Hungary’s EU Humiliation Leads to Compromise, Orban-Style

Certainly, everyone expected him to get a grilling by the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET). But the Hungarian administration had been assiduous in preparing him for the hearing and Trocsanyi was an avid student.

So optimism was in the air as the European Parliament started vetting candidates to run the EU's executive arm.

Rumours had even spread that Budapest's intensive lobbying had paid off. A deal was said to have been struck. Members of the AFET were said to be on the verge of giving their blessing to Orban's man. 

The killer blow came out of the blue. Perversely, it came not from AFET but from the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee, JURI.

Who sows wind, reaps a storm.

The committee rejected Trocsanyi on grounds of "conflict of interest" concerning a law firm he founded that did work for the government while he was minister.

JURI also accused him of serving Russian interests by extraditing two suspected Russian arms dealers to Moscow and leaving the US — which had long been after the men — empty-handed.

Those allegations were well known in Hungary but the government had easily shrugged them off. Why investigate when there was so little pressure from society at large or what remains of the country's democratic institutions?

How shocking, then, when JURI held up the red card. 

Curiously, the only commissioners-designate to be rejected by the committee were from Hungary and Romania (Rovana Plumb, nominated for the transport portfolio). 

This fact could easily reinforce Orban's narrative of double standards in the EU.

Neither of the controversial "Western candidates" got blocked by the committee. Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders...