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Hungary is no longer a democracy, Poland is about
to go down the same path, democracy in the Balkans is eroding
because of Chinese and Russian influence, and the EU is doing
nothing to stop it all, according to the NGO Freedom House’s latest
Nations in Transit report, out Wednesday.
In the study, which covers 29 countries from
Central Europe to Central Asia, the authors describe “a stunning
democratic breakdown,” saying that there are “fewer democracies in
the region today than at any point since the annual report was
launched in 1995.”
According to the report’s methodology, Hungary is
now a “hybrid regime,” having lost its status as a
“semi-consolidated democracy” due to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s
continued assaults on the country’s democratic institutions.
The adoption of an emergency law that allows the
government to rule by decree indefinitely, brought in after the
coronavirus pandemic struck, “has further exposed the undemocratic
character of Orbán’s regime,” the authors wrote, adding that
“Hungary’s decline has been the most precipitous [they have] ever
tracked.”
Poland isn’t far behind, according to the report,
which says there have been spectacular attacks on the judiciary by
the ruling Law and Justice party.
And Brussels gets much of the blame.
“Neither Poland nor Hungary has faced
repercussions for damaging the rule of law at home, and Hungary’s
ruling Fidesz party has even remained a member of the mainstream
European People’s Party, the largest grouping in the European
Parliament,” according to the report, adding that U.S. President
Donald Trump has also “failed to stand up for democracy in the
region.”
In response, Zoltán Kovács, Hungary’s secretary of
state for international communication and relations, said on Twitter
that Freedom House “was once known as the bipartisan human rights
organization. With their [George] Soros funding they’ve declined,
becoming the fist of the party that is the Soros network. Anyone who
doesn’t conform to their liberal view, gets downgraded.”
The report also has serious concerns about the
Balkans.
“Years of … strongman tactics employed by
Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia and Milo Đukanović in Montenegro have
tipped those countries over the edge,” it says. “For the first time
since 2003, they are no longer categorized as democracies.”
The assessment comes on the day of an EU-Balkans
summit, which was supposed to be held in Croatia but will now take
place over videolink.
The Freedom House report says foreign influence
has been a destabilizing factor.
“In addition to Russia’s continued malign
influence, China has been advancing an ambitious foreign policy in
practically all of the region’s 29 countries,” the authors say.
“Xi Jinping’s regime is not so much spreading its
own one-party model as it is spreading its influence … taking
advantage of institutional weaknesses, and wedging itself into
corrupt political and economic structures.”
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