Mr. Orbán sees no reason to give in to the EU on the CEU affair

HUNGARY - In Brief 26 May 2017 by Istvan Racz
Well, events on Hungary do not seem to proceed in the EU's preferred way, to say the least. And even though it is still hard to say at which point, if ever, a real conflict with immediate consequences will develop between Hungary's Fidesz government and its Western European partners, the Hungarian side is definitely pushing the affair in that direction, energetically and apparently with no self-restraint whatsoever.As a reminder, it was about a month ago that the European People's Party (EPP), Fidesz' party family in the European Parliament, said after its leaders met PM Orbán, that the latter promised them to reverse his legal amendment called the 'lex-CEU' , and to do so in a short while (a one-month deadline was mentioned by some speakers). Somewhat separately, the EU Commission launched a breach-of-law procedure against Hungary on the same subject, claiming that the 'lex-CEU' runs against EU regulation, and setting May 26 as a deadline, until which the Hungarian government was expected to explain its position.As it happened most lately, the respective Hungarian ministry sent a response to the EU Commission on May 25. In this, it said that (a) they see no point in reversing 'lex-CEU'; (b) so far the EU has not said anything, on the basis of which 'lex-CEU' would run against EU regulation.Without taking position on the affair itself, this did not sound very remorseful. On the contrary, it sounded like an invitation to go deeper into the conflict. Quite frankly, Mr. Orbán appears to be making fool of the EPP, who should be suspected to have bad memories or of being genuine cowards if they leave this letter from Hungary without a proper response. It is well known, of c...

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