was a historical response to the dysfunctions of the liberal state
it was unable to remedy them, as it was merely a shaping of industrial society - and by no means an overcoming of its contradictions. Communism attempts to modify the relations of production in order to achieve individual equality despite the market. But it shares with liberalism the same individualistic and universalist foundation
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Beyond the political ups and downs of the modern age, the only positive driving force behind the evolution of liberal society is money: the standard and horizon of all human activity. Gentle commerce as a privileged link between individuals leads to the unlimited power of the economy: at the end of the slide, the social contract seems to be established on the tacit promise of increased economic growth. Man is seen as nothing more than an economic agent, nature as an exploitable resource, and the
Liberalism can only be defined by default. Nietzsche evokes in a remarkably limpid and bitter page how its institutions are only worth as much as we aspire to them without knowing them:
The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what you gain by getting it, but in what you pay for it - in what it costs. Let me give you an example. Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are acquired: there is nothing more fundamentally harmful to freedom than liberal institutions. It's well known what they lead to: they undermine the will to power, they level the mountain and the valley, they make people small, cowardly and greedy for pleasure - the triumph of the herd accompan
IX. The face of theater is changing
2016-2020: Western marginalization and national room for maneuver
2019: the challenges of an electoral transformation
Germany, a power for nothing?
France between inertia and aggiornamento
The populist leaven in Italy
"Political correctness" frames the state as a secular religion. Democracy is subordinated to it, so much so that the electoral game often seems like a carnival at the foot of the throne: opponents reinforce the system with their assault rather than undermine it. But events since 2015 have accelerated the delegitimization of the dominant ideology, which seems less an expression of order than the ferment of chaos. Ideological uncertainty opens up the prospect of political recomposition to the adva
Of course, the situation varies from one EU country to another. A constantly evolving typology classifies member states into two families. Some are more aligned than alienated, i.e. suffering under the liberal fetters and loyal out of necessity (often recent or small countries)
others are as much - or more - alienated than aligned, i.e. promoters of the headlong rush assumed by Brussels. Since 2010, Hungary and then Poland, with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and other countries to follow, have b
The extra-EU environment is evolving. It even expanded to include the United Kingdom, which left in 2019 and appears prepared to stay out, even under the new Labour government elected in 2024. Perhaps history was forced by the proven bad blood between David Cameron and Jean-Claude Juncker. Exasperated by dysfunctional European integration, the British government decided to back up its demands with a solid democratic plebiscite: its people chose to leave in 2016 through "Brexit." The day before t
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Since 1990, the American metropole has been extending its orbit farther and farther to the east, draped in the role of a guarantor of freedom. Central Europe served as a stepping stone to the Russian world. Both the Obama and Biden administrations regularly attacked the Hungarian government, accusing it of departing from liberal norms, so much so that in 2012 Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State, wrote an open letter to Viktor Orbán to set him straight. In the context of the 2016 election ca
Europe's migration crisis spurred the American debate on illegal immigration, and it was on the strength of his claim that Trump would start building a wall on the Mexican border and use economic diplomacy to secure Mexican border policing. The unlikely outcome of the election on November 8, 2016, brought deep relief in Budapest. "Democracy is still alive," Orbán communicated on social networks in the early hours of the morning. He was the first head of government to congratulate Trump on his vi
The rejection of the same exacerbated liberalism, which the United States has drunk to the dregs and which Central Europe rejects, makes for an alliance of circumstance. In so doing, Donald Trump is playing a risky game: he is reinforcing the Central European countries in their own affirmation of the "our nation first" leitmotiv, without actually turning them away from the German partnership, or, in Hungary's case, continental partnerships of all kinds.
The American empire's regard for the distant reaches of the West has hardly changed. But China's expansion into the Pacific has begun to reshape Uncle Sam's priorities. Brexit also removed the EU's Anglo-Saxon component, in a reversal of what Charles de Gaulle feared UK membership - which he twice vetoed - would bring in. Brussels took advantage of Donald Trump's election, and has been using his 2024 reelection campaign, to draw a distinction between "the good United States" and "the dubious Tru
The atmosphere of "soft civil war" in the USA and the UK's Brexit trauma prove that point: the Anglo-Saxon world is plunging into self-inflicted doubt and less capable to lead. Seen from continental Europe, this development conceals an opportunity: distancing ourselves from the Anglo-Saxons breaks Western universalism from within. Contrary to the obsessive universalism of Brussels, a political and identity-based clarification is emerging: how can we integrate Turkey into the EU when we are separ
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The decomposition of the Western order accelerated in 2020, with the Covid-19 epidemic. The management of the crisis exposed the West's failings and insecurities, particularly amid new evidence suggesting that the virus was manufactured in a Chinese laboratory. In 1918 and 1945, order was established: now we have the impression of inexorable decomposition, with intangible forces, rising challenges, and state and non-state actors contributing to decay. In this context, organized nuclei can become
Viktor Orbán took swift action to ensure the safety of the Hungarian population. On March 11, 2020, article 53 of the Basic Law was activated, establishing a "state of danger" for a period of fifteen days. This authorized the government to legislate by emergency decree in areas of public health. The opposition immediately denounced this as a coup d'état, and the Prime Minister countered with a political maneuver. Even before the expiration of the two-week state of emergency, which could be exten
In a peculiar inversion, incantatory complaints are the prerogative of liberals, and effective action that of national conservatives. The state of emergency assumed by Orbán does not imply strict confinement.
