EU Moves To Exploit Orbán’s Loss

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s defeat is shaping up as a victory for the European Union, which is poised to ratchet up the superstate’s powers over its once-sovereign member nations. The polls had barely closed in Hungary when the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, vowed to “use the momentum” from Mr. Orbán’s loss to consolidate the EU’s control over the Continent’s relations with the rest of the world.Hmmm. The way Mrs. von der Leyen frames the power grab is “moving to qualified majority voting in foreign policy” as “an important way to avoid systemic blockages.” In short, it means removing the veto power now held by individual member-states of the EU. That would mark a dramatic break with the tradition of nations like, say, Italy, France, Spain, or Poland forging their own foreign policy based on their interests as decided by their voters.Mrs. von der Leyen’s eagerness to steamroll over dissent in the EU’s policy-making bodies stems in part from Mr. Orbán’s long run of opposition on foreign policy. In recent years, Hungary has rejected admitting Ukraine into the EU, while also blocking efforts to halt Russian energy imports. Mr. Orbán, too, has acted to delay EU aid to Kyiv, and has been thwarting the superstate’s proposed loan of 90 billion euros to underwrite Ukraine’s war effort against Russia.It’s not our intention to weigh the merit of Mr. Orbán’s moves. It is our intention to note that the EU’s member states could come to regret the change of policy on this head. This point is marked by Politico, which reports that Mrs. von der Leyen’s proposal is likely to prove “highly controversial.” That’s because “even some typically pro-EU countries” are, in Politico’s telling, “likely to balk at the prospect of losing control of foreign policy.”France, for one, has generally been “categorically opposed to abandoning the unanimity rule” when it comes to, say, sanctions, reports the pro-EU Jacque Delors Institute. Its Guillaume Duval reckons that countries like France “fear that in future they will lose their own veto power in matters of foreign and security policy.” The powers wielded by a “qualified majority,” or 55 percent of EU states and 65 of the EU’s populace, he adds, “are in practice very broad.”A shift away from unanimity forces these nations, some of which once possessed globe-spanning empires, to confront “the possibility of having to wave through decisions they oppose,” Politico reports. As the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum approaches, one could well imagine that Britons are heaving a sigh of relief over having extricated themselves from the clutches of the EU and reasserted the independence — sovereignty — of the UK.In 1988, Margaret Thatcher, in her Bruges speech, called it “ironic” that even as the Soviets were “learning that success depends on dispersing power and decisions away from the centre,” some in Europe “want to move in the opposite direction.” She warned: “We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.”Britain’s premier, Sir Keir Starmer, shows scant cognizance of that concern, as witnessed by his recent moves to strengthen ties with Brussels. That would amount to a betrayal of the promise of Brexit. As for Mrs. von der Leyen, she is crowing of Mr. Orbán’s defeat as “a day to celebrate” and “a victory for fundamental freedoms.” Such talk is belied by the prospect of further encroachment by the EU on the sovereignty of the nations of Europe.

EU Moves To Exploit Orbán’s Loss

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