It's so very difficult to choose between the unspeakable and the uneatable!

I wonder if Hungary will be the undoing of the USE, not the PIIGS?  I ponder the question because, whilst I have picked up the odd bit of tittle-tattle concerning Hungarian affairs, I have failed to get round to studying it.  To this end I am grateful to Der Spiegel who have covered recent events in some detail in three recent articles.  I will be quoting from them indiscriminately but will provide their links at the end of this post.

In 2006 Hungary was ruled by a socialist administration that did what all socialist governments do when they get their hands on an exchequer – spend money like a drunken sailor!  The prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, was a millionaire socialist who began by giving civil servants a 50% pay rise and led the country to believe this sort of thing was possible for everyone.  Needless to say it wasn’t too long before reality crunched and smashed its way into some ministers’ minds, at least.  A private conference was ordered and Gyurcsány spelled out the fact that everything they were doing was simply unsustainable.  Many of his ministers refused to believe him and unfortunately a surreptitious recording was made of the PM’s words in which he admitted that in the election:

he and the party had lied to the people. "We lied in the morning, in the evening and at night."

With this made public, of course, the ruling coalition of socialists and liberals was crushed and a new nationalist party under the leadership of Viktor Orbán was formed.  So disastrous was the socialist defeat that Orbán was given a two thirds majority in parliament which has allowed him to pass some controversial laws including rewriting the Constitution.  He is intent on lowering the retirement age of judges so that he can replace them with appointees more sympathetic to his views:

A new media law intimidates critical journalists, and some have already been fired. Orbán has also enacted new laws that have forced the courts to bend to his will. He has reduced the powers of the country's Constitutional Court, and judges are now appointed by an agency headed by the wife of a fellow party member. Orbán now wants to force older judges -- in other words, those who were not appointed by his party -- into early retirement.

Well, the Hungarians voted for him, so in my opinion it is Hungarian business not ours, but such a laissez-faire attitude does not suit the pecksniffs and pox-doctors’ clerks in Brussels who are planning all sorts of legal attacks on the grounds that Orbán’s regime is undemocratic – ooops, sorry, did you just spew out coffee all over your keyboard?  And, yes, you are right, I, too, am thinking that the words ‘pot’, ‘kettle’ and ‘black’ come to mind.

Unfortunately for Orbán, and even more so for his people, it is rapidly becoming clear that he understands economics no better than his predecessor.  The country is broke and the Brussels bureaucrats are threatening to withhold a desperately needed loan.  However, they have yet to learn that you should never kid a kidder.  Orbán knows that if Hungary goes broke then so does Austria!  Or at least, its banks will implode because they have loaned fortunes to Hungary in recent years.

It will be fascinating to see how this story – tragedy? – unfolds.  However, what should concern us here is the sight of the USE wielding its truncheon over a nation which has a democratically-elected government.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,809669,00.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,809799,00.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,809434,00.html

ADDITIONAL:  And by one of those creepy coincidences, I click over to Cafe Hayek and read this as its 'Quote of the Day' 

… is from page 89 of the 1963 Van Nostrand edition, translated by Arthur Goddard, of Faustino Ballve’s 1956 book Essentials of Economics:

[N]ationalism inevitably leads to socialism, and socialism to nationalism.

 

Comments

[Whyaxye]

"what should concern us here is the sight of the USE wielding its truncheon over a nation which has a democratically-elected government."

Trouble is, we're getting used to it...

[David Duff]

Yes and it's often inertia which lets the rascals in!

[ortega]

Maybe you'll be interested on that thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCJ1PnVlzIE&feature=player_embedded

[David Duff]

Not sure what you mean by that one, Ortega - thermostats?

[dearieme]

I fare say that the eurocrats have one thing in common with the Hungarian opposition: they call themselves ex-communists. One can be sure of the "communist", less so of the "ex".

[ortega]

It seemed to me that you had a long battle with yours, never doing what they were expected to. But it looks I was wrong. Sorry.

[David Duff]

Ah, I see, Ortega, you were referring to my non-stop war with my old thermostat. Happily, the one good result of my 'flood' last year when my water-tank burst was that I had new heating controls installed, including a 'Thermostat for Idiots' which even I have succeeded in using. Not as smart as that one in the link but at least it is simple.

[dearieme]

This reminds me that we've had an untypically long time since our hot water tank failed. Hm.

(Hard water => low life, at least for hot water tanks.)

[David Duff]

DM, I have learned soemthing of the esoteric technology of hot-water-tanks. If they have those 'wotsit' rods going through them - apparently they attract to themselves some chemical in the water - they need to be changed very often. If they get too coated you can't always get them out!

My house is only 10 years old and so it has one of those pressurised water systems such that the airing cupboard looks like the boiler room of the Titanic! If you have one of those systems then make sure you have it serviced every year, especially the in-built thermostats and 'safety thingies' that automatically trip if something goes wrong. I did not do that because I just thought a water tank, like a love affair, was forever. It ain't! Something failed, in fact I think two things failed on my system and so the water over-heated and split the seams on the tank.

Mind you the new carpet looks very nice and I try not to think of the £1750 it cost for a new tank and all its 'gubbins'.

[Andrew Duffin]

"USE wielding its truncheon over a nation which has a democratically-elected government"

Unaccountably, you missed out the word "again".

So Hungary might join Italy and Greece in being ruled by EU Gauleiters then?

I don't know much about Hungarians, but I know enough to think they might just not put up with this...

And I too have never seen a better example of irony than the fact that the EU proposes to prosecute Hungary for "erosion of democracy". Hello? The EU? That well-known democratic organisation? Ha.

[David Duff]

I second that "Ha!"