In the face of this honorable achievement, how are we to understand Western aggression, which is as incapable of discussion as it is of winning? History is accelerating, giving the illiberal state the opportunity to illustrate its viability and regularity. While attacks on Hungary have become more passionate, this does not mean that the balance of power has shifted in favor of the liberals. Quite the contrary, in fact. The more the Western system falls into trouble, the more imperative it is to
The purpose of European integration is not to harmoniously secure the space in which nations exercise their sovereignty, but to protect them from themselves: in other words, to undo them. And yet, national determinism drives the Europe of Brussels. To understand the EU, we need to observe the workings within the bureaucracy.
The European Union is essentially an association of member states that share a single market, with its own control tower: the European Commission. The Union is defined as sui generi. In other words, as a whole exceeding the sum of its parts. But undeniably, the "exit" of all or even some members would remove the whole. Brexit was a reminder of the fragility of any unitary framework in Europe, all the more so as the activation of the blocking minority can hamper the functioning of the institution
Despite the Commission's prerogatives, the real power in the EU lies with the Council and the majority that emerges from it. There are two complementary institutions: the European Council, which brings together the Heads of State, appoints the President of the European Commission and sets the Union's general political agenda
and the Council of the EU, which co-legislates with the Parliament, representing the governments of the Member States. Some votes require unanimity, others a qualified majo
However, nothing prevents a country from unilaterally remedying an emergency situation by suspending the application of Community legislation. But the dissident state must arm itself with popular support and its best legal minds. For a long time, giving up and falling into line was easier until the controversy surrounding migrant quotas changed things. Faced with the united refusal of the Central European countries, the Juncker Commission gave in despite a decision adopted by a large majority in
The European framework has tried to cover the national fact with a star-spangled flag, but that hardly eliminates it. It can even be said that the law of the strongest prevails in today's Europe without much nuance. The rule of law conceals it more than it limits it. The decisive years that the EU is going through bear the poisoned mark of these maneuvers in the name of the rule of law
to anticipate their continuation, we need to return to the balance of power resulting from the 2019 European e
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The relative exhaustion of the Carolingian core did not prevent the European Titanic from arriving safely in port at the May 2019 elections and undergoing a regulatory crew change. The extraordinary European Council from June 30 to July 2, 2019, rendered the state of play in the EU at the dawn of the new term. The agenda consisted precisely of the appointment of the various holders of key Union posts. Unlike the same exercise in 2014, nothing is going according to plan. The Spitzenkandidat syste
Given the imbroglio of institutional Europe, we must look to the situation of the continent's three main countries, Germany, France and Italy, to find favorable resonances for Hungary's illiberal agenda - and sketch out the new European deal.
Germany's dominance of the continent does not preclude deep internal divisions, especially since Chancellor Angela Merkel employed the diligent conservative machine that is the CDU in the service of a revolutionary migration policy. This contradiction added to the confusion that reigns in the German political landscape. It's worth remembering that, while Angela Merkel was installed in the Chancellery in 2005, she seized the presidency of the CDU as early as 2000. The party congress in December 2
This rise was not enough to ensure the stature of the runner-up, who came up against the hostility of the media and was soon at loggerheads with the Chancellor herself. After two years of mixed experience, the party came under the presidency of Armin Laschet. This lackluster politician led the center-right to a historic defeat in the federal elections on September 26, 2021, losing nine points compared to the previous elections. The Merkel era came to a screeching halt, with the nationalist right
But the decline goes back a long way: as soon as the migrant crisis broke out, Merkel embarked upon a period of turbulence, never to return. In 2017, the CDU/CSU had already lost 8.5 points compared to 2013, achieving its worst score since 1949. The AfD, with 12% of the vote, suddenly became a force in the Bundestag. A score that is both unprecedented and meager if we consider that only this party assumes a radical critique of the migration policy followed since 2015. This positioning disqualifi
Across Germany, internal fractures have become more pronounced. The former East Germany on the one hand, and Bavaria, on the other, cultivate an identity distinct from the Rhine. If the status quo holds, it will be because the economy is the key, and it's holding its own - so far and just barely. Merkel's decline seems to be incubating explosive contradictions
a mixture of coldness, brutality, and incompetence characterizes Germany today. The country's neutralization has continued to worsen sin
And yet, Germany occupies first place in the European Union. Through its trade surplus, the euro and its ascendancy in European institutions, even more than through its demographic weight and central geographical location. The Federal Republic extends throughout the German-speaking world, from the Benelux countries to Austria, and from there to the whole of Europe. This trend can be explained as a resurgence: that of a central consciousness, if not an imperial atavism. The continent's economic p
In addition to this economic pressure, German ascendancy is growing politically, as the fall of the Austrian government in 2019 suggested. On May 17, a shock video spread simultaneously through the German media Der Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung and around the world. The video shows Heinz-Christian Strache compromising himself with a young woman claiming to be the niece of a Russian oligarch. In particular, the story concerns the oligarch's takeover of the Kronen Zeitung, a large-circulation pe
Strache resigned the day after the scandal and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced early elections the day after. Austria acts as a bridge between Central Europe, Italy, and Southern and Eastern Germany. A group whose coalition could call into question the political line imperturbably followed by Berlin.
