As the saying goes - "you get to know yourself by living".
Exactly twenty years ago, on May 1, 2004, Hungary joined the European Union. In the confirmation referendum held more than a year earlier, 84 percent of Hungarian voters said yes to integration. We can safely say: the accession was surrounded by a national consensus.
At the beginning of the European project, Jean Monnet stated that what Europe is now undertaking is actually "a journey towards an unknown destination".
We Hungarians were in a similar situation when we decided to join. We knew that the European Union existed. We knew that "it's the West". We tried to find out, we participated in the preparatory negotiations, there were those who took the trouble and chewed their way through the already extensive literature on integration, or it was only during their trips to the West that they developed some idea of what kind of Europe this is, where we can finally enter . But the goal remained unknown. We didn't know, because we couldn't know what EU existence is like in practice, and where the newest political innovation of the old continent, the union, is going. However, it is already possible to take stock from the perspective of twenty years.
Here are five lessons:
1. The 2004 enlargement is the last successful undertaking of the European Union.
The 2004 enlargement is a clear joint success of the Western states and the newly joined Central European countries. Just one fact here: the newly joined countries have grown twice as fast as the old member states in the last 20 years. This is an outcome that is good for everyone. It is good for the European project as a whole, since the new members have dynamized Europe's economy. It is good for the new member states, as they were able to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the accession. And it is also good for the old member states, since their companies and investors were able to take advantage of the growth in the East. Eastward expansion is proof that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
However, it is sad that the Eastern enlargement is also the last successful project of the EU. All you need to do to support this is to visit the official website of the European Union. There, in the timeline dividing the history of integration into decades, every decade carries some positive message, except for one.
Peace in the fifties, economic boom in the sixties, etc. But while the 2000s, according to the official website, were about further expansion, the 2010s received the first negative label: "A challenging decade." A real EU euphemism that hides reality. In the decade left behind, the EU was in crisis, and it was such a long decade that, if we look at it this way, it has not ended to this day. The last success was the accession of Hungary and the other regional countries.
2. In the past two decades, the European Union has become Hungary's natural political environment.
What was once a journey into the unknown has now become an everyday reality and an ordinary practice.
We learned how the European Union works and learned to navigate its hidden paths. And we are able to use this knowledge for the benefit of Hungary. Unfortunately, the learning phase lasted a little longer for us than for the other participating countries. It is peculiar that under the government of the political force that considers itself to be the most European, the leader of the left who is now openly campaigning for the United States of Europe, we have lagged the most in development.
In roughly the first five years of integration, in the Gyurcsány-Bajnai period, we had the lowest economic growth. Already in 2007, before the financial crisis, the Hungarian economy almost stagnated, while the Slovaks, Lithuanians and Latvians grew by 10 percent, the Poles by 7 percent, and the Czechs by almost 6 percent. And then, during the crisis, we had the biggest decline among the V4 countries. We have largely overcome this backlog by now, but it hurts to think where we would be if we had not started at a disadvantage in the first place. If only because after Covid, the Hungarian one was one of the biggest rebounders in the region. The fact that only our exports increased more than two and a half times between 2004 and 2023 speaks for itself, mainly thanks to the European Union markets. Joining created an opportunity that would have been a shame to miss.
3. We got Europe back, and with it the natural challenges of Hungarian European policy returned.
The fact that we have recognized the operation of the EU, that we have regained our natural political environment, necessarily carries with it a kind of disenchantment. At the time, we thought that by joining we would be in a hurry, and all our problems would be solved in one fell swoop. But we already know that Madách was right: "The goal is death, life is a struggle/And the goal of man is this struggle itself."
In his prose: on the one hand, visiting and learning about the regular and hidden ways of European functioning is no longer an object of desire, but a daily job and often a soul-killing duty. On the other hand, as the saying goes, "you get to know yourself by living".
And this is just as true for lovers moving in together as it is for the Europa house. It turned out that the old experiences of Hungarian history related to the western half of Europe do not only belong on the pages of history books, since they have not passed away: they are very much present.
