Hungary looking to redefine its NATO membership

 Orbán seeks to ensure non-participation in missions outside of the defense alliance’s territory.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said his country was looking to redefine its membership in NATO. | Janos Kummer/Getty Images

MAY 24, 2024 6:47 PM CET

BY PIERRE EMMANUEL NGENDAKUMANA

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Friday his country was looking to redefine its membership in NATO to ensure the country cannot be involved in operations outside of the military alliance's territory.

"Now a new term has been invented to describe the Hungarian position in NATO, it is called non-participation. We are not a participant now," Orbán said in an interview with Kossuth Radio, according to a report by Hungarian news portal Telex.

"There is the term opt-out ... If we were opt-outs, our participation in NATO's military structure, our position, would change,” Orbán was quoted as saying.

The Hungarian leader said lawyers are working on how Hungary can exist as a member of NATO and not participate in the alliance’s action outside NATO territory, according to the report.

"There's no question of NATO getting involved in wars outside its territory, with non-NATO countries," Orbán was quoted as saying.

Orbán — who has maintained close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin even after Moscow ordered an all-out invasion of Ukraine — has also said Russia cannot win the war against Ukraine. "If the Russians were strong enough to defeat the Ukrainians in one go, they would have been defeated; but that's not what we are seeing," he said.

The Hungarian prime minister added that Russia won’t attack the West. "NATO's strength is not comparable to Ukraine's. It's a hundred times, maybe a thousand times, so I don't think it's logical to assume that Russia, which can't even deal with Ukraine, would suddenly come in and take on the whole Western world," Orbán was quoted as saying.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Hungary’s persistent reluctance to support Ukraine has slowed down several EU decisions on supporting Kyiv, as they often require the consensus of the bloc’s 27 countries.

"How many more weapons will we send? How much more money will we send?" Orbán asked in the interview. "This gives rise to the darkest visions,” he said.

"What is happening today in Brussels and Washington — perhaps more in Brussels than in Washington — is a kind of mood of preparation for a possible direct military conflict; we can safely call it: preparation for Europe to go to war," Orbán warned in the interview.

Hungary’s leader has also cheered former U.S. President Donald Trump’s bid for reelection. Some other EU capitals fear that if Trump wins a second term, Orbán could welcome a potential Trump initiative to bring the Ukraine conflict to an end by striking a peace deal with Moscow and ceding territory that the Kremlin has claimed.

A senior official of a NATO country, granted anonymity to speak freely, said: “It’s not a surprise given his close ties with Trump and Putin. Let’s wait and see what Szijjártó tells us in Prague next week,” referring to Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó.

In July, Hungary takes over the presidency of the Council of the EU, which gives Budapest an influence on the agenda-setting.

Barbara Moens and Stuart Lau contributed reporting.

https://www.politico.eu/article/hungary-nato-prime-minister-viktor-orban-country-russia-vladimir-putin-west-official/

Beijing’s diplomacy more effective than its vaccines

 China may be behind on the science battle, but it’s still winning the narrative war.

BY SARAH WHEATON AND ASHLEIGH FURLONG

April 23, 2021 5:40 pm

A temporary vaccination site in Kunming, China, on April 15, 2021 | Liu Ranyang/China News Service via Getty Images

China may not have fully mastered the science of vaccine development — but it’s turned out to be an expert at the expectations game.

Growing evidence that the Sinopharm and Sinovac immunizations don’t work as well as most Western counterparts show few signs of denting Beijing’s vaccine diplomacy efforts.

With Hungary, Turkey and Serbia leaning heavily on Chinese jabs, political backlash has been minimal, even as a top Chinese official acknowledged that they don’t measure up.

By selling shots to willing takers — before regulatory approval and without prioritizing its own population — China cemented its position as the go-to country for urgent supplies, experts say. China won the race by being first; no one really expected it to be the best.