The conservative press in Hungary was not afraid to talk of a second Anschluss. Needless to say, the conservative camps in Germany and Hungary do not reflect the same reality. The chasm separating "Christian democracy" in these two countries created a rift between Fidesz and the EPP. This was because the latter is also subject to the dominant influence of its German component: the CDU. Belonging to Europe's largest political family was now only a secondary asset for Viktor Orbán, much less impor
The Anglo-Saxon world is outside Europe, but France is at its heart. The sensible question coming from France may not be whether or not it belongs to the European entity of the moment, but how it defines the latter according to its decisive contribution to it. The "austerity turn" in France dates back to 1983. Jacques Delors became head of the European Commission in 1985 to prepare the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty, the crucible of neo-liberalism in force in the EU today.
Schematically, Germany is extending its economic sway into an open France, but Paris is spreading its ideas with undeniable power across the Rhine, and from there to the whole of Europe. In this respect, the election of Emmanuel Macron as President of the Republic in May 2017 marked a turning point. The overhaul of the EU became the priority issue in French politics. Macron's "at the same time" policy has led him to take on contradictory positions, from hackneyed idealism to jarring pragmatism.
From the start of his first presidential campaign, Macron anticipated the Manichean struggle that would pit him against the nationalist right in France - known since 2018 as the Rassemblement National. Macron's attacks on Poland caused the first diplomatic incident. On September 26, 2017, the French president gave a wide-ranging speech at the Sorbonne pleading for the relaunch of European integration as a virtuous project capable of regaining the upper hand over the evil fairies of the century:
There are two things that the French president can be credited with in 2018: the Meseberg Declaration and the Treaty of Aachen. The first was a Franco-German declaration of intent endorsing the general direction that the two powers intend to impose on the EU. The second was a friendship treaty outlining the convergence of the two countries in all areas, notably defense and foreign policy. The serious flaw in this convergence lies in the denial that underpins it. Leaning on each other, the two co
From this point of view, Macron has expressed the dominant tendency of the French elite. They disdain playing France's role. Such was the case of Bruno Le Maire, France's Minister of the Economy and Finance, who in 2018 published an essay on the unitary future of the continent. Le Maire professed desired changes rather than contributing directly to them through the health of the national economy for which he was responsible. Bruno Le Maire conjectured that "European sovereignty will be twofold.
On an essential subject: defense and the geopolitical orientation of the continent, the French position evolved from the summer of 2019. On August 19, Macron received Vladimir Putin to calm relations with Russia against the backdrop of the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict. On August 27, the French President drove the point home at his annual conference with ambassadors. Macron did not shy away from his characteristic "at the same time" approach. With unprecedented frankness, he spoke of the
Populist dynamism has also strengthened in Italy, which had been slipping since the economic crisis of 2008. The boot has been subjected to all kinds of oligarchic smoke and mirrors, from the government of experts to Matteo Renzi's New Left. But austerity measures accomplished nothing. As the Eurozone's third-largest economy after Germany and France, and a major industrial power, Italy is following the same path as Greece, while immigration was pouring in across the Mediterranean. The political
The Italian slump initially favored the ascendancy of two populist forces: the Five-Star Movement (M5S) founded by Beppe Grillo on the one hand, and the regionalist party Lega Nord, renamed Lega in 2017, on the other. This transformation, assumed by Matteo Salvini, the party's federal secretary since 2013, offered the Lega the national scope it lacked. Against this backdrop, the Italian general election of March 4, 2018 saw the left-wing populists of the M5S come out on top with 32% of the vote.
