The source of sovereignty is a special uncommunicative relationship with other countries in the Hungarian political right’s approach. They defiantly say that ’the world is conspiring against us and they are working on our failure. The international institutions are just a disease on the nation’s body.’
Viktor Orbán, the prime minister though that if he pushed out the IMF from Hungary, we would regain our sovereignty. This is just silly. The country’s financial independence (a key metaphor in the Orbán administration’s communication) would be realized if we did not need any foreign credit. But it can only be a dream. If we do not apply for an IMF credit, then we have to find funding on the market. Markets have firm requirements as we can see. The only difference is that market requirements are not shaped by a single institution but by several players. Their voice has to be understood just like the IMF’s.
It was not Hungary’s sovereignty which grew with ’cornering out’ the IMF last year. It was the prime minister’s freedom to decide which flared out. The prime minister got the opportunity to make decisions on his own. We can say by now that he has not been able to make good decisions. The main reason behind his failure is his inability to comply with the markets’ requirements. He is not friendly with the markets. He does not know the markets’ nature, how the networks work. He knows the language of power only. This is useless in the present situation.
I say it clearly: the prime minister was lying when he was talking about our freedom fight for financial independence. He gained wider freedom for himself and not for the country. The problem is that we are in a worse situation then we were one and a half year ago because he could not use this freedom.
Orbán has no choice now but to sleep with the devil. He surely will explain it away. It will be our interest obviously. Actually this is true this time: it does serve our interest. But whose interest was served in the past 18 months? And who is responsible for the past 18 months?
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