ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
I'm Rob Schmitz in Budapest, Hungary, where a record turnout by voters made history today by putting an end to the 16-year rule of populist, right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban. We'll have more about this stunning victory later in the show, but we wanted to take a moment to explore the legacy of Viktor Orban on Europe and the European Union. Last week, when Vice President JD Vance visited Budapest to stump for Orban, he blamed this familiar adversary for Hungary's problems.
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JD VANCE: The bureaucrats in Brussels - those people should not be listened to. Listen to your hearts. Listen to your souls, and listen to the sovereignty of the Hungarian people.
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SCHMITZ: The bureaucrats in Brussels - in other words, the European Union is a body that Hungary belongs to and a body that Orban routinely rails against as well. He blames the EU for interfering in Hungary's politics and values. But the reality is that in his 16-straight years in power, Orban has had an outsized impact on the mechanisms of the European Union.
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH: Viktor Orban is the veto player in the European Union. He is the European Union's blackmailer in chief.
SCHMITZ: Timothy Garton Ash is a professor of European studies at Oxford University.
GARTON ASH: And crucially, he is blocking 90 billion euros of funds which are vital for the future of Ukraine. He's blocking the opening of the EU negotiations with Ukraine. But also, in so many other respects, he is clogging up the functioning of the EU at a moment when it needs to work better, not worse.
SCHMITZ: When it comes to voting on big issues like the budget or foreign policy, which includes support for Ukraine or sanctions on Russia, EU rules state that all 27 member states must be in agreement before a decision is carried out. This is called the EU's unanimity rule. From 2011, a year into Orban's power, to the end of 2025, Hungary was responsible for 19 of the EU's 46 total vetoes - more than twice as many as the next member state. And Garton Ash says there's an irony in Orban's defiance.
GARTON ASH: So here's the crucial thing. We're sitting in Budapest. This is a hybrid regime. It's not a liberal democracy. And the shocking fact is that regime has been built on EU money - I mean, huge flows of EU funds.
SCHMITZ: Eighty billion dollars' worth, in fact, since Hungary joined the EU in 2004. But in 2022, the EU began freezing funding to Hungary because it said Orban was violating key democratic values required of all EU members. To date, the EU has withheld $25 billion worth of funding to Hungary. And that's prompted regular fury from Orban directed at Brussels, but not enough for him to want to remove Hungary from the EU altogether.
ZSUZSANNA SZELENYI: Without the EU, Russia would not be interested in us any longer, or China or whoever.
SCHMITZ: Zsuzsanna Szelenyi is program director of the Democracy Institute Leadership Academy at Central European University. She says despite his near-constant criticism of the EU, Orban receives many benefits from Hungary being a member. The country is an entry point for Russia, China, Turkey and other illiberal states in more ways than one.
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SERGEY LAVROV: Look...
PETER SZIJJARTO: Yeah. Yeah.
SCHMITZ: ...And I wanted also to call you and to check...
SZIJJARTO: Yeah.
LAVROV: ...About the compromise you reached with European Union on opening...
SCHMITZ: This past week, a call between Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and his Hungarian counterpart, Peter Szijjarto, appeared on social media. It was the second of two leaked calls between the two men ahead of the election. In it, Lavrov tells Szijjarto he's trying to get ahold of an internal EU document regarding Ukraine's application to become a member of the EU.
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LAVROV: We are trying to get hold of the exact document. But...
SZIJJARTO: Oh. I'll send it to you. It's not a...
LAVROV: Please.
SZIJJARTO: ...Problem.
SCHMITZ: Central European University's Szelenyi says Orban's transactional relationship with Russia, China and other autocracies would not be possible without his country's membership in the EU.
SZELENYI: If we are not in the EU, no one would invest in Hungary. So there are no reason for Orban to leave the EU, but he also doesn't want to give more power to the European Union.
SCHMITZ: And that begs the question, why hasn't the EU expelled Hungary if all it does is block key budgetary and foreign policy votes and doesn't bother to follow the EU's democratic principles? Central European University political scientist Zsolt Enyedi says doing so would set too risky of a precedent for the EU as an institution.
ZSOLT ENYEDI: Until now, European Union was a club of countries that tried to find a common denominator. When you start expelling countries or suspending the voting rights of a country, then that's a new kind of European Union, and there is no willingness yet within the European Union to move that.
SCHMITZ: Enyedi says the EU is a democratic institution, an institution that believes, in the end, the people of each member state will ultimately decide on who will serve them best. And that's precisely what has happened this evening here in Budapest, where residents have poured into the streets at this hour to celebrate the end to Viktor Orban's hold on power. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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