The balance of power shifted in favor of the Lega and its leader. The fragile agreement made it impossible to adopt an alternative political line. The position of Minister of the Interior served as a platform for Matteo Salvini. The muscular management of illegal immigration largely contributed to his aura, even if it did not solve the problem. On August 29, 2018, Orbán's visit to Milan sealed an alliance that has continued ever since. In May 2019, the Lega triumphed in the European elections wi
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Combined with the rapid evolution of Central Europe, the antagonistic movements of the great nations augur many new perspectives: time is speeding up. In a Union of contrasts and divisions, the cohabitation of nation-states seems difficult. National polycentrism lends real dynamism to the whole.
X. Towards a new age of order
The metamorphoses of the void
The economy or the burden of contemporary man
Illiberal emancipation by itself
In an increasingly troubled international context, the internal recomposition of Europe and its nations is becoming even more urgent. The essential issue is to distinguish the political framework from the ideology that infects it in order to reappropriate the former through more fruitful popular aspirations, but also to provide these confused trends with theoretical content and realistic ambition. This effort, now being spearheaded by Viktor Orbán's Hungary, aims first and foremost to make natio
Since Maastricht, the EU has undeniably had a historic role to play: serving as a bias for liberal globalism in Europe. And to bring its own normative weight to bear on the unification of the world market. As the force of popular gravity can only be exerted through the intermediary of nations, the EU's framework and ideology are intimately linked. From this point of view, Brussels is nothing but a factor in the dislocation of borders, limits, and cultures for the benefit of capital.
But the European framework is not strictly superimposed on ideological evil. Below, we have seen how ideology dominates member states, whereas society still offers a popular - albeit partial and residual - foundation. From above, Europe as a whole integrates itself into the Western world - indeed, into the "developed world" - subject to the same logic. The changes underway in London and Washington are limited to adjustments of Anglo-Saxon capitalism, rather than its overcoming. From an illiberal
The EU claims a role in history by placing itself as the culmination of a necessary evolution. But this federalist self-image is abusive. They are ruining the civilization of which they see themselves as the continuation, or even as the crowning glory. But Brussels is too small to digest Europe: Hungary's rise is enough to give it heartburn, and Poland's assertiveness triggered a liver ulcer.
To adhere to any "idea of Europe" is to recognize a supranational unitary principle. If it's liberalism, it doesn't distinguish Europe: it dissolves it. In the 2020s, liberalism is already no longer a unitary principle within the continent, since Central Europe has broken from it. More to the point, the ruling elite is detaching itself from the national community as well.
The EU is viable because it at least nominally escapes its ideologues: it poses as a unitary framework of civilization, a resurgence of the Respublica Christiana, a continuation of Rome. Such an illustrious heritage cannot be abandoned to the masters of the day. So, by drowning Europe in historical amnesia and migratory floods, the EU is sawing off the branch on which it is sitting. The rising tide is working to ensure that the wavering branch topples the EU before turning green again. Or, to us
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A more theoretical consideration is in order here. Placed under the iron rule of the State and European institutions, are peoples in a protective framework or in a rut? Answer: both, inseparably. No one, it may seem, can escape the political order. There is nothing outside it. This awareness makes us responsible, for any secession is an abandonment of post.
The people are not the state, but they exist politically within its binding framework. Nations are not the EU, but they are largely situated in the international political space vis-à-vis this sui generis framework. The people must be willing in the face of the state: they support it by containing its hold. And in so doing, the entire body politic is maintained. By the same token, nations must express their will in the face of the EU - and not against it - in order to support European unity by c
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The Europeans' limited room for maneuver calls for greater lucidity, but no less determination. If they have to throw all their national and popular weight behind the EU, why is the latter worth anything? In the first place, because Europe cannot be made any other way, to expect a sudden upheaval or a providential catastrophe is to ignore the principle of continuity. Even "providence works in the woodwork," as Paul Morand put it. Europe will not be built on the edge of the grave. The quote belon
Secondly, there is no doubt about the Old Continent's weakening position in the world. Despite the cult of the economy, Europe produced 22% of the world's wealth in 2014, compared with 75% a century earlier. It is regaining the position assigned to it by its size, having spread to the four horizons the tools that had ensured its hegemony and now enrich others. Economic integration, designed to hinder the political renaissance of its component parts, must be viewed pragmatically. As a reality now
The European Union inspires neither sympathy nor loyalty. But some opposition has less to do with national patriotism than with systematic and sterile detestation. It is the symmetrical counterpart of the unhealthy jealousy many Eurocrats feel towards nations older and more prestigious than their glass-and-steel promontory. There are so many base instincts to overcome to prevent an obsession with dismantling from overtaking the creative force.
These considerations force us to turn our gaze towards the abyss of European economic antagonisms. The invisible hand is sowing discord. Brexit seemed like a divorce between two spouses gnawed by avarice and still plagued by unsettled issues. At a time of new ruptures, this economic war in Europe indicates where the peril grows, but also what saves. As nothing springs from nothing, our reflection is once again rooted in illiberal Hungary.
