Don’t wait to apply! CSS will soon select outstanding university students and young professionals to participate in the second Summer Leadership Academy—a unique, intensive week-long learning experience held at Bercel Castle in the Hungarian countryside. The Academy is designed for young leaders and thinkers who are committed to strengthening their own understanding of the free and prosperous society. The Academy is becoming a new incubator of future leaders in Hungary and in Central and Eastern Europe who are committed to promoting the ideas of responsible liberty and equipped with the skills necessary to implement them. Click here for more information.

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Application deadline is June 10th – APPLY HERE. There is no cost to attend: tuition, room and board is fully covered for all accepted participants (only transporation to and from Bercel is not covered).

Academy Faculty include:

• Roger Scruton (Oxford University)
• Sam Potolicchio (Georgetown University)
• Roger Pilon (Cato Institute)
• András Jakab (Heidelberg University)
• Juliana Geran Pilon (Institute of World Politics)
• Peter Záboji (European Entrepreneurship Foundation)
• Thierry Baudet (University of Leiden)
• András Lánczi (Corvinus University)
• Plus special guest speakers…

 2013 academy sponsored by:

While in Poland, Schulz praised the country’s economic stability and applauded Tusk, even openly naming him as a contender for the post of European Commissioner. The government-friendly Polish media have largely avoided this topic for more than a year since first floating the idea in 2011 and 2012. Even then, pro-Tusk articles mostly consisted of quotes from the German press and were intended to boost local support for Tusk and his party, the Civic Platform (as a rule of thumb, positive recognition from abroad goes a long way in Polish public life, sometimes even further than domestic factors).

For the supporters of Civic Platform, such articles only confirmed the obvious, while for Tusk’s opponents they were a transparent attempt by media corporations to curry favor with the current head of government. Since that time, however, the issue largely disappeared from public discourse. Nevertheless, Martin Schulz’s remarks in Warsaw brought the issue back into focus. In fact, the Polish people should be thankful to the German politician for unearthing possibly the main driving force behind some of Poland’s most spectacular political developments of recent years.

Tusk’s desire to be more than the Prime Minister helps explain why the Polish government has so staunchly supported practically all of the German economic policies in the European arena, from the bailout of the Greek economy to the introduction of the Euro as a Polish currency starting in 2014. The government has pushed energetically for the Euro despite Polish public opinion and the advice of a majority of economic experts in the country and internationally.

The only logic behind Poland joining the Eurozone during a very apparent crisis is to prove the full commitment of the current Polish government and its leaders to what they believe are core European values. It also provides Tusk’s main promoter in the EU, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with proof of his loyalty and a hope to influence him even after his successful nomination for the President of the EU.

Secondly, Donald Tusk’s revealed aspiration to be the highest ranking Polish politician ever explains why his outwardly conservative government has recently waged a war on traditional values, much to the astonishment of the largely conservative and Catholic Polish electorate. In fact, both Tusk’s government and the Civic Platform–controlled Parliament have openly attacked the Polish Catholic Church and traditionally held family values. No other Polish government since 1989, including a number of post-Communist ones, waged a cultural war of such magnitude, believing it too risky politically.

Astonishingly, in a relatively short period of time the Christian-democratic, center-right Civic Platform has proposed to: liquidate the retirement fund for clergy and introduce government-controlled tax donations to the Catholic church; legalize homosexual marriage and civil unions; sponsor expensive in-vitro fertilization procedures (while existing children’s wards in public hospitals are being closed for cost saving reasons); and extend compulsory sexual education to children in public schools as young as six. It has already managed to lower the compulsory education age from seven to six years and removed the majority of existing financial and tax support mechanisms to traditional families. The party has also ensured that the only national Catholic television network of mass viewership did not receive a license for digital broadcasting, which will effectively put it out of business within the next year or so.

Finally, the emergence of the populist-libertarian Ruch Palikota party–which prides itself on having the first transsexual member of the Polish Parliament and, until recently, had an abortion advocate as the Deputy Speaker of Parliament–would not have been possible without tacit consent of Donald Tusk and sympathetic media outlets during the turbulent 2010 presidential election campaign. Ruch Palikota is also led by former Civic Platform leader Janusz Palikot.

Even the most liberal post-Communist governments in Poland at the height of their power never decided to undertake so many partisan ideological projects, perhaps despite some half-hearted attempts at liberalizing abortion law. What is it then that has driven the Civic Platform so much against the popular preferences of Polish society and forced it into an open war with the Polish Catholic Church? The same thing that has motivated Warsaw to so closely ally itself with Berlin on economic issues: Tusk’s shot at heading the European Commission. Coming from Poland, he knew that he would likely be suspected of being too conservative, so he worked hard to distinguish himself as a loyal supporter of even the most liberal European agenda.

Perhaps Donald Tusk may yet become the head of the EU. But his hopes and ambitions come at a great cost to the Polish people, for their leader is ignoring their will and using his public office as a stepping stone to pan-European prominence. There is nothing more costly than a politician’s ambition, as the Poles are currently discovering.

– Tomasz Pisula is a social scientist chairing the Warsaw-based Freedom and Democracy Foundation, a leading NGO promoting democracy in post-Communist societies. He contributes to Polish conservative portals wPolityce.pl and Rebelya.pl and is a commentator for Radio Wnet (www.radiownet.pl).

Odoo is a project of BME students that started in 2010 as part of the Solar Decathlon Europe 2012 competition. The Decathlon is a joint initiative of the Spanish and American governments aimed at promoting the development of energy-efficient houses, with a special emphasis on solar power.

