How the EU bullied Orbán into supporting the bloc's failed Ukraine strategy
Plus: Italian farmers rise up against "establishment" Meloni
I’ve written for Compact about the latest showdown between the EU and Hungary, which resulted in Viktor Orbán finally dropping his veto to the EU’s latest financial aid package for Ukraine. Orbán’s about-face came on the heels of an aggressive pressure campaign by the EU that culminated in a fake “leak” to the Financial Times clearly orchestrated to apply pressure on the Hungarian government. According to the report, Brussels had drawn up a confidential plan to “sabotage Hungary’s economy” if Orbán failed to approve the package.
The strategy allegedly involved “publicly vow[ing] to permanently shut off all EU funding to Budapest with the intention of spooking the markets, precipitating a run on the country’s forint currency and a surge in the cost of its borrowing”. It’s unclear how much the threats of economic warfare specifically contributed to his decision — but they are nonetheless telling of the neocolonial mentality that that dominates the EU establishment.
As I explain in the article, the European Union is, of course, not new to such gambits: it has often resorted to these financial and monetary blackmail tactics in the past vis-à-vis euro countries, whose lack of monetary sovereignty makes them much more susceptible to such bullying. But as recent events have shown, the EU is tightening the screws even on non-euro countries like Hungary.
Read the article here.
Plus, over at UnHerd, I’ve also got a brief explainer on the farmers’ protests that are sweeping across Italy — and why they represent the biggest political headache Giorgia Meloni has had to contend with since her election in 2022.
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Thomas Fazi
Website: thomasfazi.net
Twitter: @battleforeurope
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Latest book: The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left (co-authored with Toby Green)
Once again, the Compact article is behind the pay wall. I just wonder if you looked at Slovakia and its position in that article. I cannot see how the EU could tolerate Fico.