We have already mentioned the heterodox economic policy implemented by Fidesz from 2010 onwards, in view of the international hostility it prompted. The country's recovery requires renewed strength, which can only be drawn from the people themselves. In 2017, the Prime Minister detailed in Tusványos the ten points that characterize a sovereign country:
First of all, a strong nation and a strong state does not live on other people's money. The nation's recovery begins with putting it back to work: Of the 10 million Hungarians [in 2009], 3.6 million were working, of whom 1.8 million paid taxes. They were the ones carrying the country's burdens on their backs. Clearly, this was a long and painful form of suicide. Incidentally, today 4.5 million Hungarians are in work, and everyone pays taxes.
Viktor Orbán treats the economy as a tool in the service of a policy: that of national power. Economic growth in Hungary is more than the acceleration of elementary particles under the reign of merchandise. It is a dimension of reality to which politics defies, the better to direct it according to its sovereign will. At least the illiberal effort tends to establish and maintain this hierarchy. The Central European economy is characterized first and foremost by low labor costs compared to the Eur
The integration of Central Europe into the EU in 2004 established political isonomy between "economic partners" that are, in fact, very unequal. The advantage of the weak over the strong - the attractiveness of cheap labor - has led to the phenomenon of relocation from west to east. Some Western observers denounce this biased competition: the gains of the East come from the losses of the West. This aspect of the question is important because it is a factor not only of discord between governments
How can this blatant double punishment be remedied, and who should be incriminated? The Slav who has to work 40 hours a week for a monthly salary of 300 to 400 euros? Or the company that relocates to increase its margins? Or the Western state, a passive watchdog as its economy is dismantled? If we observe the decision-making chain activated in Central Europe, we can say that the people first imbue the elite with their aspirations, and then the state, committed to the general interest, imposes li
Comparing Central Europe with the West reaches its limits here, as the single currency binds heterogeneous economies and paralyzes state politics. The Visegrád countries do not experience the determinisms of a declining power, still under the morphine of its residual wealth.
Western Europe itself is, to say the least, dual: Germanic Europe and Latin Europe. The former is, by and large, successsfully integrated into globalization. It finds in Central Europe a profitable workshop and a back-up market, and benefits from a weak euro. Broadly speaking, Latin Europe suffers from the comparative advantages of the North, without being able to remedy them, for lack of room to maneuver.
If changes are needed in Western Europe, they will come first in Latin Europe, as Rome has already shown. If Italy can maintain the same fortitude that Budapest has shown over the last 14 years, the recomposition of Europe would enter a new phase. Liberal logic reigns in Brussels just as much as states submit to it at home. Faced with the Carolingian metropolis, so hegemonic and disoriented at the same time, Latin and Central Europe can find common ground. Nations must reject the specialization
Many still fear protectionism because it would open a Pandora's box of retaliatory measures. The question remains political, even ethical. To fear more harm from other people's retaliation than good from what we can produce and build, is to place little esteem in our own work, and to rely on the outside world as if it were providence. It is morally reprehensible - and absurd - not to defend one's interests on the pretext that they have a price.
The prospect of economic recomposition across the continent can only be initiated by Latin Europe, since the current imbalances weigh mainly on its shoulders. It is by no means a foregone conclusion, since any change would have to be wrenched away from inevitability. To take this upward path is to assume what is happening in silence: struggle decides the course of events. In this locked-in situation, necessity forces us to play differently, according to heterodox rules inspired by national inter
No one disputes the structural deficits of Southern Europe in the face of Germany's trade surplus. That said, the euro could be doomed unless Euroland is completely federalized. Such a headlong rush forward would lead to the economic specialization of the continent, turning Germany into a factory where millions of other Europeans. The fruits of their labor would then be transferred to their stricken homelands, in much the same way as deserted French departments survive on handouts from Paris. Th
This pernicious development increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. Under the banner of the "great reset," international decision-makers, notably those assemble at the World Economic Forum, are working towards the triumph of a globalized economy independent of workers, peoples, and states.
This is the common grave promised to decomposed peoples. The fall is gradual, but so is the recovery. It is based on a conviction that is a faith: effort ennobles, duty is everywhere and first in the heart of every citizen and every family, then in the communities and trades, and finally in the state.
The moment has come when recent history sheds retrospective light on the path Hungary has taken and offers a continental destiny to the national path revealed in adversity.
The dominant Western discourse has tainted the Hungarian Prime Minister's political thinking with suspicion. When it comes to getting to the heart of the matter, we need to get rid of preconceived ideas. The history of Central Europe and its political identity were discussed at length. Viktor Orbán's ideas come from there as naturally as a spring comes out of a mountain
it is a resurgence called forth by the century, a powerful movement that simply needs to be recognized and appropriated: it is
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Fidesz is not only the Hungarian acronym for the Alliance of Young Democrats, it also recalls the Latin word fides: "fidelity." The most spiritual fidelity combines with the most prosaic pragmatism to produce a fruitful policy. Remedying necessity without forgetting ourselves: this is the course of action proposed by Visegrád, and above all it requires courage.