BME is the first Hungarian university to take part in the competition and ranked sixth out of eighteen teams overall. The new BME team scored even better in specific categories, such as “Engineering & Construction” and “Comfort Conditions” (they took 2^nd place in both) and “Energy Efficiency” (in which they scored 3^rd).

Architecture & Design

Odoo means “burrow” in Hungarian, and, indeed, the Odoo house is a small safe-haven where you can hide from the stress and hassle of the outside world. But as Orsolya Birtalan, communications manager for the Odoo project, told us, the main idea of Odoo was to design and build a house that encouraged as much time outdoors as possible.

The house consists of three main units: a covered residential space with a bedroom, living room, kitchen, and bathroom; an outdoor terrace with an open-air summer kitchen and a solar-paneled summer wall; and a mechanical room that serves as “the brain” of the house. It is also fully transportable and can be built in ten days from scratch.

By blurring the lines between inside and outside, Odoo hopes to display a new, healthier city lifestyle more in balance with the environment than typical urban living. As the house is maintained by solar energy, the orbit of the sun, and the changing weather of the seasons, one’s personal life is unavoidably shaped by the rhythms of the environment. Many people find this type of closeness to nature refreshing.

Overcoming Challenges

The project is the brainchild of Adrián Auth, a student of architecture who worked on a Spanish Decathlon team as an Erasmus scholar in 2010. Auth’s original BME team consisted of a handful of friends and his own mother, who helped with paperwork. Soon the Hungarian team qualified for the official competition and the university began actively promoting the competition attracting sixty team members from many academic departments.

Ms. Birtalan admits that gaining the support of administrators and faculty was one of the hardest things to do. “I think they ultimately believed in the project [only] when the Odoo house was already standing in the backyard,” she says. Another challenge was securing the necessary funds for the project, which by the end cost more than €650,000. The team was able to partner with BME’s existing sponsors, like Siemens, who is now the main sponsor of the Odoo project; they also attracted new partners using the connections of individual team members. A last minute contribution from the Hungarian government also helped the Odoo team finance their trip to Spain, where they presented Odoo at the Decathlon.

As with most major projects, one of the challenges was to unite the various team members. “We were fighting among each other all the time,” Birtalan remembers. “Sometimes we had huge arguments” as architects, electrical engineers, and designers all weighed in with their competing views on drafts of the project.

But at the end of the day, the team members were passionate enough about Odoo to make it happen. “It was like religion,” Birtalan says, “Everyone was putting their lives into the project for two years, sacrificing family, friends, and relationships.” This probably backfired once the competition was over, however: “People just wanted to start their lives again, and the team gradually spread out.”

Looking Forward

Those who previously worked on Odoo are now graduating and looking for jobs. The university, facing significant budget cuts, is not prioritizing the continued funding of the project. “Some students come and ask questions about how they could help,” Ms. Birtalan notes, “but that does not go any further. There is a need for a concrete plan of action and for new enthusiastic and passionate people who could revive the project.”

When asked about commercializing in order to make Odoo more attractive for the university and sponsors, Birtalan admits that there were some negotiations with a German company, but they ultimately fell through. The situation is made even more difficult because various patents and copyrights are split between the Odoo team and BME, and there is no one single owner of the project as such.

But interested buyers and investors could have their own Odoo house for roughly €14,000 (or less, depending on design features). An Odoo-style project could serve as a residential house, a café or coffee shop, a venue for small seminars, or gathering space for workshops or collaborative working.

So maybe what Odoo needs now is a team of young motivated managers, business developers, and marketing specialists to turn it into a viable business project. And Odoo will need capital from interested investors, who will need to be convinced of its future viability. And since BME is not only a university of technology but also economics, it may be possible to find all the necessary people within the university walls. At the very least, BME should release any rights rather than hold hostage a potentially viable business featuring innovative urban architectural design.

–Maria Sheviakova is an intern with Common Sense Society Budapest

Photos courtesy of  Balázs DANY.

Both in her testimony as well as in her numerous posts on Paul Krugman’s New York Times blog, Scheppele repeatedly misrepresents the Hungarian constitutional structure. She refers to the “constitutional frenzy” of the current Fidesz-led government, expressing her surprise that Hungary has an election system “where a single two-thirds vote is enough to change the constitution.” But she does not mention that this has been the legal reality for over 20 years in Hungary. Moreover, according to both the previous Constitution and the new Fundamental Law, the “constituent power” (the right of amending the constitution or drafting a new one) and the “legislative power” (the authority of Parliament) are the same. The formal consensus and the informal “gentlemen’s agreement” between Hungarian political forces in 1990 gave the Parliament (specifically a two-thirds majority of the Parliament) the right to adopt a new constitution or amend the existing one (as the previous Hungarian Constitution put it: “the Parliament of the Republic of Hungary hereby establishes the following text as the Constitution of the Republic of Hungary, until the country’s new Constitution is adopted”).

Every single party since 1990 has had the same right to gain a constitution-altering majority, and although Fidesz-KDNP’s overwhelming victory in 2010 was unprecedented, it was wholly legal. The Hungarian Socialist Party won 33% of the votes in 1994, entitling them to 55% of the seats in Parliament. Not to mention the Socialists’ sudden coalition-agreement with the Free Democrats, thereby gaining 72% of the Parliamentary seats for a coalition with only 50% of the total popular vote. This Socialist-led supermajority bloc was formed even though the planned coalition was not announced before the election and despite the fact that Communist rule in Hungary had ended only four years earlier and therefore the country was arguably more susceptible to single-party rule.

