Threatening to invoke Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty, the Brussels’-based European Parliament could vote today to sanction Hungary for sealing its borders to Mideast and North African refugees. Hungary’s 55-year-old Prime Minister Viktor Orban watched German Chancellor Angela Merkel take in nearly 1 million Syrians in 2015. Accusing Orban of “undermining democracy” in violation of the Lisbon Treaty, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker cited Orban’s crackdown on the free press and non-governmental organizations [NGOs], all due his refusal to comply to EU guidelines to accepting proportionate shares of Mideast and North African refugees. It was the refugee crisis, created by the seven-year-old Syrian civil war, that drove the United Kingdom out of the EU with the infamous June 23, 2016 Brexit vote, largely due to immigration quotas.
Orban knows that the European Parliament, now headed by Antonio Tajani, that sets immigration parameters now vehemently opposed by some EU countries, including the Czech Republic and Poland. EU’s liberal immigration policies have led ordinarily progressive-minded Sweden to vote in Jimmie Akesson’s far-right Sweden Democrats Party, largely due to the backlash. Taking 17 percent of the parliament vote, Sweden’s Prime Minister Stephen Lofven’s Swedish Social Democrats face possible loss of his governing coalition. But whatever the situation in Stockholm, the European Parliament and European Commission face some tough choices potentially driving Orban and Polands’s Andrej Duda’s out of the EU. Orban, Akesson and Duda know that the EU caused the worst humanitarian crisis since WW II backing the seven-year-old Saudi proxy war in Syria.
Orban finds no criticism from President Donald Trump, whose own anti-immigrant views have drawn constant criticism from Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron. Yet the EU hasn’t accepted that it’s seven-year support of the Saudi proxy war in Syria caused the refugee crisis, leaving 12 million Syrian scrambling to neighboring countries and Europe. EU leaders like Merkel and Macron like to blame Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for causing the crisis, when, in fact, the Saudi proxy war funded various rebel groups to topple his Damascus government. Even to this day, with Syria, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah poised to wipe out remaining rebel groups, the EU still backs the Saudi proxy war. Neither the U.S. nor EU has admitted that al-Assad has beaten back the insurgency. U.N. 71-year-old Syrian Envoy Staffan de Mistura continues to back the Saudi proxy war.
Orban has taken a firm stand on EU pressure to take more Mideast and North African refugees. “Whatever your decision will be, Hungary will not accede to this blackmail. Hungary will protect its borders, stop illegal immigration, and defend its rights,” said Orban, sounding much like Trump across the Atlantic. “Hungary is going to be condemned because Hungarian people have decided that the country is not going to be a country of immigrants,” Orban told the European Parliament. European Parliament President Tajani hopes to get two-thirds of the 750-member body to sanction Hungary for noncompliance on refugee policy. “Do your really believe that any country . .. can survive on its own without help, without the solidarity and cooperation of other countries?, asked Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose country has take more than its share of refugees.
Infuriating the EU, Hungary passed a law in June making it a crime to aid-and-abet any immigrant without proper documentation. Hungary’s parliament amended the state’s constitution to say that an “alien population” cannot be settled in Hungary. Together with Orban’s crackdown on Hungary’s free press and non-profit sector, the EU has considered invoking Article7 of the Lisbon Treaty, essentially saying Hungary no longer supports basic EU values and must leave the 29-nation economic bloc. Instead of singling out Hungary, the EU would spend its time more wisely reconsidering its support of the Saudi proxy war that caused the flood of immigrants into Europe. While it’s natural the some EU states are more refugee-friendly, it doesn’t mean that the ones that aren’t should be sanctioned. What works in Germany, Italy or Greece, doesn’t necessarily work in Hungary, the Czech Republic or Poland.
Instead of mobbing Hungary for its lack of compliance with liberal EU immigration policies, the EU should take a serious look at it’s obligation under the Lisbon Treaty to recognize the unique autonomy of each country joining the 29-member economic bloc. Merkel and Macron have created so much bad will over immigration, it’s left certain EU countries, including the U.K., to get out. Italy’s anti-immigration Interior Minister Matteo Salvani said he would oppose any attempt to sanction Hungary. Austria’s 32-year-old Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said he would back a vote to bring Orban into compliance with the European Parliament’s refugee policy. “We believe there are no compromises on the rule of law and democracy,” Kurz told ORF TV. When it comes to “democracy,” doesn’t Hungary have a right to its own refugee policies, without the EU pulling rank?