Viktor Orbán's first run-ins with Brussels showed that, in order to stand up to circumstances, you first have to oblige yourself:
If we are to defeat adversity and its mercenaries, every Hungarian must first curb the instincts by which he compromises his own destiny. And he must first make these changes within himself. In this way, he will definitively side with honor, zeal, hard work and, consequently, the Fatherland. This is the only path to freedom and true liberation.
Courage can drive action
even lucidity is only a form of intellectual courage. And if Hungary finds itself isolated on the continent, it is because its "elites" cannot find the courage to throw off the liberal straitjacket. Visegrád is getting rid of it, not for the sake of publicity or scandal, but because it prevents us from serving the people. Fidesz therefore intends to move beyond liberalism as soon as it returns to power in 2010, in a clear-sighted and pragmatic manner:
In 2010, we realized that the cultural identity of our community, of Hungary, was in full decay. We saw that the consciousness of belonging to the nation was disappearing. We found that our communities beyond our borders were under constant assimilative pressure, which they were unable to resist. And we found that the physical capacity to defend our sovereignty - the police and the army - was sclerotic. By 2010, Hungary was being drained materially, spiritually and biologically. So the Prime Min
This realization led to the real revolution, reducing the liberal talisman to a museum piece. The result was the adoption by Hungarian representatives of the 2011 constitution, which provides a general framework for national recovery. Nothing now stands in the way of overcoming liberalism, right down to its anthropological foundations:
What we're now trying to put in place, follows a different compass and declares - going back to a well-known truth - that the right definition of the relationship between two individuals is not to say that everyone has the right to do anything that doesn't infringe on the freedom of others, but that you mustn't do to others what you wouldn't want done to yourself. And even more: what you would like done to you, do also to others. It's a different basis.
After the electoral plebiscite of April 2018, which renewed the Fidesz constitutional majority, Viktor Orbán broadened the perspective:
I believe we have been given a mandate to build a new era ... The epoch is a particular, characterizing cultural environment. The epoch is an order of a spiritual nature, a kind of common atmosphere, perhaps also a world of common taste, a kind of mode of behavior. The order, the political regime, is generally given by political rules and decisions. The epoch is more than that. The era is more shaped by cultural currents, collective convictions and social customs. This is the task ahead of us: t
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"The state cannot remain neutral when it comes to culture, and it cannot remain neutral when it comes to the family," Viktor Orbán summed up in his 2019 Tusványos speech. At the root of a culture are the families that perpetuate it and where it is inculcated. Hence the "pro-family" stance of renovated Hungary. The demographic winter is affecting the country like the rest of Europe. Between 2010 and 2018, the birth rate rose from 1.2 to 1.5 children per woman, an encouraging but insufficient tren
A country in demographic decline and - let's be clear - not even able to reproduce biologically may not deserve to exist. It disappears. The only communities left in the world are those capable of sustaining themselves at least on a biological level. Sadly, Hungary is not there yet. And we must also recognize that in demographic matters, and therefore in family policies, the hands of governments are tied: for no policy is able to determine whether or not there will be births in a community, whet
The laws do not boost the birth rate, but rather help to create a framework in which families can flourish. Hungarian social conservatism rules out a totalitarian takeover of society, as in the communist era, and also rejects the liberal "laissez-faire" approach. It aims to return the State to a point of equilibrium, against the deleterious tendencies that compromise society by catering to the whims of the individual. The State returns to a congruent role: to enable, first and foremost, those wh
In terms of figures, this means - based on last year's figures - that we take 272 billion forints [almost 900 million euros] from the banking sector, 120 billion forints [400 million euros] from the energy sector and 55 billion forints [180 million euros] from the telecommunications sector. That's almost 500 billion forints [1.6 billion euros] a year, which we redistribute in the form of 272 billion forints [900 million euros] in tax benefits to people who work while raising children, 74 billion
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From this serene self-affirmation stems the distinction with others. Far from being a paranoid obsession, immigration only appears in the background because it calls into question the country's identity. The need for self-preservation arises naturally when there is something to preserve. It's not that there's a gulf between Western and Central Europe on this point. We cannot conceive of a people without an identity, but there are people in the West who are amnesiac, dismayed or alienated, and Ce
Hungarian inflexibility in the face of migratory pressure stems from this simple awareness of being a people:
There is no cultural identity without a stable ethnic composition. To change the ethnic composition of a country is to change its cultural identity. A strong state can never afford to do this, especially if some global catastrophe forces it to do so.