Somewhat surprisingly in hindsight, this state of affairs was not viewed as problematic by the international community in general or by Kim Lane Scheppele in particular. Indeed, Scheppele served as an expert advisor in the Hungarian Parliament during this time.

Scheppele also states that “Fidesz never said it would change the whole constitutional system.” First of all, the new government and Parliament did not change the constitutional system as a whole. The system remained a chancellor-type democracy (as in Germany) based on division of powers. According to Scheppele, in the Hungarian political system legislative and executive powers are only formally separated, but surely a scholar of her experience should know that this type of constitutional system, where the political and legal power of a government is based on its majority in the Parliament, is common in continental Europe. Otherwise, it would be a presidential or half-presidential system, where the power of the head of state would come from a direct popular mandate. The new Hungarian Fundamental Law did not empower Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in such a way, and rightly so.

Secondly, prior to the 2010 Fidesz-KDNP electoral victory that swept the Socialist party out of power, Orbán publically stated on several occasions the need for drastic Constitutional reform. For example, in November 2009 he declared: “Hungary needs a new Constitution.” On this same issue, the Socialists’ 2010 campaign focused on the fear of a possible Fidesz supermajority. The likelihood of constitutional reform was openly acknowledged by both main parties prior to the 2010 elections. It is disingenuous to suggest that Fidesz surprised Hungarian voters or legal observers by actually going ahead with the constitutional reform it had promised once in the majority. Indeed, since voters handed Fidesz an unprecedented two-thirds majority, it could be more easily argued that Orbán’s reforms enjoyed a clear democratic mandate for such reforms.

Addressing more recent changes, Scheppele commented that “the Fourth Amendment removes the Constitutional Court’s power to evaluate on substantive grounds any new constitutional amendments.” In fact, 20 years of constitutional culture and practice hold that the Constitutional Court does not hold an ironclad right to overrule Parliament in this regard. As a legal matter, the Court has been bound by appropriate precedent, according to which the Court has repeatedly exercised “self-limitation.” As long ago as 1994, the Court declared: “if a decision was incorporated into the Constitution by two-third majority of the votes of the MPs, its unconstitutionality shall not be declared” [Decision No. 23/1994 (IV.29.) CC]. Of course, the Court still retains right to annul or overrule a constitutional amendment if Parliament runs afoul of procedural law. Political arguments may be made that the Court deserves more oversight powers, but as a matter of existing law the IV Amendment seems to be well within the bounds of Hungarian constitutional jurisprudence. Nor does reference to precedent contradict the spirit of constitutional reform present in the Fundamental Law, since the Fundamental Law largely adopted most of the old constitutional system and even old decisions of the Court (regarding marriage, protection of the unborn, annulment of actio popularis, etc.).

We also cannot help but point out a professional qualm: Scheppele stated that she used the Hungarian Official Gazette (Magyar Közlöny) as primary source for her testimony. She told the Committee: “Many of the most worrisome provisions [of the new constitution] … can only be accessed through reading the immensely difficult legalese of the Magyar Közlöny. These laws are posted online only in PDF form, not searchable unless one goes through each individual daily issue separately.” Scheppele presents herself as an expert in Hungarian constitutional law, but she clearly misunderstood and mishandled the Hungarian Corpus Iuris and made her job more difficult by neglecting the official Hungarian sources. Consolidated and fully searchable versions of the Hungarian laws may be found on the Internet, either on the website of the National Archive of Acts (www.njt.hu, Nemzeti Jogszabálytár), or on the official Hungarian government website (www.magyarorszag.hu).

Professor Scheppele argues that Fidesz’s recent efforts have been sudden, radical, and undemocratic. In reality, however, recent legal reforms were promised to voters ahead of fair elections and reflect a consistent line of constitutional priorities similar to those found elsewhere in the region. If Scheppele has objections to Fidesz politically, she is free to voice them, but she overstates her case against Hungary’s current legal order with inaccurate information and irresponsible accusations. Expertise is often over-rated, while common sense is under-appreciated. It seems that Scheppele, in this case, may have precious little of either.

–Miklós Szánthó is an attorney and political analyst and Péter Törcsi is an attorney, both reside in Budapest.

Margaret Thatcher’s accomplishments as a political leader are as impressive as they are well known: She rescued Great Britain from the brink of economic ruin, primarily by breaking domineering union bosses, privatizing state assets, slashing inflation, and cutting tax rates; she defended her country’s sovereign integrity by standing up to a pugnacious Argentine junta; and she re-established her party as a viable governing option in the eyes of the British people (the Conservatives had been out of power for eleven of the previous fifteen years before she took office—they then occupied Downing Street for the next eighteen years).

But she will be most fondly remembered, at least in Eastern Europe, for her role in thwarting communism. Thatcher is rightly counted along with U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II as one essential part of the triumvirate that provided the political, moral, and military will to bring down the Iron Curtain. While most in the West were content to play out an indefinite game of détente, turning a blind eye to communist abuses in order to maintain the appearance of peace, Thatcher was utterly convinced not only of communism’s political unviability, but its plain moral failings.

Sometimes, her fierce anti-communism called for a firm stance, as when she allowed America to station nuclear cruise missiles on English soil in response to an increase in Soviet missile capabilities. She did this despite public outcry from many in the West, but her steely resolve provided an example that West Germany soon followed. Russia’s bluff failed, and in 1987 it agreed to a limited multilateral disarmament.

Sometimes she took a more conciliatory tone. She was prescient in identifying Mikhail Gorbachev as “a man we can do business with,” and developed a good relationship with the Russian leader. This cordiality gave Gorbachev, who desperately wanted to avoid a repeat of the ’56 Hungarian Revolution, room to maneuver for disarmament and perestroika. Thatcher also used her famous friendship with Ronald Reagan to great effect, encouraging productive engagement between the White House and the Kremlin. And when Reagan pursued the arms buildup that ultimately led to the end of the Cold War, Thatcher provided him with invaluable diplomatic support. World leaders as disparate as Lech Walesa and Jose Manuel Barroso have praised her effectiveness in speeding along the demise of communism.

To be sure, she was a skilled statesman (she would surely refuse the cumbersome but politically correct “stateswoman”), but she also grasped the irredeemable evil of communism. At home and abroad Thatcher sought to promote the principles of self-respect, personal responsibility, and productive industry; she believed work had an inherent dignity that the state was duty-bound to promote, not stifle.  She told the journal Religion & Liberty in 1992: “The danger [of collectivism] is that the more you turn to the state, the more you are diminishing the sense of freedom and the responsibility of the individual, and the more difficult it is to re-establish when the Communist system has gone.” For her, the communist system was not just built on bad economics (though it certainly was that); it diminished what it means to be human. She was also right to point out the difficulties of re-establishing well-ordered liberty in countries that suffered under communism. Hungarians know better than most the truth in this warning, as they try even still to move beyond long legacies of corruption and government dependency.

Thatcher held Hungary in a special regard among Warsaw Pact countries, choosing it as the site of her first official visit to the Eastern bloc in 1984. Though she wrote to President Reagan after her visit that she was concerned about the lack of Parliamentary opposition, widespread state-ownership of industry, and Budapest’s close alliance with Moscow, Thatcher was still impressed by the limited “economic experiment” taking place and the Hungarian people’s thorough-going sense of national pride. She detected a noble and resilient spirit in the people she met in Budapest’s covered markets and Szentendre’s historical museum; she wrote in her memoirs that the ’84 visit “confirmed … that human beings in communist countries were not in fact communists at all but retained a thirst for liberty.” The visit also suggested to Thatcher what Britain’s “distinctive” policy towards eastern bloc countries should be: open greater economic and commercial ties with existing regimes, freeing them from total dependence on the Soviet dole; emphasize the importance of human rights; and eventually make Western aid conditional on internal political reforms.

A grocer’s daughter who fought her way to the apex of world politics, Thatcher devoted her life to the idea that everyone deserves freedom and self-determination. Soviet domination of Eastern Europe offended her on a visceral level, since it represented the negation of human dignity and a denial of the same freedom that had allowed her to succeed. She did her part to consign communism to the trash bin of history, but she warned the world against forgetting the past: “[If] many influential people have failed to understand, or have just forgotten, what we were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made.”

May freedom lovers the world over honor the memory of the Iron Lady by continuing her mission of “securing” and “enlarging” the gains of liberty.

–Travis LaCouter is the Managing Editor of PaprikaPolitik.com.

Prime Minister Orbán had a vision. It was a vision to create a self-confident, economically independent, socially coherent country where hard work is a virtue, Christianity has a place in the public sphere, and communist crimes are never forgotten. Orbán’s vision has changed very little and his determination has only grown stronger in the face of perceived obstacles such as the European Union and international financial institutions. He still regards himself as a man of the people and for the people. He is a charismatic populist who has an innate distrust of intellectuals, even those conservative elite who tirelessly support him.

Orbán’s popular appeal domestically–where he still holds a confident majority–is the ultimate source of his strength. But, as John Lukács put it, “The majority is not necessarily right just because it is a legitimately elected majority.” And Viktor Orbán frequently is not right.

The political fiasco of the Fourth Amendment brought out some of the worst populist instincts from Orbán’s Fidesz party, revealing a somewhat misguided understanding of democracy. He rules in the tradition of America’s first real populist president, Andrew Jackson, who deeply distrusted the elites and represented a method of politics based on a “folk community with a strong sense of common values and common destiny.” Likewise, Orbán, who regards himself as Hungary’s folk leader, deeply distrusts unelected institutions because of what he sees as their ability to subvert the “will of the people.” But as an isolated leader surrounded mostly by intellectually subservient minds and a comfortable supermajority, those independent institutions would serve him, Fidesz, and Hungary well.

The Prime Minister repeated in several recent interviews that the Fourth Amendment was a legal necessity created by the Courts–that Parliament only did what it was supposed to do. This is untrue. The various elements of the Fourth Amendment have been a part of the party’s political agenda, but several elements are alien to the Basic Law (or Constitution) of Hungary.

First, regarding registration of churches, the Court ruled that registration of churches “should be dealt by the independent courts and not transferred to the Parliament’s competence, which is political in character, and so was incompatible with the Basic Law.” In response, the Fourth Amendment says that “Parliament may pass cardinal Acts to recognize certain organizations engaged in religious activities as Churches, with which the State shall cooperate to promote community goals.” The Court ruled. The Parliament overruled it. Plain and simple.

Second, regarding political campaigns, the Court ruled, that “the freedom of expression and the freedom of press are disproportionally limited, because according to the Act during the electoral campaign the publication of political advertisements is allowed only in the public media service, thus these rules are contrary to the Fundamental Law.” In response, that Fourth Amendment says that “In the campaign period prior to the election of Members of Parliament and of Members of the European Parliament, political advertisements published by and in the interest of nominating organizations setting up country-wide candidacy lists for the general election of Members of Parliament or candidacy lists for the election of Members of the European Parliament shall exclusively be published by way of public media services and under equal conditions, as determined by cardinal Act.” The Court ruled. The Parliament didn’t like the ruling, so it overruled the Court.

Third, regarding the definition of the family, the Court ruled, that “If the legislative body determines rights and obligations concerning the families, it cannot withdraw rights from those people who intend to form a family without marriage but with another long-term emotional and economical social relationship.” In response, the Parliament’s Fourth Amendment says that “family ties shall be based on marriage and the relationship between parents and children.” The Court ruled. The Parliament overruled it.

As for the article restricting the Constitutional Court’s power of reviewing constitutional amendments themselves, it is debatable whether or not the Court ever had that right. But as highlighted on this blog previously, some judges very clearly argued that “if the Court nullifies a section of a law for constitutional concerns, and the legislature would attempt to simply amend the Basic Law with these provisions afterwards, that would still be unconstitutional.” So it is very likely that the Court would have been brave enough to look at the substance of the amendments – which it is now not allowed to do – not only the process by which it has been adopted.

The intent behind the Amendment is clear and the logic of the ruling Fidesz-KDNP government is simple. The supreme law-making body of Hungary does not accept the decisions of the Constitutional Court. And it wants to make sure that up until the elections, the hierarchy of power is clear. The words of János Lázár, chief of staff to the Prime Minister, are revealing: “What legitimacy does the Court have compared to the Parliament? Did even one citizen elect them? … What legitimacy does a justice appointed by a party and confirmed by MPs to responsibly decide about the matters of the country? … I do not see a reason why in Hungary we should put representative democracy under guardianship.”  Or as Speaker of the Parliament László Kövér asked: “So who is a democrat here? Me, who thinks that the direction of the country is determined by the free will of the people and then in four years it can be rectified, or those who – in their lack of trust in the people – wait for a narrow cluster of people to read from the stars … what message the god of constitutionalism sends down to us mortals?”

The fallacy of Fidesz’s radical populism is of course that the majority, just like any other faction, can be wrong. And if it is wrong, it takes a long time and a difficult process to undo the damage that was done. Invoking majoritarian privilege against the plain rulings of the judicial branch is no way to arrive at good policy, and it is certainly no way to safeguard a balanced system of government.

Orbán has earned his spot in history by growing a radical group of liberal university students into a powerful political party that helped create the very foundation for a free and democratic Hungary in the last days of Communism. Having faced Soviet tanks earlier in his life, he might be upset at critics who question his democratic credentials. But without a more principled approach to democratic self-government, he will slowly erode both the legitimacy and the prestige of the very democratic framework he worked so hard to establish.

—Vera Molnár is a political analyst residing in Budapest, Hungary. She holds a degree in political science and international affairs.

Most recently, the passage of the fourth amendment to the Basic Law has stirred controversy. It was conceived in particularly inauspicious circumstances. The Constitutional Court, even deprived of its actio popularis powers, has recently managed to deliver several extremely uncomfortable decisions for the government on controversial issues like voter registration and the regulation of churches. But certainly, its most important decision was the annulment of the transitional regulations of the fundamental law [45/2012. (XII. 29) AB decision]. Perhaps it would not be too daring to call this the “Rubicon-decision,” signaling clearly that the Constitutional Court considers itself only bound by the constitution, not by deference to the Parliament.  But the annulled transitional provisions – supposedly having constitutional power – were substantial and long-term constitutional provisions indeed, which is the reason why the Court annulled them. Parliament’s newest amendment mostly tries to codify these substantive regulations in the fundamental law rather than leave them as ill-defined legislative creations.

Most of the twenty-two articles of the Fourth Amendment contain verbatim versions of the former transitional provisions. Naturally the very necessity of these new regulations will be questioned along with the motives of Parliament, which failed to put them into the constitution in the first place. One must wonder why that happened. For now, however, the provisions are safe, exempt from immediate annulment or frivolous attack. So let us turn our focus to the particular provisions.

The first article reacts to a Constitutional Court decision [43/2012. (XII. 20.) AB decision], which found the former heterosexual concept of family unconstitutional. The Court argued that excluding civil unions, for example, from the concept of family is unconstitutional. The Fourth Amendment reasserts the basis of the family as marriage between man and woman and reemphasizes the importance of childbearing to marriage. Would this be ground for the Strasbourg Court to condemn the article on the basis of violation of human rights? If any child were subject of undue discrimination based on the marital status of her parents, state constitutions would hardly stop this international forum from declaring violation of international duties.

The second article, together with the eleventh, is a clear answer to the abovementioned Rubicon-decision; it gives authorization to the Constitutional Court to review the Fundamental Law and its amendments, but strictly on procedural grounds. The government argues that this is nothing new, but it is hardly clear whether or not the Rubicon-decision could have been made under this new definition of review. But at the same time there are concerns on the other side that the constitution should not be reviewable by unaccountable judges, even on procedural grounds. This mirrors the debate between American textualists and judicial activists; judging by various state constitutions (Georgia’s Art. VII, for example) there seems little room for brave interpretation.

Article Three condemns communist crimes, a passage which previously appeared in the Transitory Rules annulled by the Court. Crimes against humanity, human dignity, private property and personal freedoms during communism could fill volumes and there is a good argument to be made for the inclusion of an article such as this in a post-communist country’s constitution.

Article Four refers to previous Constitutional Court decision [6/2013. (II. 26.) AB dec.] which ruled it unconstitutional for Parliament to recognize churches without the possibility of judicial review. Though the continental approach differs substantially from the American 1^st Amendment, our fundamental law does respect the separation of state and church in that churches are free to govern themselves and the state does not take on just one religion as the official, established one. Moreover, parliamentary recognition is only an added benefit for religious community to get more tax breaks and state money. The reason for parliamentary recognition at all may be due in part to the former abuses with “business churches,” Scientology amongst them. State sponsorship may not be the best way to deal with this issue, but it is notable that under the Fourth Amendment there will be a check on Parliamentary designation in the form of constitutional complaint – a proper remedy the lack of which the Court previously criticized in the religion law.