Condescending voices of perceived civilizational superiority are heard more than once from the West.
Brussels, located across the Meuse River, does not like our decisions stemming from our specific national values, just as Vienna, once located across the Lajta River, does not like it. As in the past, they want to rewrite our legal system, they want to have a say in what can be included in the Hungarian constitution, they want to impose their ideas, which they think are more advanced, on us. The task is the same today as it was in the past. Although the most beautifully decorated pages of the cause of Hungarian freedom are written about freedom struggles, we achieved the greatest successes in legal battles: in royal inscriptions and April laws, bulls and decrees. There is nothing to worry about, we are "professionals" in this, so to speak.
4. Europe is no longer master of itself, it cannot find its place in the world.
And the education wrapped in civilizational superiority is unjustified if only because that certain civilizational superiority is becoming more and more worn out. By 2024, it became clear that Europe will not be able to maintain its leading role in the world order that is coming after us. Just one figure is enough for this: significant economic growth is expected in other major geopolitical power centers of the world in the coming years.
In China it is around 4 percent, in the USA it is over 2 percent per year. Europe, on the other hand, can be happy if it can increase its own economic growth above one percent. Looking at the structure of growth, we see that without the countries of the Eastern enlargement, not even this much would be possible: we will save the honor of the uniform. However, this is only the minor problem. We get some, in fact, more and more training, extortion, office packing, legal and economic indignity. We don't like it, of course, we're not happy about it, but we're used to it, we can handle it. However, the consciousness of civilizational superiority does not stand up to the outside world either. Europe is becoming less important, and if it is even condescending, if it makes economic and political decisions on an ideological basis, it will only make its situation worse.
The changed situation requires a changed role perception on the part of the old continent. It should strive for a role that does not separate us from the rest of the world, but connects us. Which makes the rest of the world not an enemy, but - if not an ally, but - a predictable partner. If he could find his place in this coming world order, he could avoid his own insignificance. Europe must learn to relate to the world in this way within the foreseeable future, and the cheapest way to learn this is from us, the Hungarians.
5. We must save ourselves and Europe!
No matter how much we Hungarians feel that if Brussels in Pökhend eats what it has cooked, let the house fall on it, it would be a mistake for us to come to this conclusion. Our fate with the European Union was not only due to the fact of integration, but also due to geographical, economic, cultural and civilizational reasons. If the ship sinks, we sink with it. Of course, it is our duty to do everything we can to prepare a good lifeboat, but tossing and turning in a lifeboat in stormy seas is not the same as on an ocean liner. Therefore, the wisest thing to do is to remove the captain before he steers Europe's ship like an iceberg. And the opportunity to do so is just now, more than twenty years after the accession.
In the past twenty years, not only has the European Union lost its magic, we have not only recognized its functioning, but we have also found allies in the West with whom we can set a new direction for the European project. More precisely, we can redirect you back to the correct direction in which you were moving at the moment of our connection. Towards a European Union in which the internal dynamics of the community are not fed by federalizing, i.e. imperial aspirations cloaked in a sense of civilizational superiority, but by mutually beneficial cooperation between nations, the framework of which is provided by the institutions of the union. This means a change not only in internal attitude, but also in external posture.
Today, in terms of its foreign policy, Europe has been hijacked again, but this time it has found its place not on the back of a bull-like Greek god, but on the back of a Wall Street mascot.
From there, he educates the rest of the world and us - even though he is not master of himself: he goes where the bull of Wall Street takes him. Right now, we are in a bloody conflict threatening a third world war, with which the majority of Europeans, but the Hungarians as a whole, certainly have nothing to do with it. Thank you, we don't ask for it! The next European Parliament election is the best opportunity for the people of Europe to regain control over their own continent and their own future. Europe is here, and so are we. Away with your hands!
The author is the political director of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
Featured image: Balázs Orbán/Facebook
