Navracsics seeks to turn the page
Hungary’s controversial commissioner-designate had a clear strategy in his European Parliament hearing – but it did not work.
No European commissioner-designate arrived at his or her European Parliament confirmation hearing with a more difficult political history to explain than Tibor Navracsics, Hungary’s nominee.
Hungary has had more run-ins with the European Union and Europe’s rights watchdogs than any other EU state in recent years. Navracsics has always been a leading light in Hungary’s ruling centre-right Fidesz party; and, until the past year or so, he was the right-hand man of Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, as Orbán’s chief of staff, his justice minister and latterly his foreign minister.
Navracsics expected difficulties at the European Parliament, and his whole approach was based on that expectation. Navracsics faced 45 questions related to his designated role – as European commissioner for education, culture, youth and citizenship – but he was very conscious that there was really only one question for the Parliament’s culture committee: can a leopard change its spots?
Navracsics’s strategy was to consign the past to the bin. His tactics were to look resolutely forward, to avoid getting into detail about past policy decisions and to offer MEPs as few glimpses of the leopard as possible. He quickly deployed his main line of defence: he is a committed European, who, as a commissioner, will act as a guardian of the EU’s treaty.
Early on, after an animated delivery of that argument, he won himself sustained applause. At one point, he even pulled out the treaty to quote verbatim two clauses in it. By the end, though, the same approach was receiving only sporadic claps. MEPs repeatedly tried to probe his past, though they usually failed to end their questions sharply enough (“what are you going to do if Hungary breaches European law?” was certain to be answered by: “uphold the treaties”).
The most provocative question came from the German non-aligned MEP Martin Sonneborn, who, looking at the presence of Hungary’s curriculum of writers he deemed to be anti-Semitic, wondered whether Navracsics would promote the inclusion of Hitler’s and Goebbel’s works on European curricula. The provocation worked for both sides: Sonneborn secured laughter, while Navracsics’s responded to that “cynical” question by launching a full-throated defence of his government and of Hungary’s Jewish community. His reward was loud, long applause.
Still, Navracsics did not really answer Sonneborn’s question about Hungary’s educational policy. Indeed, only once did Navracsics truly engage in the detail of a Hungarian policy – about Hungary’s requirement that university students who receive grants should work for some time in Hungary. Another time, he seemed to be about to engage in a defence of Hungary’s policy towards the judiciary – but he swiftly changed tack to note that Hungarians’ trust in their judiciary was above the European average. The logic was feeble, as if popularity is a true measure of the quality of European justice. The death penalty is popular with Europeans; but Europe does not embrace executions.
Navracsics’s major variation on his chosen theme – of himself as a future guardian of the EU’s treaty – was to refer to Europe’s other guardians of fundamental rights, such as the European Court of Human Rights and above all the Council of Europe. He claimed to have developed “very good” relations with the Council of Europe through his defence of Hungarian polices at the Council of Europe, and said that he and Hungary had always been willing to adjust laws based on the Council’s suggestions. It is a familiar Hungarian argument, and frequently, of course, there are very legitimate points of contention between lawyers on national and international law. But the argument has been a ‘wasting asset’: the more Hungary has had to hold consultations with the Council of Europe, the clearer it has become that the Hungarian government and its lawyers are not by instinct and in legal interpretation on the same page as the Council of Europe’s experts. That history raises the possibility that EU lawyers will find themselves very actively having to guide this European commissioner – assuming Navracsics is eventually approved, something that remains to be seen.
Navracsics accompanied his neutralisation policy with grace notes. He set out a well-scripted, six-point vision for his term. He sought to establish a connection with MEPs, knowing some by name and inviting them to partnership. He apologised for not having referred earlier to social solidarity when asked about schooling for disabled children; and he referred on a couple of occasions to the Roma and to Hungary’s attempt, notably during its presidency of the Council of Ministers, to raise their situation higher up Europe’s agenda.
But such efforts could not conceal the failure of his neutralisation strategy. By providing little defence of his record, he risked creating one of two impressions: either that he accepted that much of Hungary’s record was indefensible – or that he felt that mounting a defence in the European Parliament would simply result in a dialogue of the deaf. The result was that he did not dispel questions about his record or about his purpose in coming to Brussels. Perhaps Orbán’s relegation of Navracsics in recent years – or possibly the evolution of Orbán’s policies – has frustrated Navracsics and turned Hungarian politics into a cage for him. It may be that this very big beast of Hungarian politics really does want a fresh start very far from Hungary. But, alternatively, it may be that the Navracsics-Orbán relationship will remain close, and that both believe the Fidesz agenda can be well served in this post.
This hearing had run out of steam long before the end. It was, then, no surprise that Navracsics took a mere 102 seconds to conclude. He felt the job of getting through the hearing was done. The job of convincing his critics, though, will take longer.
Read the live blog from the hearing – as it happened