TO JUDGE from the hearty applause that greeted Viktor Orban as he took to the podium in Budapest’s Balna Cultural Centre, you might assume it had been a good night for Hungary’s prime minister. Hardly. Mr Orban’s call for Hungarians to reject European Union refugee quotas in a referendum was heeded by 98% of those that voted. But despite the government’s furious campaigning, turnout was well below the 50% threshold needed to make the vote binding. In his victory speech Mr Orban skated over this setback, instead railing against Brussels and vowing to insert the result into Hungary’s constitution. A government spokesman told The Economist that the failure to attract enough support made no political difference.
Yet make no mistake: the result is a monumental embarrassment. For weeks Mr Orban’s government had briefed reporters that the referendum was no mere legal tweak or response to current events. Indeed, it would not even have applied to the sole relocation decision already taken by the EU, under which Hungary is supposed to take 1,300 asylum-seekers off the hands of Italy and Greece. (The Hungarian and Slovak governments are...Continue reading
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