Who started World War I.
From FT Alphaville:
Illiberating Hungary
There has been a lot of international politics around, so it may have been easy to miss events in one of Europe’s smaller economies, Hungary.We've looked at Hungarian politics a few times, focusing on the rise of the current batch of fascists:
Some attention may be warranted. Viktor Orban, the prime minister, recently used a speech to a gathering of the Hungarian minority in Romania to announce his desire to create an “illiberal state” and a “work-based society”.
Combined with other policy developments, and the continuation of several constitutional changes that have entrenched the right wing Fidesz party’s grip on the country, international investors might start to feel queasy. One Eastern European expert and long time resident we spoke to was acting on his own advice to clients, and has put his Budapest apartment on the market.
The speech in question might have been expected to veer towards the nationalistic, given its audience. The Hungarian left is weak while the real opposition is to the far-right. Still, Orban declared that he would like to abandon liberal democracy, and cited Singapore, China, Russia and Turkey as examples. Via Bloomberg:
I don’t think that our European Union membership precludes us from building an illiberal new state based on national foundationsMeanwhile, what might be called, politely, Hungary’s “illiberal turn” has been visible for quite some time. As the Journal of Democracy wrote two years ago....MORE
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