Taking into account that Hungary and Poland have won a major battle with the Brussels bureaucracy, maybe it is time for the West to take a good look at the two countries’ history of freedom fights, Magyar Hírlap publicist Péter G. Fehér writes .
According to Brussels, rule of law is being undermined in Hungary and Poland, and based on this vague notion, the EU would have been willing to only pay the budgetary and epidemic compensation that would otherwise be legally due under the Treaty if the Community’s values were respected.
This primitive blackmail, the punitive plan concocted in the Brussels bubble, was dead on arrival. How could the Eurocrats think that any of the leaders of the two countries would commit identity suicide, as many Western European countries do today? Do you give up everything — the nation-state, Christianity, the traditional family model, sovereignty — that are the most important pillars of your future existence, and all for money?
After some research, those in the capital of Europe might have realized what they should have learned a long time ago about the turbulent history of these two peoples: Another defining tenet of their survival is sticking together, even if it might look disadvantageous for one of them at the moment.
Prior to the current EU summit, the several personal meetings between the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki were also a message to the people in Brussels. In spite of the feverish ideas of the EU and the reasoning of the café intellectuals, the friendship between the two peoples cannot be cut down, that is, they cannot be played against each other. They may say money can buy everything, but it turns out that there is no money — at least not for us — for which a thousand-year-old friendship would be sold.
Here and now, I will only mention in passing the positive results of the events of hundreds of years of Hungarian-Polish historical relations. Let it be enough to recall the common struggle against communism in 1956. On October 23, students from Budapest took to the streets in support of their Polish counterparts, who protested in the big cities there over the suppression of the workers’ uprising in Poznań, the Soviet intervention and the rule of the Communist Party.
The Polish events at the time laid the foundation for the regime change there. Today, the same person who was there in the summer of 1987 in Gdańsk is now the Prime Minister of Hungary. He made his third pilgrimage to the homeland of Pope John Paul, the Polish pope, and took part in opposition demonstrations. Viktor Orbán also wrote his dissertation on the topic of the Polish opposition movement, and then, during the change of regime in Hungary, he was the first to demand the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary in Heroes’ Square in Budapest.
The Prime Minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, comes from a truly warrior family. His father fought against Communism as an activist in the underground Solidarity movement. He was imprisoned, then expelled from the country, escaped but was expelled again; even his passport was taken away, but he escaped again. Such is the family background of the Polish Prime Minister. Now, these two heads of government have successfully confronted the arbitrariness of Brussels and forced the payment of what they are legitimately due.
In the EU bubble, they should have taken into account more than just the Hungarian opposition’s fake videos about the state of affairs in the country. With this and their campaign against the government during the coronavirus, the opposition parties caused severe damage to Hungary. And the Eurocrats have a historic lesson to learn, but it’s better late than never.
Editor’s note: The title refers to a popular rhyme that has both Hungarian and English versions and reads:
“Pole and Hungarian brothers be, good for fight and good for party. Both are valiant, both are lively, Upon them may God’s blessings be.”
Title image: Poles and Hungarians by Johann Wilhelm Baur (Czartoryski Museum, Kraków)
