Law-Conservative Ideology of Orban’s Government the Main Reason for the Systemic Conflict between the EU and Hungary

Dmytro  Tkach

Law-Conservative Ideology of Orban’s Government the Main Reason for the Systemic Conflict between the EU and Hungary

Dmytro Tkach

Abstract

The Ukrainian-Russian war, which began on February 24, 2022, accelerated Ukraine’s process of becoming a member of the European Union. In recent months Kyiv approached one step closer to the EU membership. Of course, the path to full membership into the European Community is long and thorny. But today we must be aware of what difficulties and problems await Ukraine when it acquires this status. Therefore, the task of studying the experience of our neighbours, who have been within the EU and NATO since 2004, is extremely important and relevant for both domestic and foreign policy of Ukraine.The aim of the article is to analyze the experience of Hungary within the European Union and the problems and contradictions that have arisen between Budapest and Brussels during the years of Hungarian membership. It is also important to find out the causes of the conflict between the EU and Hungary in order to prepare the Ukrainian society and the government already today to prevent the recurrence of Hungarian mistakes. As a result of the analysis in this article of the influence of the rightwing conservative ideology of Viktor Orban`s government on Hungary’s relations with the EU, it was found, that this is the main cause of acute conflicts that arise from time to time between the parties. The European Union, whose main ideology is liberalism, absolutely does not accept the enshrinement in the Hungarian Fundamental Law that one religion is dominant in the country, the prerogative of the Hungarian national minority living abroad to demand collective rights, intolerance of same-sex marriages and doubts about the rights on abortion. It was also found that Hungary has had a dictatorship of the constitutional majority in the National Assembly since 2010, which allows Viktor Orban`s government to pass any laws in support of his course to establish illiberal democracy in the country. It is confirmed that despite sharp criticism from Brussels of the Hungarian government coalition’s policy, Budapest continues to pursue its policy of strengthening the governance of democracy and public sector reform towards centralization, returning to the conservative traditions of the Hungarian state, curtailing democratic governance and strengthening authoritarian trends. All this has led to the imposition of the EU sanctions on Hungary in the form of cuts in funding for certain programs, sharp criticism of the EU leaders, and even threats to terminate membership in the organization. The author used the following methods preparing the article: structural and functional; conflict theory; behaviorism; historical; informal (traditional) document analysis. Further research on this topic is promising due to Ukraine’s future membership in the EU. From a practical point of view, this article can be used in the activities of those government agencies that are currently working on Ukraine’s European integration into the EU, as well as units of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, which take care of further development of Ukrainian-Hungarian relations

Keywords

the European Union, Hungary, illiberal democracy, the Fundamental Law of Hungary

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Suggested citation

Tkach, D. (2022). Law-Conservative Ideology of Orban’s Government the Main Reason for the Systemic Conflict between the EU and Hungary. Foreign Affairs, 32(1), 9-15. https://doi.org/ 10.46493/2663-2675.32(1).2022.9-15