“The geopolitical dimension is to some extent decoupled from the efficiency of the vaccine,” said Moritz Rudolf, who has been tracking China’s health diplomacy for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

Neither Sinopharm nor Sinovac has been approved by top regulators; the World Health Organization plans to decide whether to grant them emergency use listing in the coming weeks. Based on available data, they both appear to meet or exceed the WHO’s efficacy threshold of 50 percent. (The European Medicines Agency has not yet begun reviewing the Chinese jabs.)

Yet a rare acknowledgment of the vaccines’ disappointing performance came earlier this month, when the head of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control said the country should consider tweaks to “solve the problem that the efficacy of the existing vaccines is not high.” He quickly backtracked, but his comments stood in stark contrast to the Chinese social media campaign to deride Western vaccines.

Brazil and Chile are essentially testing Sinovac in the real world — and studies emerging from those countries and others in recent weeks show a range of 51 to 82 percent efficacy. 

Beijing Biological Products Institute hasn’t released trial data for the Sinopharm vaccine — a major component of Hungary’s campaign. Yet the developers claim it’s 79.3 percent effective, even as the United Arab Emirates has started offering a “very small number” of people third doses due to low immune response. 

In Hungary, the public relations for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — who said on Facebook he received the Sinopharm jab —  couldn’t be better. While much of the political provocation around Europe has centered on Russia’s Sputnik V, it’s the Sinopharm jab that’s helped Budapest race to the top of the EU rankings on vaccinations, with some 30 percent having received a first dose.

And you don’t have to take Orbán's word for it: On April 21, WHO European Regional Director Hans Kluge stood next to Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó as he praised Budapest and declared at the end of his visit: “Vaccination rates are testament to planning, collaboration and resourcefulness.” Hungary used a loophole in EU rules to green-light the Chinese and Russian jabs at national level.

Meanwhile, while long-stalled EU donations of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine to the Western Balkans are only scheduled to start flowing in May, Albania and Bosnia were able to substantially expand their vaccination campaigns in late March thanks to Sinovac orders, with some doses acquired from Turkey.

Prompt delivery of more than 1 million Sinopharm jabs helped Serbia become a global leader on vaccinations. President Aleksandar Vučić received the Chinese jab on live TV in early April, just as concerns that a third shot would be necessary started cropping up.

Dueling narratives

“It’s mostly just a fight about the narrative,” said Rudolf.

Given Beijing’s lack of transparency, the underwhelming efficacy results are “not that surprising,” Rudolf said. It’s a missed opportunity for China to assert some R&D prowess; however, the Western narrative that Beijing can’t deliver on its promises isn’t likely to resonate in places where there are no alternatives.

The playbook looks similar to China’s face-mask diplomacy efforts earlier in the pandemic. Desperate countries were grateful to have supplies quickly, even if some PPE ultimately malfunctioned.

Beijing has also mastered on-the-ground optics. It’s mostly selling these vaccines, not donating them, noted Agatha Kratz, who leads research on EU-China relations at the Rhodium Group. Yet those sales are bilateral, rather than through some international effort like COVAX. “Every single country that they deal with will issue a statement ... saying, ‘We received Chinese vaccines,’” she said.

It’s similar to the situation with development assistance, said Kratz. The EU gives more of it, but because the Belt and Road Initiative is done on a bilateral basis with extensive press coverage, it looks like China is “doing much more.”

While subpar efficacy may be shrugged off by many, Kratz said, the emergence of severe side effects — like the blood clots under investigation in the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines — could be a bigger problem.

So China’s advantage may be a combination of luck and timing: They supplied the shots well ahead of major regulatory scrutiny, and so far, there don’t seem to be major side effects.

China’s vaccine customers seem more concerned about quantity than quality. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan publicly scolded China’s foreign minister last month over delays fulfilling a 100 million-dose Sinovac order. Ankara “may be more cautious” in the future “if China overpromises,” a Turkish official told the Washington Post. 

