Why it’s a bad idea to kick Hungary out of the EU

Hungary’s role within the European Union has recently become, to put it mildly, a nuisance. The member state has become the blackest of sheep amongst fellow nations, with the government of Viktor Orbán pursuing a profoundly illiberal path that has put him on a collision course with the EU.

During his almost 15 years in power, Orbán has undertaken a policy of taking over public institutions and consolidating his power in a profound rejection of liberal democracy, openly advocating for a form of ‘illiberal democracy’. A Centre for American Progress article laid out how he has gone about this. The new 2011 constitution allowed Orbán to ensure his party’s consistent retention of electoral power through electoral manipulation and re-drawing of boundaries. His party acquired numerous state media outlets and brought the judiciary under partisan-political oversight, threatening the concept of the rule of law. This has created an autocratic system of government in Hungary that has violated liberal democratic principles.

These actions have led to EU sanctions and punishment due to Hungary’s violations of the rule of law, suspending 6.3 billion euros of EU funds to Hungary in 2022 for the country’s violations of the rule of law, which contradict the central pillars of the EU. These suspensions of funds were designed to economically twist Hungary’s arm into reforming its constitution to reverse the anti-democratic reform, due to its reliance on this funding post-Covid.

However, it has not worked, and if anything has simply antagonised Hungary even more.

The suspended funds have become a sort of bargaining chip within the wider strategic planning of the EU’s foreign policy, namely regarding Ukraine. To provide significant support and funding to the country in its fight against Russia, the EU requires unanimity amongst member states, as it does with all matters of foreign policy. This has allowed Hungary to repeatedly veto military aid packages to Ukraine covering 50 billion euros in 2024, forcing individual members to act independently in supporting Ukraine. In exchange, Orbán has demanded concessions on EU funding to Hungary, using the Ukraine situation to his advantage, adopting a more pro-Russian stance.

This has vastly weakened the EU’s ability to act decisively as one bloc during the Ukraine war, Hungary acting as a hinderance and thus causing the Union to slog through rounds of internal negotiations and bargaining before any decisive action can be taken. How can the EU be expected to act as a truly influential and united bloc with these kinds of divisions; one member state being able to extort the entire union? This has led to some to call for the EU to remove Hungary from the Union for its failure to comply with its core principles, both due to its illiberal policy turn and blockage of EU foreign policy objectives.

One The Hill article argues for a full suspension of Hungary’s voting rights, since there is no legal mechanism for full expulsion. This would stop Hungary’s ability to block significant pieces of foreign policy, enabling the EU to be a more united bloc and potentially force Hungary to decide between leaving the EU or removing Orbán from office.

While in the short term, this may seem like an appealing concept, its long-term effects could potentially be catastrophic.

If voting rights were suspended, it is difficult to predict how Hungary would react. Despite Orbán’s Eurosceptism, the Hungarian public is positive about the EU, and therefore it is hard to predict whether the public would vote to leave the EU or remove Orbán. However, given Orbán’s unparalleled control over the media and decade long electoral successes, it is certainly possible that he could manipulate the situation to trigger Article 50 and Hungary’s exit from the Union. If this were to happen, one LSE Blog article explains how it would mean the EU would lose its influence over the state, thus removing previous restrictions on Orbán’s authoritarian instincts and allowing him to go further violating core democratic principles. Additionally, given Orbán’s warm approach to Moscow and admiration of Putin, it would be likely that Hungary would move into Russia’s sphere of influence and away from the EU. Removing Hungary from the EU would therefore likely gift Russia a new ally in Orbán and worsen Hungary’s already fragile democratic situation, being consequences certainly not advantageous to the EU.

More than this though, expelling Hungary could also expose an institutional weakness within the EU and its fragility as a bloc. Hungary, despite its deep democratic flaws, elected Orbán, and given the rise of the far-right across Europe over the last decade, who knows how many Orbán’s could potentially rise. In France, for example, the National Rally is polling first place for the 2027 Presidential election, a party who has historically advocated for a far more Eurosceptic policy and whose leader, Marine le Pen, has been somewhat warmer towards Putin than many would find comfortable. The AfD in Germany came second in February’s elections and has been accused of trying to spread Russian narratives regarding the war.

If one member state elects a leader of a more Eurosceptic nature, who's to say that that leader does not pursue a similar path to Orbán, and is subsequently removed? How many times would the cycle repeat itself? Would the EU just have to simply admit defeat each time and boot each member state out until there were no countries left?

Orbán is not an isolated figure, he is part of the wider right-wing resurgence across the globe advocating for a more autocratic system of government, most obviously seen with Donald Trump’s return to the White House in 2024. The EU must therefore be prepared to step up and adapt to these challenges to survive. It must evolve its mechanisms and institutions to engage member states in new and innovative ways, to bring about new ways for the Union to act flexibility and decisively without being hindered by single member states.

This is what the EU must aspire to if it is to whether the far-right Eurosceptic storm that is coming its way. The EU remains as a remarkable achievement, a supranational body able to enforce democratic norms and principles at a supranational level and co-ordinate European nations to avoid large-scale conflict from ever returning to the continent. Booting Hungary out due to political differences would do little to help reinforce these goals in the long term. Rather, Orbán should be viewed as a challenge to institutionally strengthen and reform the EU, pushing it to seek out creative solutions to exercise a more decisive foreign policy.