A fundamental dispute over values divides the European Union at the Brussels summit. Hungary is in the pillory. But the conflict goes deeper – and appears threatening.
Angela Merkel was almost the only one who wanted to say something at 2:12 a.m. on Friday morning. “It was definitely a controversial, but very, very honest discussion,” said the Chancellor as she left the EU Council building in Brussels. For all that is known, it must have been a Merkelian understatement. At the EU summit, one of the last before the end of her chancellorship, the tatters flew.
The occasion was Hungary’s new law restricting information about homosexuality. For many EU states that was simply too much provocation from the corner of right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban. In any case, according to participants, the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was very fundamentally: “Viktor, if you do that, why are you staying in the EU?”
No progress with Corona
Like after a family row, nobody really knows what to do next. This EU summit has shown it: The club of 27 member states is so divided that one has to worry. At the same time, the 27 are perhaps more closely and fatefully interwoven than ever before. They have just started an unprecedented Corona build-up program with which gigantic sums are being redistributed and for which everyone wants to be responsible by 2058. The glory and misery of the EU, so close together.
Misery first. Even after hours of debate about the further fight against the corona pandemic, the 27 did not really get any further on Thursday afternoon. Merkel’s wish to better coordinate the defense of the dreaded Delta variant is at best half-heartedly reflected in the summit declaration. Basically, it remains the same: every government does its own thing when in doubt. Topic two was also just managing the stalemate: in the asylum and migration policies of the 27 states, nothing has been going together for years.
Dispute over Hungarian law: 24 to 3
And then the big row over Orban’s new law. Merkel and 15 of her colleagues had already publicly presented on Thursday and expressed concern about the fundamental values of the EU in a letter. Hungarian law prohibits publications dealing with non-heterosexual relationships that are accessible to children. Orban, in turn, took a stand before the summit began, which is rare, and denied all allegations. Discrimination? All wrong, it is about the protection of children and the parents’ right to bring up. He himself fights for homosexual rights, he shouted into the microphones.
Behind closed doors there were “hearty class wedges for Orban”, as one participant put it. A diplomat spoke of a 24 versus 3 dispute, because only Poland and Slovenia are said to have openly sided with Hungary – two countries that other member states also see as cross-drivers. Other diplomats saw more shades in the conflict. Apparently everyone felt the emotional force.
“We have known each other for eight years, but that affects me,” said Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, according to participants. Bettel has been married to a man since 2015. “I didn’t get gay, it’s me, it’s not a decision,” said the 48-year-old. His own mother has a problem with his sexual orientation and he has to live with that. But Orban’s law, it’s just a red line.
Merkel: “very profoundly different ideas”
Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa reminded that the EU is not the Soviet Union – you join voluntarily if you share its values. After the summit, Costa also publicly advocated the opposite conclusion: anyone who does not share the values cannot be a member of the EU.
So will the EU break on this question? Is Hungary going out? This is very unlikely for now. The EU wouldn’t be the EU if it didn’t have paragraphs and rules that break down such conflicts into digestible chunks. EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has already announced legal steps against Hungary and feels strengthened by the backing of most EU states. EU law has invented the word monstrous infringement proceedings for this. In the end there could be a ruling by the European Court of Justice.
If so, this will probably not be the last word. “There are very profoundly different ideas,” said Merkel. That is a “serious problem”. Should the Union grow closer and closer together? Or should it be a club of nation states that essentially determine their own line?
No progress in Russia either
The question leads to the other major, emotional issue at the summit: the EU’s position on Russia. In the face of the Geneva meeting between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Merkel tried to win over her EU colleagues for a similar format. This should not be a reward for Putin, whom the EU has accused of a never-ending series of corrosive and illegal actions since the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Merkel’s argument: If Biden can talk to Putin in Europe, then a strong EU should also be able to do so, and with one voice. In reality, however, this sovereign and unified EU does not exist. Merkel suffered a rebuff, which she admitted in her own sobriety when she appeared at 2.12 a.m.
After this summit night, everyone apparently had enough of the misery and was still polishing their shine a little. Pandemic under control, good economic prospects, Corona expansion program about to start. “We can say that we have come through the extraordinarily difficult situation well so far, in that we have acted courageously,” praised Merkel at the end of the summit.
The decisions on the development program were also made relatively quickly, said the Chancellor, who has been involved in the EU drama for almost 16 years. A year – that’s not exactly the speed of light in normal life. But it does show that the EU is still moving.
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