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Whether there is the political will to achieve the required unanimity to effect expulsion remains unclear.
Does it remain unclear? Especially considering that the far right won a fairly large chunk of the Parliament seats in the latest election, it seems to me there has been comparatively very little interest in doing anything about Hungary or safeguarding Europe against autocracy
The fundamental problem with expulsion is that it changes the persecution narrative from being complete bullshit, to being arguable.
Hungarians need to sort Orban out, the exact same as the French with their fascists, and Germany, and Italy, and...need I go on?
There is no good play here, but it requires all Europeans to remember that we beat them before, and we sure as fuck will beat them again as long as people get involved.
They need some form of reciprocity: if you restrict these and these laws, we will restrict this and this influence in the block until you go back. e.g. you end independent media? We block you from owning any media in EU. You open the doors to visa-free russian citizens, lose access to Schengen. You take giant loans from China? Lose access to cohesion funds. You jerrymander your elections to the extreme? No votes in EU parliament/council for you...but proportional and reversible to provide an incentive to go back to normal at least a bit...obviously IANAL
PS: I mean, look at Ukraine: "you block our military aid? We block your gas."
Oh absolutely. I'm not saying that they should be allowed to do whatever and face no repercussions, just that the more severe they are, the more they can be weaponised by populists.
The thing is though that no matter what the EU does populists will weaponise it, and very often it doesn't even have to have anything but the most tenuous of connections to reality. All the small "sanctions" against Hungary (mainly temporarily withholding funds) have already been painted by Orbán as unjustified attacks.
The persecution narrative is there, and while yes expulsion might play into it, just about literally everything else the EU could do to Hungary would also play into it – and even if we did let Orbán do what he wants, he'd still spin the same story about the evil EU keeping Hungary down because right wing extremists always need an external enemy.
Personally I think that freezing Hungary's EU funding and political participation in the Parliament, Council and similar institutions might be for the best. Not an expulsion, but basically telling them that until they get their shit together they won't get to benefit from Union money or influence its direction
There was an article I can't find from a year or so ago where a few libertarians were arguing that Bexit instead of giving them more freedom, took away from it, because they realized that the EU tended to limited the power of national governments to go on populist rampages on the left or the right, because the EU institutions average and balance between interests. I think they are right and if the EU were to turns...uh...fascist...by then the well would already be poisoned in most countries anyway.
Why doesn't Orbán form a union with Putin? – Polish Foreign Ministry hits back at Orbán's speech in Baile Tusnad ---- (Archived link)
Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski reacted to the Hungarian Prime Minister's speech delivered on Saturday in Baile Tusnad:
Why doesn't Orbán form a union with Putin and some other similar authoritarian states? If you don't want to be part of a club, you can always leave it."
[...]
[Bartoszewski] added that the Hungarian government is currently clearly pursuing an anti-EU, anti-Ukrainian and anti-Polish policy. The Polish politician recalled that Viktor Orbán is currently blocking the two billion zlotys (nearly 468,000 euros) that Poland is supposed to receive from the EU as a reimbursement for Polish military supplies delivered to Ukraine.
[...]
Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu had also commented on Viktor Orbán's Saturday speech earlier, wryly asking: "Did he say anything about Romania? Do they want me to forbid him to come to Romania?"
Well, the intro was nice:
Fidesz has rigged Hungary’s elections, packed its courts, and violated its citizens’ human rights.
So, we have a culprint. But how will expelling the whole country help it's citizens?
It's like throwing bathwater out along with the baby.