Political science

As with the Russian vaccine, backlash against China’s vaccines has been more about politics, both foreign and domestic.

Uyghurs in Turkey have accused Ankara of staying mum on persecution of the Muslim minority in China in exchange for Sinovac shipments. Paraguay is reportedly reconsidering its relationship with Taiwan in hopes of buying Chinese shots. And in North Macedonia, negotiations with Sinopharm fell apart amid allegations that Health Minister Venko Filipče was using a dodgy shell company to buy them.

Orbán also faces questions about purchasing Sinopharm through a murky middleman. In a radio interview earlier this month, he excoriated opposition parties in parliament for pushing a ban on the Chinese jab, saying Hungary’s vaccination rate would be halved without the Russian and Chinese shots.

He also addressed an expected shortfall of 580,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccines, paused amid safety reviews. Those doses will likely be replaced, Orbán said, “with others from elsewhere, mainly from China.”

Lili Bayer contributed reporting.

https://www.politico.eu/article/china-diplomacy-effective-sinopharm-sinovac-coronavirus-vaccine/

Where are ‘desperate’ EU countries turning in search of extra Covid vaccines?

 

Where are ‘desperate’ EU countries turning in search of extra Covid vaccines?

Joe Evans
2 hrs ago

European countries left with a shortage of vaccine doses by the EU’s stuttering procurement process are turning to the “gray market” in their search for more jabs.

• SEE MORE Will Ursula von der Leyen’s career survive the EU vaccine crisis?
• SEE MORE Has ‘scaremongering’ about the Oxford jab undermined EU’s vaccination campaign?
• SEE MORE EU under fire amid warnings of ‘no major breakthroughs’ on jabs

“Desperate” EU nations are beginning to take “pitches from around the world at often exorbitant prices”, The New York Times (NYT) reports, with Russia and China offering vaccines alongside a “murky open market” where EU leaders are “unsure of the sellers and the products”.

As the bloc’s powerhouses increasingly fall behind in their efforts to vaccinate their populations, the race to secure enough doses is ramping up, with countries “under growing pressure to expand their efforts”, the Financial Times adds.

Uneasy trading

The EU has said that “countries should not be cutting separate deals with the same pharmaceutical companies that it has negotiated contracts with for the whole bloc”, the NYT says. But that has not stopped individual nations from agreeing deals with Russia and China to make up a shortfall in the number of doses required.

The Netherlands has agreed to buy 600,000 doses of the Pfizer jab, with officials refusing to say which country was providing the vaccines, while Hungary has “unilaterally approved and bought Russian and Chinese vaccines”, the paper continues.

While Hungary is the first country in the bloc to agree to buy Russian and Chinese jabs, “others, such as Croatia and the Czech Republic, are weighing similar moves”, the NYT adds. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has also spoken with Vladimir Putin about manufacturing the Sputnik V vaccine on the continent in an effort to bolster supplies.

Viktor Orban’s eagerness to do a deal with his allies to the East is an extension of the Hungarian prime minister’s “eurosceptic communication”, Andras Biro-Nagy, from the Budapest-based Policy Solutions, told EUobserver. Orban has previously moved to “strengthen ties” with the two countries, meaning he was well placed to quickly negotiate a deal for vaccines, the site adds.

Hungary has also signed a deal for five million vaccine doses from Sinopharm, the Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company, after giving it emergency-use approval on 29 January. The vaccine is “already in use in Hungary’s non-EU neighbour Serbia”, EuroNews reports, where 1.44 million people have so far been vaccinated, according to Oxford University data.

‘Ghost’ jabs

As “stumbles by the world’s richest bloc of nations turn vaccine politics toxic”, many of Europe’s “senior government officials and even heads of government have received dozens of unsolicited offers for vaccines”, the NYT says.

