EU needs to act now to curb Orbán’s despotic tactics

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has pursued control by varied and ruthless means — breaching EU law and his citizens’ rights. EU states have to do more than finger wag, writes Guy Verhofstadt

European politicians have mastered the art of wagging their finger, most recently at Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian president Vladimir Putin, and US president Donald Trump. Sadly, the same cannot be said for our ability to formulate political solutions and implement common policies.

The refugee crisis has shaken Europe to its core, because, rather than taking collective responsibility for managing the flood of migrants and refugees into Europe, we have mostly shifted the burden to frontline countries. This has eroded European solidarity. Likewise, our inability to come together to stop Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s war crimes against his own people has left a void that Mr Putin and Iran have filled.