The European Union’s response to internal democratic backsliding: evidence from Hungary and Poland

Abstract

Hungary and Poland, which have been members of the European Union since 2004, are in a democratic backsliding path. The EU has had a limited response towards this illiberal trend: Article 7.2 of the EU treaty, which is known as the “nuclear option” to fight authoritarianism as it involves revoking the illiberal countries voting powers in the bloc, has never been activated. This thesis analyses the reasons behind the EU’s behavior. To do so, it examines the interplay of institutions, ideas, and interests in shaping the relation between Brussels, Hungary and Poland. Upon thorough examination of expert reports, primary sources, academic papers and statistic reports, I found that there are three main explanations for the EU’s limited response. (1) There is a design problem with the EU’s institutions to fight illiberalism which makes them insufficient or ineffective; (2) The political maneuvers of Hungary and Poland to back each other successfully counteracts the EU’s actions; and (3) Hungary and Poland meet strategic interests to certain groups within the European Parliament or to the EU as a whole, which makes them tolerate the authoritarian tendencies. The first explanation is a necessary condition to explain the EU’s actions (or lack of action) as it sets the ‘rules of the game’, but to understand the whole panorama it is crucial to explore how the actors in argument two and three come into play and exploit these rules to their benefit. It is a combination of all three arguments that best explains the EU’s limited response towards illiberalism within the block.