“Few of the sellers appear to be legitimate operators,” the paper says, with Ville Itala, director-general of the European Anti-Fraud (OLAF) office, saying: “They are offering vaccines, quite huge amounts, so far it’s 460 million doses, which is around €3bn [£2.5bn].”

Two officials from the European Commission told Sky News that there is growing concern over “ghost” vaccines being offered to EU nations. “There is a really large quantity,” said one, adding: “Nobody has any idea what is actually in these vials… The best case is it's just not working, in the worst case it's a very serious issue.” Another anonymous official told Reuters that “it is unclear whether these are genuine vaccine doses or if we are just talking about salt water in small vials”. 

OLAF has launched an investigation into the efforts to “cash in” on the bloc’s stumbling jab campaign, Sky News says. However, “with offers piling in, officials say they are prepared to examine each one carefully before rejecting it”, the NYT adds.

“Most of the middlemen claim to be selling the AstraZeneca shot,” the paper says, with “brokers in Dubai and elsewhere” so far approaching the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Finland and Italy.

Changing strategy

“Germany, France and other European countries are struggling to accelerate their Covid-19 vaccination programmes,” the FT reports, with Germany facing “pressure to change its Covid vaccination strategy” to more closely resemble the UK’s approach of delaying the second dose, The Telegraph adds.

On Sunday, “the country's top vaccine regulator acknowledged that advice against giving the AstraZeneca jab to over-65s had been flawed”, the paper continues, prompting Germany’s Standing Committee on Vaccination to call for the government to change tack after a study found it could save 15,000 lives.

The FT says that Germany and France are struggling in part because of “delays in using available vaccine doses” also seen in Italy and the Netherlands. 

European Commission leaders, who will discuss the bloc’s progress during a video conference on Thursday, have urged member states “to deliver on the actual vaccination as quickly as possible and ensure that it follows the pace of deliveries”.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/where-are-desperate-eu-countries-turning-in-search-of-extra-covid-vaccines/ar-BB1e7q2K?ocid=msedgntp

11 Dec 2020: EU countries agree historic €1.8tn budget and recovery package

Leaders of Hungary and Poland drop vetoes on rule of law mechanism linked to bloc budget

Mateusz Morawiecki, left, prime minister of Poland, and Viktor Orban, PM of Hungary, at the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels on Thursday © Olivier Hoslet/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Michael Peel, Mehreen Khan and Sam Fleming in Brussels

 DECEMBER 11 2020

EU leaders have adopted a €1.8tn budget and landmark post-pandemic recovery package after Hungary and Poland dropped objections to a new mechanism tying payments to rule of law principles. 

 Charles Michel, European Council president, announced the deal on Thursday evening at a summit in Brussels, saying the accord meant the EU could now “start with the implementation and build back our economies”. 

 The agreement follows weeks of uncertainty, as the historic economic recovery package agreed by leaders in July was overshadowed by vetoes threatened by Budapest and Warsaw. It removes a key barrier to the implementation of the €750bn recovery fund, under which Brussels will gain unprecedented powers to borrow hundreds of billions on the markets and hand it out as budgetary support to member states.  

 The deal means the EU can now push forward legislation aimed at enacting the fund, which should start paying out to stricken member states in the second half of next year. About €390bn of this sum will be distributed in the form of grants, raised via issuance of EU debt by the commission, with the remainder coming in the form of loans to facilitate the recovery in member states.  

 It also paves the way for the enactment of the EU’s upcoming seven-year budget, which was also being blocked. The stand-off was sufficiently serious for the commission to have been examining alternative plans to push through the recovery fund without the participation of Poland and Hungary — a fallback option that would have sent a damaging signal about the bloc’s ability to unite behind a response to the crisis. 

 Recommended The Big Read EU identity crisis: Poland, Hungary and the fight over Brussels’ values 

 The budget deal paved the way for an agreement at the summit to ambitious reductions in EU carbon emissions. An agreement to target cuts of “at least 55 per cent” in emissions over the next decade was announced by Mr Michel on Friday morning, following all-night talks that were earlier held up by wrangling with Poland over the details of the carbon reduction plans. 

