Resurgent Racism and the Radical Right: Hungary and the New European Norm?

Abstract

The recent proposal by the Hungarian government to hold a referendum on October 2nd 2016 on the authority of the EU over the numbers of migrants that member states must take has drawn predictable criticism from political elites across the EU. Luxembourg’s Foreign minister has declared that Hungary should be suspended from the EU for violating the spirit of the Union, for example. The targeting of Hungary since the election of 2010 by EU officials and mainly left-liberal politicians is by now a familiar story across much of Europe’s media with the Fidesz government held up as being outside the acceptable parameters of EU politics. Whilst there is no doubt that Fidesz have adopted an authoritarian nationalist politics built around a conservative ideology of family, nation and god, we need to be cautious in singling them out as an exception to the European norm.