Article Five is a response to the 1/2013. (I. 7.) AB decision that declared the unconstitutionality of voter registration and the restriction of political campaign ads to the public service media in order to prevent excessive campaign spending and provide equal access for all competing parties. The government’s voting reforms cannot now be ruled unconstitutional, as they are part of the constitution; but it would hardly be surprising if the European Court of Human Rights found this a violation of the European Convention of Human Rights.

Articles Six and Seven refer to higher education. One serious amendment is the economic supervision of the state universities, which will be vested in the government. The aim of controlling costs is surely an admirable one (though coming from academia, I have to object to the idea of overpaid professors), but serious doubts remain as to the wisdom of such direct control. Even the rector of the Eötvös Lorand University of Budapest, one of the most prominent institutions in Hungary, voiced his doubts that economic supervision might eventually weaken academic independence. A good model for this issue is the state of Florida, which, under Art. IX Section 7 (d) of its constitution, establishes an independent board of governors to oversee public institutions.

Article Seven may easily backfire on the current government and might also be contested at the European Courts based on freedom of movement issues. It enables the legislature to regulate the so-called “student-contracts,” creating a quid-pro-quo obligation of guaranteed work within Hungary in return for state-funded tuition. The state is here claiming a right to expect a return on investment and trying to secure valuable human capital. Of course, students who finance their own education retain the right to travel and get a job anywhere they wish. There are surely other ways to combat brain drain, but civil contracts are among the less drastic ways to achieve this reasonable goal. Many students find this provision offensive, and have lately been demonstrating against the government for this and other reasons. Such demonstrations never help the reputation of the party in power, especially for international audiences.

Article Eight refers to the homeless people. Again there was a Constitutional Court decision [38/2012. (XI. 14.) AB decision] which declared the penalization of continuous use of public spaces unconstitutional. Now the Fundamental Law allows the lawmakers to ban living on public spaces – together with the state goal of helping homeless people to housing. The homeless’ “lobby power,” even strengthened with the advocacy of NGOs, is less than the average citizen’s, who claim to want to help vagrants as long as they’re not in their own backyard. But Hungarians are not alone in this regard, as criminalization of permanently occupying public spaces by the homeless is a widespread phenomenon.

Article Nine refers to recognizing national minorities and has proved less controversial than other provisions. On the other hand, the controversial Article Ten allows the re-establishment of the Parliament Guard, a special enforcement unit under the direction of the President of the Parliament. Opponents fear that the president will use this “police force” to gag the opposition or unnecessarily use them in parliamentary conflicts. The courts, even the Constitutional Court, may yet hear a case that examines if and how MP’s right of immunity clashes with the presence of the Guard.

Article Twelve further amends the powers of the Constitutional Court. The Fourth Amendment gives with one hand but takes away with the other: for example, the president of the Kúria (Supreme Court) and the chief prosecutor gain standing to initiate an abstract norm control procedure, but the Court must now annul a law more quickly, within 30 days, if it is applicable to the case before them. Even though the expeditious resolution of constitutional questions may be a legitimate need, 30 days will likely prove an insufficient time frame once more and more petitions come in for review. Thus the Court’s missing a procedural deadline could put them in the awkward position of violating the Fundamental Law they are sworn to protect.

Furthermore, Parliament’s new law prevents the Court from referring to its own precedent, a remarkable loss of power for the Court. No more copy/paste, as one politician put it. Actually, precedent is not intended to ensure ease of use, but for the more important goals of consistency and stability in the interpretation of the constitution. Any judge will admit that following precedent might be a very hard task. However odd this fresh start may seem, there is a chance to uphold constitutional continuity with our previous constitution and its valuable case law. In several previous decisions of the Court it has been debated whether the former precedent shall be valid, and the undeniable logic of verbatim sameness of legal opinion should stand. But what the Court has chosen to do was to refer to its pre-Fundamental Law decisions in cases where the text of the Fundamental Law was the same as the previous Constitution and create new legal arguments for the new statutes. It is quite a common sense approach. I see no compelling reason to deviate from decisions of the former Court precedents, if the underlying constitutional principles are the same. So invalidating the former precedent is a highly unfriendly move from the government. But the Court will likely find a way to go around it: for example by simply using the language of previous decisions without explicitly referring to the actual decisions.

Article Thirteen inserts a reference to the National Office of the Judiciary (NOJ) and its president. Most of these regulations were in the Act on the Judiciary and are now being written into the constitution. This seems like an act of extreme precaution on the part of the legislature, since the laws regulating the NOJ and its president are two-third acts anyway. Article Fourteen gives constitutional power to the president of the NOJ to designate other venues for judicial cases for the sake of ensuring decisions within a reasonable time. This regulation has actually existed since the recodification of the Act on Judiciary and has been redesigned to address objections of international organizations and US institutions.

Articles Fifteen and Sixteen deal with local government issues, set local election dates through 2019 instead of 2018, and raise the term of local governments from four years to five years. Though these articles could possibly prove to be problematic regulations – increasing the terms of even democratically elected representatives may raise doubts – no serious concerns have been raised yet. One reason for the lack of criticism may be that incumbent local government terms have not been lengthened – an act of seeming self-restraint on the part of Parliament.