By asserting its right to historical continuity, Hungary has proclaimed its right to Europe. Necessity compels Viktor Orbán to break his country's isolation
European interest is then understood as an extension of national interest. Migrant quotas are the tip of a general drift. While this immediate peril must be neutralized, the need to ward off its springs leads Hungary to propagate its fundamental orientations to its neighbors. It was thus in an almost fortuitous domino effect that Central Eu
1. Every country in Europe has the right to protect its Christian culture
it has the right to reject the ideology of multiculturalism
2. Every country has the right to protect the traditional family model and to affirm that every child has the right to a father and a mother
3. Each Central European country has the right to protect the markets and branches of its economy that it considers strategic
4. Every country has the right to protect its borders and the right to reject immigration
5. Every European country has the right to be attached, in the most important matters, to the principle of 'one State, one vote', and this right cannot be circumvented within the European Union.
Central Europe is no more concerned with anticipating a rupture than it is with assuming it. Viktor Orbán's inductive, pragmatic approach warns him against aiming too high, but he's aiming just right. If the national framework structures Europe, then the European Commission, which usurps it, is the obvious target. On a continental scale, Hungary is therefore sticking to a minimalist objective: to defend the interstate framework, which on average is much more permeable to popular aspirations
to
If we are now talking about the future of Europe, we must first affirm that if we want Europe to live, if we want Europe to remain for Europeans, the European Union must first regain its sovereignty in the face of the Soros empire. Until it does, there's no chance of Europe remaining for Europeans. Once the European Union has thus regained its sovereignty, it will have to be refounded.
Indeed, it is worth concluding on this point: the consistent defense of nations in Europe means defending Europe's sovereignty in the face of all that is foreign to it.
Conclusion
Fidesz's roots in the Kingdom of St. Stephen are long-lasting. But the overall grip of the economy exceeds the forces of illiberal Hungary and other nations alike. The economic upturn is not a whitewash
you only have to stroll through the center of Budapest to see that the Hungarian capital has taken on the positive features and favorable look of a Western metropolis, or indeed better. Do we think differently than we live? A first answer was provided by the municipal elections of October 2019,
Europe is hampered by its mass, inertia and the ascendancy of material concerns
"de facto solidarity" plays an overwhelming role in the continent's progress: precisely that of hindering it. In these times, every consideration of a philosophical, historical, or cultural nature yields to the law of economics. The depressing apathy of post-political Europe is due to this spell, which both controls and hypnotizes it. Capital rules. Human genius is absorbed by innovation for the sake of competitiven
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If the perestroika of the West is not quite coming, it is because liberalism is still expanding. Despite the prevailing depression, secession is not a foregone conclusion: the system has more hold over the people than they have over it. From this point of view, people's subservience to the system that dismisses them is their responsibility. In other words, the deep-rooted aspiration of the people to endure is more likely to find a career in the liberal impasse than in the uncertainty of a new er
Our era seems to be one big shipwreck, so big that we lose sight of it. An intuition widely shared, albeit internalized: material comfort keeps the conscience in the shadows. Europe is a woman sustained by her dowry money, under the authority of the elusive spouse who leads her astray and disappoints her. This occupation must end. At the end of history, Europe finds itself at its beginning: alone, empty, purged.
Joyfully defending what we are requires going on the offensive
affirming that the people existed before and will exist after the totalitarian economic age, even that, one day soon, the economy that rests on the shoulders of the people and burdens them will return to them. But a people must exist and know how to say "we." The "we" that the young Viktor Orbán uttered in 1989 on Heroes' Square, when he declared that it was the whole of young Hungary that lay in the coffins lined up at the foot of
The link between Renaissance and identity consciousness is not lost on the Hungarian elite that surrounds Orbán, as Professor László Bogár eloquently demonstrates: "The whole thing revolves around identity. For the aim of this power of global domination is to strip individuals as well as larger and smaller collectivities - right down to national communities - of their identities, in order to dissolve them the diluted filth of multiculturalism, the only state in which they become harmless from th
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Awareness of belonging is only complete when rooted in an awareness of essence and origin. This full and complete acceptance dismisses conservatism as a way of thinking in relation to progressivism. A conservatism that is a fellow traveler in the process of liberal disintegration merely smooths the edges and consolidates the step forward in decline. And peoples wither away as the forced march continues.
From a well-understood identity point of view, secession from the system is not a matter of an opinion to be endorsed, but of a collective consciousness to be reconnected with - and in which to commune. There are a thousand ways of doing this, and mine is one of them. As a child of the Midi, I first awakened my sensibility of France through literature. The precise memory of initiatory encounters has stayed with me: the style of Cardinal de Retz and Chateaubriand acted as a lightning revelation.
