Orban and the revolt against European liberalism

(jm and es) London/ Brussels/ Vienna.  June 30, 2021

A long-overdue article in the London Guardian of June 24, 2021 looks into the revolt against liberalism in Hungary and Poland.

“In the summer of 1992, a 29-year-old Hungarian with political ambitions made his first visit to the US. For six weeks he toured the country with a coterie of young Europeans, all expenses paid by the German Marshall Fund, a thinktank devoted to transatlantic cooperation.

America had long fascinated Viktor Orbán, but he seemed disengaged and unaffected as the group walked around downtown Los Angeles, which was still reeling from the Rodney King riots two months earlier….”

See also interview with Radek Sikorski, former Polish foreign minister, now MEP and the now seminal Atlantic article by his wife historian Anne Applebaum about a New Year’s Party party for friends in December 31, 1999. Her recent book Twilight of Democracy exposes how far the European project has been distorted since the collapse of Communism in 1989.

NYT article on Applebaum book – “Why intellectuals support dictators”

The Hungarian website Political Capital  has made a useful study of authoritarian shadows in the EU and explored how this has been reflected and exploited in the media. Political Capital has also tracked MEPs and their voting record.

AEJ on EU’s open conflict with Orban and his allies.