Hungary and the future of Europe

https://www.claremont.org/crb/article/hungary-and-the-future-of-europe/#.XNWcMj5hzUQ.facebook

"...Weber was expected to tell Orbán that he would be kicked out of the party if he did not fulfill three conditions: stop the poster campaign against his fellow party member Juncker, apologize, and let the CEU stay in Budapest.

Why was Weber willing to go out on a limb this way? Why would he risk throwing one of his most loyal party members overboard in the middle of an election campaign? There is a strategic answer to that. Merkel’s 2015 invitation to Middle Eastern migrants had put the EPP in a difficult position. Long the largest party in the E.U. parliament, and the dominant one, it could expect to be much smaller after 2019, since many of its conservatives, horrified by Merkel’s moves, would certainly flee for anti-immigration and nationalist groups. Eventually EPP would have to make coalitions, and it would have two basic choices: reuniting with schismatic nationalists and xenophobes, or seeking out new alliances with liberals and Greens. Most party members favored the latter option, as did Weber, who, in an interview with the hometown Süddeutsche Zeitung, ruled out working with Italy’s firebrand interior minister, Matteo Salvini, whom Orbán described last summer as a “hero.” The party was thus on the verge of repudiating the things that had induced Orbán and Fidesz to join it.

Whatever went on during Orbán and Weber’s discussion, the dénouement was shocking. Weber announced that Orbán’s Fidesz would be suspended from the EPP immediately and indefinitely. This meant it would lose its right to attend meetings, lose its vote on internal matters, and lose its right to nominate officers. A council of “wise men” would scrutinize the behavior of Fidesz to ensure that it upheld democratic norms and determine whether it merited being reinstated. Orbán said he would support the EPP in the coming elections, described the exclusion as a standard procedure that had been used in the past, and chatted cheerily through the press appearance that followed. But it was the most brutal comeuppance of his political career. How had it happened?

In the days leading up to the suspension, Weber’s proposals had taken on a very Bavarian edge. After consultation with Weber, the Technische Universität, located in the Bavarian capital of Munich, had agreed to host part of CEU’s operations, should Weber’s plans to keep CEU in Budapest fall through, and BMW would be a partner, too. It was if the EPP were maneuvering in Weber’s backyard, not Orbán’s.

And, in fact, it was. Whatever one thinks of the justice or injustice of the post-Cold War economic settlement in eastern Europe, the fact is that Hungary’s main role in the global economy is to supply cheap labor for the German auto industry. Thirty percent of Hungary’s foreign trade is with Germany, and Bavaria accounts for half of that. The average German auto worker gets €34 an hour, including benefits, the average Hungarian auto worker €9. You could almost make better money working at a kebab stand in Berlin. But industrial work in eastern Europe is in short and diminishing supply, and those who hold those jobs are grateful to have them.

On top of that, there are ominous rumbles that auto manufacturing is on the way out. Will plants be shut down and Hungarian workers laid off? Will Hungarians be stuck making dirty old cars at declining wages, while German workers, advanced by their powerful unions, get to build the sophisticated, high-value-added electric cars?

Hungary’s position on the border between the powerful economies of Germany and Austria, on the one hand, and some of the poorest parts of the ex-Soviet Empire, on the other, has created a wild demographic upheaval inside the country. You can tell how important the western connection is from the transformation of Sopron, a Hungarian border city from which one can easily commute to Vienna: since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Sopron has more than doubled in size.

The Audi plant at Györ, as noted, is the largest engine factory in the world, the Mercedes plant at Kecskemét is the company’s largest, and the Bosch plant in Miskolc is impressive. But it is the prospect of a new, billion-euro BMW plant, announced for the eastern city of Debrecen last summer, on which Hungarians have pinned all their hopes. Debrecen will be a center not just for assembly but also design and engineering, an economic magic bullet. And as early as last December, the Austrian newspaper Der Standard was urging BMW to put political pressure on Orbán to change his ways. Weber was not laying down the law in the name of Europe. He was laying down the law in the name of Germany—something that has happened often in Hungary’s history, though not for more than three quarters of a century..."

The best piece I've read on today's Hungary in a long time, by the great Chris Caldwell, and a fitting answer to this month's uncharacteristically sloppy The Atlantic cover story.

Another opinion
https://quillette.com/2019/05/15/seventy-five-years-later-hungary-still-hasnt-come-to-terms-with-its-role-in-the-holocaust/