Not that my little country expected any dignity from on high: it had it of its own accord. But it continued in the bosom of the greater France, and found its place there, and I with it. Likewise, France excelled in Europe through the flowering of its own national genius. The spiritual aura came from below, nestled in the heart of men and places, but the taste for excellence and some verticality called this spark into the high reaches of history and civilization. This territorialized intuition of
I believe this is the sentiment we call patriotism. It is the noblest of all, because it lifts man out of the narrow confines of the individual
it both obliges and empowers him, providing him with a sense of duty and a space in which to exercise his freedom. In Viktor Orbán, the bold son of Felcsút, this sentiment nourished a lion's heart capable of carrying the Hungarian voice across the world and into the future. May this sensitivity be at work in the youth of all Europe.
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Index
A
F
Alliance of Free Democrats (SzDZs): p. 43, 45, 66
Fidesz: p. 10, 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 63, 66, 77, 90, 94, 104, 113, 119, 120, 135, 136
Antall (József): p. 39, 45
B
Fodor (Gabor): p. 32, 43, 44, 45
Babis (Andrej): p. 92
Fico (Robert): p. 93
Bayer (Zsolt): p.44
Francziak (Josef): p. 4
Bismarck (Otto von): p. 42, 72,
Franz Joseph (Emperor): p. 27, 37, 42
Brexit: p. 110, 112, 114, 130
Byzantium: p. 19, 21, 22, 24
G
C
Gyurcsány (Ferenc): p. 56, 59, 60, 61, 67
Charles I (King of Bohemia): p. 17, 18, 21
Christendom: p. 14, 16, 22, 31
H
Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP): p. 46
Hende (Csaba): p. 55
Horn (Gyula): p. 48, 54
Clinton (Hillary): p. 110
Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF): p. 39, 40, 45, 46, 48, 56, 66
Cold War: p. 5, 26, 35
D
Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP): p. 43, 45, 56, 64
De Gaulle (Charles) : 3, 112, 122
Delors (Jacques): 3, 121
Hunyadi (Janos): p. 21, 22, 24
Dubcek (Alexander): p. 4
I
E
Independent Civic Party of Smallholders and Agrarian Workers (FKgP): p. 46, 48
Erdogan (Recep Tayyip): p. 95
European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC): p. 129
European Economic Community (EEC): p. 2, 3, 129
J
Jobbik: p. 59, 60
European Union: p. 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 11, 48, 63, 65, 79, 82, 89, 93, 114, 118, 130, 140
Juncker (Jean-Claude): p. 2, 77, 79, 99-101, 109, 115, 120, 122
Sigismund of Luxembourg: p. 21, 23, 24
K
Kaczynski (Jaroslaw): p. 90
Simicska (Lajos) : p. 33, 54, 66
Kádár (Janos): p. 33
SMER (Slovak socialist party): p. 10, 93
Kohl (Helmut): p. 94
Kossuth (Lajos): p. 37, 39, 41
Solidarnosc : p. 4, 32, 34, 64
Köver (Laszlo): p. 43, 44, 48
Soros (George): p. 35, 44, 93, 101-105, 110, 120, 140
Kundera (Milan): p. 13, 74
Szajer (József): p. 44, 64
L
Széchenyi (István): p. 48
Law and Justice party (PiS): p. 10, 90, 91, 120
Széchenyi (plan): p. 54
Szijjarto (Péter): p. 95
Lázár (János): p. 110
T
M
Treaty of Lisbon: p. 63, 92, 109
Makovecz (Imre): p.55
Treaty of Maastricht: p. 3, 121, 127
Maria Theresa (Empress): p. 37, 38
Treaty of Rome: p. 2
Mathias I (Hungarian king): p. 21, 22
Treaty of Trianon: p. 52, 65, 69
Trump (Donald): p. 69, 105, 111, 112
Medgyessy (Péter): p. 54, 56
Meloni (Georgia): p. 125
Tusk (Donald): p. 90, 95, 120
Merkel (Angela): p. 87, 89, 90, 94, 95, 103, 116, 117, 118, 122
Tusványos: p. 10, 78, 130, 134, 137
Metternich (Clemens von): p. 40, 41
V
Mohács (Battle): p. 20, 23, 27
Varga (Judith): p. 81, 113
Visegrád Group: p. 6, 10, 15, 69, 88, 89, 115, 121, 124
N
Nagy (Imre): p. 34
von der Leyen (Ursula): p. 77, 116, 117
Navracsics (Tibor): p. 60, 79
NER (system of national cooperation): p. 63
Y
Yanukovych (Viktor): p. 82
O
Obama (Barack): p. 110
Orbán (Viktor), 1-144
R
Renzi (Matteo): p. 79, 124
S
Sadowa (Battle): p. 27, 42
Schengen (area): p. 87, 89, 90
Schmitt (Pál): p. 55
Salvini (Matteo): p. 124, 125

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