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
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