Article Seventeen again focuses on the Constitutional Court. As has already been widely reported, the competence of the Court has been reduced regarding tax laws, which may now only be reviewable on the basis of protecting human dignity and several other fundamental laws (NB: the prohibition against discrimination is not considered grounds for review). This remains the rule at least until the national debt of Hungary reaches less than 50% of gross domestic product. However, according to the Article Seventeen of the Fourth Amendment any financial laws made when GDP was above 50% shall remain unreviewable, even when debt decreases under the 50% limit. This is the provision of an uncertain legislature unsure of the exact tactics it will wish to employ to combat the economic crisis, just as the former provision was. Constitutionality may be seen as a burden for lawmakers fighting their way out of a financial crisis, but fundamental rights are priceless commodities and this particular provision is a menace to those rights.

Articles Eighteen to Twenty Two are largely technical norms outlining closing and amending regulations, mostly taken from the former transitional provisions.

A thorough and conscientious examination of the Fourth Amendment reveals that it does not quite reflect the undue concentration of power it is sometimes being portrayed as. It is rather best understood as a continuation of the line started by the Fundamental Law: building a strong government, using the power of the two-third majority, sometimes testing the borders of current European norms, but mainly remaining within those lines. Still, what really is troubling is that the government has so blatantly tried to circumvent the Constitutional Court whenever it delivers an opinion disagreeable to the government. Now, frequent amending of the constitution does not necessarily endanger democratic legitimacy (look at how frequently state constitutions are amended in America with no threat to the rule of law, for instance) but Hungary will have to face ever-greater European scrutiny for amending her constitution so fast after its passage. And as a matter of policy, the Fourth Amendment has indefensible regulations, like the restrictions on the Constitutional Court; however, it also contains basic political values, like the issue of marriage, the condemnation of communism etc. Regarding these substantial values, any legislator in possession of constitution-making powers has not only the ability but also the duty to represent his or her constituents. Should these legislators serve their citizens ill, the democratic process will throw them out of power. Should the citizens like their new constitution – the new student contract, the rules regulating homelessness, the voter registration scheme, and so on – they will retain them. Public opinion still matters and free elections will have consequences; Hungarian voters will have a say in these matters at the end of the day.

Finally, for those who think the Fundamental Law is being abused as a playground for petty party politics, I direct you again to America. When I first saw the constitution of the great state of Florida, the Sunshine State, I thought of it as a sacred legal document. Then I saw Article X: Miscellaneous Provisions, especially Section 21, which limits cruel and inhumane confinement of pigs during pregnancy. First I was astonished, but then I realized that this constitution is a living instrument, and since the people of Florida found this topic important, their legislative bodies responded by putting this provision into their constitution. Thus, despite my rejection of certain amendments, I have full faith in the freedom of the Hungarian people to write their own constitution, amend it whenever they want, and reward or punish the party making changes in the most fundamental law of the land. The Fourth Amendment, then, is an invitation to renewed democratic participation among average Hungarians. The most important thing is that Hungarians take ownership of this political process, and do not cede control of their own constitution to special interests and outside voices.

–The author is a legal scholar residing in Budapest

This is a position I have encountered even from stalwart libertarians, such as the late Murray N. Rothbard.  He, too, if memory serves me right, blamed mainly the American government for pushing the USSR toward imperialism.  In other words, the Soviet Union, however vicious, wasn’t aiming to rule the world and the only thing that made it appear so is that America was provoking the Ruskies to be fiercely defensive.

I have always been curious how those who were blaming the Americans for being the aggressors in the Cold War managed to ignore a certain element of Marxian ideology and geopolitics.  Given that Marx and his followers in the USSR were advocates and promoters of international communism (socialism), their intention to spread Soviet domination across the globe is difficult to deny and natural to fathom.

Marx himself argued, back in the 1880s, that the movement toward a global communist future necessarily had to involve spreading out the borders of socialist Russia.  Marx explained: “If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolu­tion in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting-point for a communist development.” Soviet expansionism, the “desire for world domination,” was consistent with this Marxist communist idea: the Soviet Union would be a “signal for a proletarian revolution in the West.”

There are those Sovietologists and scholars of the Cold War who would ignore Marxian ideology as they propose to understand the behavior of the USSR. For them it was a mere epiphenomenon, not a guiding doctrine. Yet that ideology held that capitalistic nations, in an effort to create foreign markets, must necessarily be imperialistic.  And the military of such nations were supposed to be bent on securing those markets coercively, so socialist countries such as the USSR needed to prepare for this. Ergo, the USSR must achieve global dominance lest capitalist nations do so.

It is true that capitalists want to reach foreign markets but by all accounts they would want to do this peacefully, through trade instead of military conquest. This of course doesn’t mean that the Western governments were in no way responsible for a good deal of the malfeasance during the Cold War.  But arguably the Soviets had an official state ideology that rationalized aggressive expansionism and imperialism far more readily than what guided diplomacy and military policy for the Western powers.

–

—Tibor Machan, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Auburn University and holds the R. C. Hoiles Chair in Business Ethics and Free Enterprise at Chapman University in California. He is Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC. He was born in Hungary and immigrated to the United States as a youth in 1956. A version of this article was originally published at Mr. Machan’s personal blog on Friday, March 15. 

To avoid using the pessimistic term “lost generation,” EU policy-makers have coined the more neutral acronym “NEET” – “not in employment, education, or training.” Becoming a NEET is today the worst fear of any young European. Eurofound’s report on youth unemployment in Europe estimates that in 2011, NEETs cost member states €153bn (nearly $200bn—roughly 1.2% of the EU’s GDP) through welfare costs and lost tax contributions. Several countries have even paid in excess of 2% of their GDP: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, and Poland.

