EU Losers Push a More Hawkish EU Commission, as Hungary Hits Back

On June 27, the European Council formally approved the candidates for the three top jobs in the EU who had been proposed by the “Ursula majority” faction, referring to Ursula von der Leyen. Italy voted against Kaja Kallas, who was approved as High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Antonio Costa as President of the Council, and abstained on von der Leyen as Commission President. Hungary voted against all three.

If there was a way to make what was a bad Commission even worse, the nomination of Kallas to replace Josep Borrell did so. The Estonian Prime Minister is a rabid russophobe who backs Ukrainian membership in NATO. She is of the opinion that the optimal scenario of a defeat for Russia would result in the country’s dissolution. Russia is composed of “many different nations” that could become independent, and “it is not a bad thing if the big power is actually [made] much smaller,” she argued last year. She has also embraced the idea that at some point NATO countries may have to deploy troops into Ukraine to prevent defeat for Kyiv.

However, due to disunity in the European Council, there is still a chance that this Commission will not be approved by the European Parliament on July 18. Hungarian PM Viktor Orban has announced the formation of a new faction in the Parliament, named “Patriots for Europe”, which has been joined already by political parties from five nations. It needs seven in order to form a parliamentary faction.

In an editorial for the June 29 daily Magyar Nemzet, Orban explained his motivations. “Europe is in crisis. The European order is evaporating before our eyes… Europe’s ability to assert its interests in international politics has receded…”

He accuses the Brussels bureaucracy of “living in a bubble” and pushing Europe into a war in which “the continent has nothing to gain, but can easily lose everything. Yet it is a daily experience that nothing is too expensive for them in the matter of war. The bureaucrats in Brussels want this war, they see it as their own, and they want to defeat Russia. The money of the European people is constantly being sent to Ukraine, European companies have been shot in the foot with the sanctions, inflation has increased and millions of European citizens have been pushed into living difficulties.”

Since Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union as of July 1 for a term of six months, one can expect things will not go as smoothly as the “elite in Brussels” hope. In any case, Viktor Orban inaugurated his position with a bang by making a surprise visit to Kyiv on the very next day.