Last week, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán declared a “huge victory”. He hadn’t won an election, but, in a sense, he could claim to have won something equally important: scope to maintain the additional power he’s amassed.
The various EU countries had been in a long debate about financing the coronavirus recovery, and Orbán had gone into the talks threatening to veto a decision that tied loans and grants to democratic values. In the end, the deal reached early on 21 July tasked the commission with proposing measures to prevent the funding going to countries with rule-of-law breaches, and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “Protecting our budget and the respect for the rule of law go hand in hand”. But the compromise that was struck also left open questions about how exactly the new system will play out, including the potential for the European Council of EU leaders to block or tone down action.
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