What many people in the #EU do not understand about #Orban's #veto of the #MFF & #NextGenerationEU. THREAD

1. This is not a simple bluff. Yes, Orbán needs the EU funds for regime stability, but many of the beneficiaries of the funds are... 1/

... in fact European corporations like Strabag or Deutsche Telekom. So when Orbán is bluffing, he is also bluffing in the name of these firms. He is not only pushing in front of himself the COVID-ravaged countries, but these firms as well. 2/

2. This veto is not simply the personal whim of a pocket-autocrat who wants to steal some money. This veto is a structural necessity arising from the uneven development of the EU & Orbán's particular response to that. 3/

The Orbán regime is a political project of capital accumulation in the European periphery. Its innovation in comparison to the 1990-2010 HU gov'ts is that besides guaranteeing an easy avenue of accumulation for multinational capital, it also carves out... 4/

...a slice for local accumulation. Within the context of uneven development and EU competition rules "corruption" is the only way to carry this out relatively easily. So corruption is not just a method of personal enrichment, but also... 5/

...an integral part of one project of "catching-up to the West", the evergreen motif of peripheral European politics. Corruption and authoritarianism are necessary preconditions for the whole Orbánian political project. 6/

Giving this up would mean not just giving up some easy cash, but also kicking out the main pillars of the project of accumulation. (Imho, it is a mistaken and wrong project, but for the internal political logic of current events it is irrelevant) 7/

This is also why the simple anti-corruption rhetoric of the HU opposition proved to be ineffective in the last decade. Historically, uneven development is the main cause of nationalism, and Orbán is really smart in instrumentalizing this narrative... 8/

... which for many Hungarians speaks more to their lived reality than the socially less embedded, politically much thinner rhetoric of anti-corruption. 9/

So under the current EU constitution there is hardly any solution to this conundrum: this is not a simple individual failing of one politician, but a structural issue affected all the countries of the EU periphery. There are two issues to be addressed:... 10/

... i.) The European center benefits from the uneven development: cheaper labor costs, easier regulations. Until this situation persists, there will always be resentment that could be ridden by politicians who will not be stopped precisely because they can hold hostage... 11/

... those very benefits Western firms draw from here. So a new redistributive mode has to be experimented within the EU, much more robust then the current system. Simple formalistic legal regulations won't do. 12/

ii.) Putting emphasis on the nation-state level will always produce nationalistic frames of thinking. An nationalistic frames of thinking lead to nationalistic political mobilization. We see this in the European budgetary debates all the time. 13/

A radical decentralization of EU fund distribution and management has to be done if we want to put an end to this. 14/

DISCLAIMER: by explaining this I do not claim it to be morally or politically okay. I am living in this regime as lefty belonging to a minority, so I am quite aware that this is not okay. But without understanding there are no solutions. 15/

DISCLAIMER2: by describing the Orbánian project of "catching up", I do not claim that this is the only possible way to do so. But building electorally viable alternatives is hard and takes time. And so far, the EU did not help but play theater while also being bribed with... 16/

Orbánian tax cuts, labor rights destruction and a lot of money. THE END. 17/17

Okay, just in: one day after the veto announcment HU MFA Szijjártó promises a buttload of money in front of the german chamber of industry + no "assistance" for workerd (=cheaper labor) https://www.borsonline.hu/aktualis/szijjarto-a-munkahelyek-megorzese-erdekeben-tamogatja-a-kormany-a-beruhazasokat/215201