VISEGRAD ABROAD EU PRESIDENCIES
THE HUNGARIAN COUNCIL PRESIDENCY: AN EVALUATION
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PIOTR MACIEJ KACZYŃSKI
fter six long months, the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union ended in glory on the last day of June of 2011. Croatian accession negotiations to the EU have now officially closed. The next phase will involve drafting the accession treaty, followed by a referendum in Croatia and ratification in the EU’s 27 national parliaments. After all that, on the 1st of January 2013, Croatia will hopefully become the EU’s 28th Member State. This will probably be the legacy of the Hungarian Council presidency. SIX MONTHS BEFORE In January of 2011, when Hungary took over the presidency of the Council of the European Union, expectations in Brussels and other European capitals were either low or extremely low, and the mood rather somber. There was strong criticism of Budapest concerning its new media law. People were also thinking about a series of rather alarming facts, which 66
taken together appeared to provide little hope. First of all, the country had almost gone bankrupt eighteen months earlier and needed a bailout brokered by the EU and the IMF. Furthermore, in late spring of 2010, the newly elected government had challenged the terms of these loans from international institutions, and the same government has struggled in dealing with the dramatic economic situation. In addition, alongside the government, with its constitutional majority, a new extreme right wing force appeared on the Hungarian political scene: Jobbik. The anti-Roma radicalism of this party, coupled with the structural weakness (or, as some put it, intellectual and ideological bankruptcy) of the Hungarian left, put Mr. Orban’s Fidesz in a semi-monopoly position in parliament. The socio-economic situation of the Roma minority has remained an issue across the Union. The issue became particularly visible three months before the Hungarian presidency when France expelled a number of Roma migrants from Central and Eastern Europe. Finally, just a few weeks before the start of the presidency, the
VISEGRAD INSIGHT 1|2012