Nevertheless, despite huge losses to the economy caused by NEET Europeans, governments seem unable to deal effectively with the issue and the rate of youth unemployment is still strikingly high.

How did we get here?

The growing numbers of NEETs are often painted as idle, vacant, and unwilling to enter adult life and take responsibility for their actions. Yet, the role of their parents’ generation’s economic choices is often minimized or completely forgotten.

The 1990s, the time of childhood for today’s 20-somethings, was marked by a consumption boom in Europe. Colorful TV ads, shiny shopping malls, and endless lines of beautiful Barbies and LEGO models were commonplace parts of every child’s over-stimulated imagination. The digital revolution has brought new “toys” for growing kids – computers, tape players, CD players, MP3 players, iPods, mobile phones, smartphones, laptops, tablets – and rising incomes have enabled doting parents to provide a higher quality of life for their children than previously thought possible.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, however, and my generation has become a hostage to the easy consumption it has enjoyed for free for so long. Simultaneously, various media have fostered a narrow image of the “good life,” according to which one must be educated, independent, and accomplished by the age of 30 in order to have a good-paying job, a full family, extensive travel opportunities, and a vibrant social life filled with expensive restaurants, night clubs, and gym memberships

Good education was thought to be a direct path to the Promised Land, and both parents and children sincerely believed that a university degree was a ticket to a better life. Turns out, it wasn’t, since getting into university is no longer an exclusive advantage of the brightest or richest. Today practically everyone has at least one Bachelor degree—even two Master’s degrees are not considered particularly outstanding. University and graduate diplomas are not necessarily safeguards against the dreaded NEET-status.

Once a young person decides to become financially independent, he experiences the shock of forced austerity because of the necessary spending cuts he must make on the commodities he is used to enjoying for free. No wonder that for today’s youngsters entering adult life seems to be expulsion from paradise. It is so stressful that they prefer to postpone this decision by getting one degree after the other, doing traineeships and internships, and find whatever pretext they can to stay on their parents’ allowance.

Of course, young people want to work and sincerely desire financial independence. But when they approach the job market with certain expectations about the jobs they are qualified for and entitled to, the actual existing jobs seem unfair and inadequate. Becoming a sales manager with a Master’s degree in anthropology is considered an affront to the individual’s sense of intelligence and ambition. Many young Europeans wind up taking positions that boost their ego – like internships in their specific subfield of interest – rather than a steady, good-paying job.

The European Union recognizes the problem of the “lost generation” as one of the most critical facing Europe. In 2010 it adopted the Europe 2020 flagship initiative “Youth on the Move” and the 2012–2013 “Youth Opportunities” initiatives calling for joint effort from Member States, businesses, social groups, and the EU itself in order to help address the youth challenge.

This challenge, however, is more than just youth unemployment caused by economic crisis. It is a tectonic shift in the socioeconomic and cultural model, where old tools of social mobility do not function anymore. The best response lies, first of all, in young people reexamining their own mindsets: Are we hiding behind the words “economic crisis” in hopes of better opportunities in the future, or are we adjusting to existing realities today?  Young Europeans should stop waiting for societal changes and take individual responsibility for their futures. Past generations have had their own challenges. We must face ours.

–Maria Sheviakova is an intern for CSS Budapest and a Master’s student at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy in Germany.

The Court ruled that Parliament’s power to decide who qualifies for the status of recognized church hurts the principle of separation of powers. It further ruled that having no possibility of an appeal against the Parliament’s decision is unconstitutional, as is the fact that Parliament is not required to give a reason for its decisions. Official churches in Hungary enjoy tax-exempt status, qualify to receive public funding, and are authorized to collect donations. Though the Court recognized that the government must take reasonable steps to ensure that only religious organizations are registered as churches, it nevertheless ruled the existing law unconstitutional and retroactively restored the official church status of hundreds of religious entities that had previously lost it.

In late December 2011, Hungary’s government cut the number of state-recognized churches from around 370 to just 14. That group included traditional Western faiths like Christianity and Judaism (although excluding some Christian denominations), but excluded Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. In March of 2012, Parliament expanded the church list to include 18 new churches, including several Buddhist and two Islamic organizations. Tuesday’s ruling theoretically restores the official status of hundreds of former churches, but Szabolcs Hegyi of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union recently told the press that “Many of the churches which lost their status last year have disappeared or have turned themselves into associations.” All those former churches that wish to take advantage of the new ruling will not necessarily be able to do so because they either merged with others or simply disbanded.

The Fidesz-led governing coalition, for its part, seems to be setting up another battle with the Court. In the proposed Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which currently sits in front of Parliament, the party would amend the Basic Law to re-grant robust discretionary powers to the legislature when deciding church registration, effectively constitutionalizing the very power that the Court has just declared unconstitutional. The current confrontation comes in the midst of an ongoing tug-of-war between the nation’s highest court and the country’s governing party, a contest that is helping to define the contours of constitutional limitations and judicial review in Hungary.

The role of religion in public life is the source of near-constant debate in many healthy democracies, and in some ways this current controversy signals a useful time for thinking anew about the relationship between church and state in Hungary. In some sense, however, the Court’s ruling is little more than a procedural clarification of a generally accepted policy of state sponsorship of religion. Western observers who are now celebrating the Court’s decision might instead hope for an honest and fruitful discussion about the merits and problems of state sponsorship of religion in the first place.

– Travis LaCouter is the Managing Editor of Paprika Politik.