 Hungary and Poland were won over with a non-binding declaration designed to assure them they would not be singled out under the new rules, which allow EU funding to be held back when countries endanger the bloc’s budget by violating the rule of law. 

 The four-page “interpretative declaration” gives reassurances that the rule of law mechanism will apply only to the next EU budget — starting from 2021. It also gives the European Court of Justice a role in ruling on the legality of the tool, should it be challenged by a member state in court even before it is used.  

 The ECJ would have to deliver its judgment before the European Commission draws up guidelines on how to trigger the mechanism — a requirement that would be likely to delay any sanctions process. 

The question of when measures to curb budget funds can come into force is significant for Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, who faces national elections in 2022. 

 Vera Jourova, the commission vice-president in charge of transparency and values, welcomed the deal, saying it was “good news for the citizens and business of Europe who are all hit by the pandemic and its economic impact”. She added: “The union needs to be better equipped to deal with the consequences of rule of law deficiencies, in this case affecting the budget.” 

 Supporters of the rule of law compromise insist the EU has not capitulated to the demands of Warsaw and Budapest, since the text of the underlying proposed legislation remained unchanged. But the stand-off has highlighted a deep split within the bloc as critics decry what they see as a slide towards authoritarianism in Hungary, Poland and some other member states. 

 The European Parliament, which negotiated the draft rule of law mechanism with governments, earlier voiced its support for the compromise. Manfred Weber, leader of the parliament’s biggest centre-right group — the European People’s party — said the statement respected the “red lines” agreed between MEPs and governments in November. 

 Recommended Rachman Review podcast19 min listen EU at a turning point 

 “The statement is not legally binding but the text we agreed is legally binding,” said Mr Weber. “The legally binding mechanism is a huge success.” 

 Mark Rutte, prime minister of the Netherlands, backed the plan after warning there were “questions” that needed to be answered about when the mechanism could come into force. The Dutch parliament has pushed for a stringent mechanism to punish breaches of EU values and has called the draft agreement the “minimum” it can accept. 

 Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, said as she arrived at the summit that finalising the accord and releasing the funds would be a “very important sign for the European Union’s ability to act”. Germany is the holder of the EU’s rotating presidency and took the lead in negotiating the compromise with Poland and Hungary.  

 Additional reporting from Guy Chazan in Berlin

https://www.ft.com/content/03d72613-1745-4520-9ba3-5a94c8a3963f

ALSO READ:

https://leavevote.blogspot.com/2021/04/27-mar-2021-german-court-halts.html

CNN: The EU struck a big rescue deal on Covid-19...

The EU struck a big rescue deal on Covid-19. But it might have dealt a blow to democracy

Analysis by Luke McGee, CNN

Updated 1606 GMT (0006 HKT) July 22, 2020

(CNN)Brussels began the week in celebratory mood, as member states of the European Union finally agreed how they would distribute around $2 trillion of funds across the bloc over the next seven years.

The package, agreed in the early hours of Tuesday morning after four days of talks, comprises the $1.3 trillion seven-year EU budget plus a special $858 billion emergency package. It's designed to help the bloc recover from the Covid-19 pandemic as one, rather than abandoning poorer countries to their fate as wealthier nations surged back.

Getting all 27 EU states onside for a controversial package over four days of hard negotiating was undoubtedly a huge success. But as the bubbles from the champagne breakfasts evaporate, it will become impossible to ignore the fact that the union has agreed a compromise today that could create massive headaches later.

In recent years, Europe has been forced to acknowledge that the union faces an existential crisis, as some member states backslide on democratic norms. The two most egregious offenders in the eyes of the EU are Hungary and Poland, who in recent years have restricted press freedoms, cracked down on critics, and eroded judicial independence.

