How Hungary and Poland could shatter the EU’s power

Is the EU about to shatter? There is increasing talk of it after the bloc’s well-publicised difficulties with Poland and Hungary in the last week or so. This is almost certainly premature: nevertheless, the events are significant, and even if they do not break the EU they could precipitate some profound changes.

For some time, undeclared guerrilla war has subsisted between the EU and its two maverick eastern members. Both face multiple court complaints from Brussels about what it sees as rule of law issues and they see as their internal affairs. Hungary is facing allegations of infringement of media freedom and LGBT rights, Poland on stated threats to judicial independence and the supremacy of EU law. Both states also face relentless political sniping from an EU that detests their elected ruling parties. They also risk losing billions in EU funding unless they submit, the latter threat backed by judgments of a traditionally pro-centrist and anti-nationalist European Court of Justice.

Last week Warsaw and Budapest made it clear that, while they were prepared to negotiate on the EU’s reformist demands, their patience with Berlaymont was wearing thin. Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán pointedly remarked that the country was, in the next few years, set to become a net EU contributor; once it was, its continued support could not be taken for granted by any overweening Brussels apparatchik. Meanwhile Jarosław Kaczyński, ex-minister and Polish government de facto leader, said that given EU refusals to compromise on the issue of judicial appointments, Warsaw now had ‘no reason to fulfill its obligations’ to the bloc.

Who is right in law in these disputes is a side issue; it is the political fallout that matters. In both Poland and Hungary the opposition has played the EU break-up card, accusing the government of working towards an acrimonious ‘Polexit’ or ‘Huxit’. In Hungary, indeed, opposition politicians have formally called for either a constitutional change to stop the ruling Fidesz party from leaving the EU without a referendum, or an actual referendum to confirm membership once and for all.

Threats of EU breakup are overblown hype. Whatever politicians may say, for either state to leave without the support of a referendum is politically unthinkable. With nearly 70 per cent of Hungarians, and over 80 per cent of Poles, reportedly identifying as remainers the chances of this are nil. Although there is a small Huxit party, a party running on a full Leave ticket would not, at least for the moment, pick up many votes in either country. Nevertheless last week’s events matter, and matter a good deal more than meets the eye. One group can look on the continuing presence of the eastern awkward squad with a good deal of satisfaction, and that is those who wish to reform the EU and make it more of a confederation than a superstate. This view may sound surprising, but there are a few good reasons to take it seriously.

First, there is a good deal of entirely legal EU devilment that states like Poland and Hungary can cause in Brussels as insiders. As Krzysztof Sobolewski, the Polish ruling party’s secretary-general, said on Monday, Warsaw may adopt a ‘tooth for a tooth’ strategy by vetoing EU initiatives on any matters requiring unanimity, generally making life difficult for the Commission.

More importantly, however, in the longer term Warsaw and Budapest’s ongoing indifference towards diktats from central EU institutions has the potential to bring down much of the political and social edifice on which the current EU regime rests. Up to now, it has depended on two factors. One is member states’ practice of largely unquestioning obedience to the law of an increasingly German-dominated EU, and to orders of the European Court. The other is acceptance by infighting national elites of western EU members that this is how it must be, even at the cost of a big chunk of national self-determination.

Both matters are existentially threatened by Poland and Hungary. Their elites joined the EU with all-too-fresh memories of demands for unquestioning obedience from outside, and had no intention of repeating the experience. As Jarosław Kaczyński put it last week, Poland saw the current EU demands as calculated to ‘break Poland and force it into full submission to Germany’; a week ago Viktor Orbán asserted the need to ‘take back’ the institutions in Brussels that overwhelmed national identity. Whatever the legal position, these assertions of national independence not only flatly contradict the view in the older EU states, but present considerable political and democratic appeal.

By calling Brussels’s bluff and claiming to choose which of the EU’s more wide-ranging demands they will obey, they have also demonstrated the EU’s actual lack of serious power in the face of intransigence. True, it can refuse to disburse EU cash – but while this may incline Poland and Hungary to negotiate on some matters, both nations rightly feel that there must be limits to their willingness to compromise their principles in exchange for mere cash, and a need at some point to make a stand.

Brussels will find it increasingly hard to ignore all this. It may be a bitter pill to swallow, but the indications are that in future it may well be forced to rely more on negotiation with member states as equals than peremptory legal demands based on abstract principle.

Of course, Brussels might try to console itself by seeing the contagion as limited to two outliers. But is it? Italian elections take place next month: the smart money is on the next prime minister coming from the Fratelli d’Italia party, whose attitude to the EU is probably as disrespectful as that of the ruling parties in Warsaw and Budapest. Reform may be coming sooner than Brussels thinks. Italy, Poland and Hungary in combination may succeed in forcing a Europe of nations on Brussels where David Cameron and others all failed. That would be a nice irony.