Ruminations on EU centralization

A liberal commentator thinks that if the EU disintegrates Hungary will be worse off, as it will be left on the periphery. A conservative historian, on the other hand, cautions against further integration and what he calls the ‘transnationalization’ of the EU.

Reversing European integration and the restoration of national sovereignty would harm the interests of Hungary, Miklós Hargitai writes in Népszabadság. The liberal columnist thinks that if the Schengen zone breaks up and a two-tier Europe emerges, Hungary will be left on the edge. He fears that core western EU states might easily get rid of those less developed countries which oppose further integration and want to defend their sovereignty. This, he believes, would mean that peripheral countries including Hungary would be left without EU funds and benefits.

In Magyar Hírlap, Péter Tamáska contends that Central and Eastern European countries which lost their sovereignty under four decades of Soviet domination should oppose any further centralization of the EU. A more powerful centre would require that individual member states have less influence over their own affairs and future, Tamáska remarks.

Tags: EU