EU leaders strike 'historic' $2 trillion deal to rebuild Europe's economy

The emergency fund, first proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in May, had always been controversial, as the monies would be raised against mutualized EU debt then distributed as a mixture of loans and grants.

Despite the controversy, it was clear to most member states that some kind of EU-level Covid response was inevitable. This created the opportunity to use these funds as an incentive to pull nations like Poland and Hungary back from the brink.

The EU has historically struggled when it comes to bringing delinquent members to heel. The much-discussed Article 7 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty -- which provides a mechanism for sanctioning member states by revoking their voting rights -- has always been flawed. The process is cumbersome and ultimately requires unanimous action from all other member states to punish an offending one, which was never likely to happen. There have been active discussions in Brussels since 2018 to creating some kind of external mechanism outside of the treaty, to make the process more effective.

Netherlands' Prime Minister Mark Rutte, left, talks with Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, 

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and France's President 

Emmanuel Macron at the summit.

Tuesday's agreement refers to such a mechanism. But critics feel it does not go far enough: An earlier version of the agreement published on Monday evening contained stronger language than the final document. Instead of a direct, easy way to withhold funds from countries offending member states, officials in Brussels are left with a fudge, contestable and open to interpretation. The only clear line on rule of law in the final document reads: "The European Council underlines the importance of the protection of the Union's financial interests. The European Council underlines the importance of the respect of the rule of law."

Some felt the final text had been severely watered down. "The original text was much more promising. [But] it seems that the Hungarian government was in a very good negotiating position," says Petra Bard, Visiting Professor at the Central European University. "They wouldn't have minded the whole deal being delayed for another couple of months. That meant other member states had little choice but to agree this vaguer wording that can be interpreted in many different ways."

This result was probably always inevitable. This EU summit has been described as the most bitterly divided in recent memory.

French officials said that Macron "slammed his fist on the table" in anger (although the Elysée later tried to say it was "metaphorical"); Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban claimed that his Dutch counterpart, Mark Rutte, hated him "because Hungary, in his opinion does not respect the rule of law, must be punished financially."

So, the Tuesday morning fudge didn't surprise Brussels observers. "The EU has always been reluctant to act when there is a democratic backslide," says Daniel Kelemen, Jean Monnet Chair in European Union Politics at Rutgers University. "They have previously hidden behind the fact that Article 7 doesn't work and that they don't have the right toolkit, so try and create new mechanisms. The problem with this new agreement is any mechanism Hungary and Poland will vote for will be so watered down and unenforceable in reality."

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives at the EU summit in Brussels on Monday.

This could mean that in getting this initial agreement, the EU has put out one blazing house fire while overlooking embers further down the street.

"People often forget that the EU isn't a state in itself with its own powers to enforce laws. The EU's legal architecture holds the whole thing together in some respects. If member states ignore ECJ rulings, threaten judges who implement EU law, it doesn't just threaten democracy; it threatens undermining the whole union," says Keleman.

Ronan McCrea, professor of European Law at University College, London, agrees that this presents a fundamental threat to the integrity of the whole union. "The EU's bureaucracy is really small compared to that of a local English council. This means the EU relies on national judges and civil servants to implement EU law in their own countries."

Earlier this year, Poland passed legislation that permitted the government to discipline judges who made rulings that the government disagreed with. "In any European democracy, judicial independence is crucial. However, if judges fear they are going to be disciplined for ruling against their government, how can they independently stand by EU law," says McCrea.

Kelemen goes further: "If judges are in the pocket of the government, how can another EU state extradite a criminal to a fellow member state? They cannot guarantee that person will receive a fair trial, especially in countries where political dissent is being cracked down on."

While Hungary and Poland might provide much of the focus of concern, they are far from the only EU member states that have flouted some of the EU's core pinciples. And as Kelemen points out, "failing to address this kind of backslide encourages its spread." And the further it spreads, the more leaders who are happy to play loose with democracy end up in prominent positions.

However much leaders in Brussels were toasting European unity on Tuesday morning, it is simply a fact that leaders with these instincts are becoming more assertive at EU-level. And as Hungary proved, they are getting good at playing politics in Brussels.

"Their goal now is to wield influence within the EU while picking up EU money to run their regimes with it," says Kelemen. The bitter reality for those who most value the EU is that those who seek to twist its values no longer seek to run from it, but to run the show.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/22/europe/eu-budget-coronavirus-rule-of-law-analysis-intl/index.html

EU CHAOS: Brexit marks ‘beginning of the end’ as EU already heading ‘down dangerous road'

British MEPs attended their final plenary session in Strasbourg this week ahead of the UK’s exit from the trade bloc on January 31.

By BILL MCLOUGHLIN

PUBLISHED: 08:00, Sat, Jan 18, 2020 | UPDATED: 12:45, Sat, Jan 18, 2020

British MEPs attended their final plenary session in Strasbourg this week ahead of the UK’s exit from the trade bloc on January 31. Upon leaving the EU, the UK will be able to sign a host of trade deals with countries across the world, which the former Brexit Party MEP warned could spell the end for Brussels.

Speaking Express.co.uk, Mr Forman predicted a bleak future for the EU as he predicted several other countries will follow the UK’s lead in deciding to vote for independence from the Brussels bloc.

He said: “It’s the beginning of the end for the EU.

“You can’t have a one-size fits all for so many countries.


“Eventually the imbalance within the bloc is always going to lead to chaos

“The EU is going to go down a very dangerous road over the next few years.”

Mr Forman first became an MEP as a member of the Brexit Party, but shortly before the general election, he and some other colleagues urged Britons to back Boris Johnson.

In light of the UK’s departure, Hungary, Poland and Italy have all voiced concerns over the structure of the EU.

In what Mr Forman warned was “growing eurosceptism”, the MEP insisted all three countries could eventually leave the trade bloc and carry out their own versions of Brexit.

JUST IN: BBC host destroys Guy Verhofstadt's Brexit claims

Brexit news: Lance Forman (Image: Daily Mirror)

Both Hungary and Poland are currently under Article 7 proceedings.

Under Article 7, the EU as an institution can suspend the membership of any state amid threats to the bloc’s core values.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has long been accused of cracking down on the freedom of the press.

As a result of a vote in the EU Parliament, which called for a resolution to act on the current state in Hungary, Mr Orban admitted his party was close to leaving the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest group in the Parliament.

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Brexit news: Viktor Orban has been a critic of the EU (Image: GETTY)

Brexit news: Ursula von der Leyen the President of the EU Commission (Image: GETTY)

Earlier this month, Mr Orban also threatened to create a new party in combination with Italy’s League Party and Poland’s Law and Justice Party (PiS).

Mr Orban said: “We are not interested in the EPP as it is today.

“We are interested in the future EPP, and the future EPP should be different.

“If EPP is unable to change itself in another direction, I think in the future European politics will need a new European initiative which is Christian Democrat.

Brexit timeline (Image: Express)

“If we cannot reach a change inside EPP, we will initiate something new in European politics.”

In Poland’s case, the ruling Law and Justice Party defied Brussels by passing a law punishing judges who are critical of court reforms.

The ruling bands judges from attending protests or referring questions to EU courts.

Brexit news: Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (Image: GETTY)

As a consequence of the new legislation, the country’s Supreme Court warned the country may have to leave the EU over the reform.

Similar to Hungary, the country has not yet “realigned” with the EU Parliament’s core values which stated “the situation in both Poland and Hungary has deteriorated” since the imposition of Article 7.

Britain is currently scheduled to leave the European Union on January 31, 2020, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson aims to secure a trade agreement with the EU by the end of the year.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1229778/Brexit-news-EU-Tory-MEP-Lance-Forman-Brexit-Party-Nigel-Farage?