Note on Hungary's accession to the European Union

Dátum: 2002-09-27 15:05:00, eredeti URL: http://archiv.fidesz.hu/index.php?Cikk=4522
KCMDB-be feltöltve: 2024-05-04 17:46:29.749624, Feltöltő: fidesz_hu_scraper_v2

Hungary's accession to the European Union is an issue of fundamental importance. In fact, it is probably the most important matter Hungary has to decide upon in the foreseeable future. Adequate preparation for membership is therefore a key national interest. Unfortunately, despite the ongoing accession negotiations with the European Union, the four-month record of the Medgyessy-government is strongly deficient in this respect.

Institutional dialogue between parliamentary parties concerning EU-related questions, practiced on a monthly basis under the previous government, has ceased to exist since the inauguration of Péter Medgyessy's cabinet. More importantly, policies and programs initiated by the Orbán-government, aimed at improving Hungary's competitiveness in the future EU-market, have also been terminated and canceled. In spite of campaign promises to continue and extend the assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises in their preparation for EU-membership within the framework of the Széchenyi Plan, the new government has in fact aborted the project. As a result, Hungarian enterprises will be less and less capable of meeting the conditions necessary to contract for tenders. Loan guarantees to farmers, introduced by the Orbán-government to help them keep up with their EU-colleagues from the moment of accession, have similarily been abandoned by the Medgyessy-government. Moreover, the new government has recently set an upper limit of gross 3 percent to wage increases in the private sector for the year 2003, in spite of the fact that employers would be willing to offer a higher rise in salaries. Such a low growth rate threatens with a price shock at the moment of accession, which may well place unbearable burden on many thousands of households.

Hence the three conditions put forward by Fidesz last week, to be met by the government in order to be able to count on the votes of the center-right opposition in the National Assembly at the forthcoming EU-related amendment of the Constitution:

- The government must return to the policy of supporting small and medium-sized enterprises. The Széchenyi Plan offered a viable framework for this policy, but other methods may also be found.

- The government must continue to finance the agricultural loan system to strengthen the Hungarian agriculture sector before accession.

- A more robust wage increase in the private sector is necessary for next year than the gross 3-percent rise offered by the Medgyessy-government. The current output of the Hungarian economy makes such an increased growth possible. The approximation of Hungarian wages to those of the EU is a process which the Orbán-government has started by increasing minimum wages in a radical and average wages in a significant manner.

These conditions are not domestic partisan issues of third and fourth significance, but national questions of strategic importance, essential to Hungary's successful EU-integration. In fact, placing partisan deliberations above overarching national ones is characteristic of the Socialists and the Free Democrats. It was MSZP and SZDSZ, then in opposition, which linked the amendment of the Constitution related to Hungary's NATO-accession to pure party politics in December 1998. Similarily, the very same parties declined to sign a six-party declaration in December 2001 which would have prevented EU-accession from becoming a topic of the approaching electoral campaign.

The current center-right opposition has vested confidence in the new government's policies, the best example of which was supporting the cabinet's summer social legislation package, and proposing the since adopted and long overdue harmonisation amendment of the two-thirds majority Media Law. However, when it comes to eliminating the results achieved during the last four years in the field of preparation for EU-accession, the debate is not about domestic policy issues of third and fourth significance any more, as the current government deems. We have entered a new era, where the border between domestic and European policy issues is increasingly blurred and anachronistic. The question is not whether, but how to enter the European Union. Hungary could accede successfully, or unsuccessfully. Core national interests are at stake, whether Hungarians as fresh EU-citizens will be profiting from a booming economy right after accession, instead of suffering from an enduring stagnation. The path chosen by the current social-liberal cabinet is leading toward the realisation of the latter and more somber scenario.

Ever since its foundation in 1988, Fidesz has been a party strongly dedicated to the European idea, a fact appreciated by the European People's Party in the year 2000 by admitting Fidesz among its ranks as an active and respected member. Accordingly, the Fidesz-led government of Viktor Orbán has proven its commitment in the last four years to the values represented by the European Union and to preparing the groundwork for Hungary's successful integration. The Orbán government had closed 24 accession chapters, and it was Hungary among the candidate countries that made the first breakthrough in the summer of 2001 with achieving compromise on the chapters related to the four liberties. These accomplishments have been highly appreciated by the EU's Commissioner for Enlargement, Mr. Günther Verheugen, at his meeting with former prime minister Orbán during his visit in Budapest in mid-July. The conditions attached to the amendment of the Constitution represent this very same commitment: as the amendment requires the a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, the opposition will make use of its constitutional powers to obtain guarantees that the parties of the government coalition will not bounce Hungary off the right track leading toward the European Union.

The recent Joint Declaration on questions related to Hungary's accession to the European Union, signed by the government and the parliamentary parties on 19 September 2002, is an important step in the right direction: the Declaration is explicitly outspoken on the issues Fidesz has been standing for, namely, the crucial need to support small and medium-sized enterprises and farmers, as well as on the primary and indispensable aim of approximating the living standards of Hungarian citizens to the average of those of the EU's citizens. The government and the parliamentary parties have agreed that accession negotiations must be pursued in a way that Hungary's financial balance, compared to the year preceding the accession, improve in the year following the enlargement. The Declaration also makes some precisions on procedural issues: the amendment of the Constitution must precede the referendum on accession, which in turn will be a binding, instead of an originally planned non-binding, referendum.

Fidesz is confident that this recent declaration may set the right course on which Hungary's successful accession might be achieved as a common accomplishment of all Hungarian political forces. However, action speaks louder than words: Fidesz will closely monitor the government's propositions for next year's budget, whether the concepts agreed upon in the Declaration will indeed be delivered upon.