The ‘Greater Hungary’ and the EURO 2020. Sports diplomacy of an illiberal state

ABSTRACT

Sports Mega-Events have been part of the modernization of the West and its Macro-Social Changes since the mid-19th century. These are part of both the initial proposal dedicated to strengthening a national identity based on ethnocentrism, monoculturalism and xenophobia and the one from the 70s, centered on cosmopolitanism, human rights and individualism. Therefore, the question must be raised as of the effects of holding a sports event such as the Euro Cup in countries with a policy defying UEFA and European Union values, as in the case of modern Hungary, a sensitive case because of the controversial Home Financing Law; in addition, the public sports diplomacy enhances anirredentist vision of the “Great Hungary'', which is troublesome in the current European Union framework. This work pretends to research and clarify the Hungarian association structure in order to put into perspective the suitability to develop SME in countries proclaiming illiberal values.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Roche, Mega-events and Social Change; Megaevents and Modernity.

2. It is worth mentioning that UEFA’s Assessment Reports from the last three European Championships have all been modified, reducing the importance of non-economic elements and focusing on the techno-economical capacity for decision-making. Therefore, in 2012 there was just one paragraph to study ‘Political Support, Guarantees and Legal Conditions’. In this epigraph the political system was evaluated concerning the European standards (UEFA, Phase 1 Evaluation Report 2005). This item featured in 2016 as ‘Political and Economic Aspects’ where the political system was outlined and then evaluated referring to the risk of a possible failure to support the event if a regime change took place (UEFA, Final Tournament 2016. Bid Evaluation Report 2010). This aspect is reduced in the 2020 edition into a paragraph under the title ‘Political and Economic Aspects’, where the political commitment with the organization of the tournament is assessed, with no mention of any analysis on its political system and guarantees to civil and human rights in relation to European standards (UEFA Euro2020 Evaluation Reports). In the same document, the description for Azerbaijan merits attention: ‘the political and economic structures are stable, and the national association enjoys a strong relationship with the government. The bid demonstrates a high degree of commitment by all parties and stakeholders.’ Azerbaijan is however a State accused by different NGOs of human rights violation and infringement of political and media freedom (Amnesty Internacional, Informe 2017/2018 La situación de los derechos humanos en el mundo; Human Right Watch, World Report 2019. Our annual review of human rights around the globe.

3. Roche, Mega-events and Social Change.

4. Following Xavier Casals Messeger’s work La normalización de la ultraderecha, normalization of the far-right within the EU is understood as the term starting from Jean-Marie Le Pen’s entrance to European Parliament in 1994 and it is specially accelerated in the last few years with Donald Trump becoming the US President in 2016, the victory of Brexit and the consolidation of Viktor Orbán and Fidesz in the executive since 2011, which according to Casals, would demonstrate ‘that this vote would now be determining to change the situation, thus constituting a sort of “Yes, we can” from the right wing.’

5. ‘Welfare chauvinism’ means, as per Kitschelt and McGann in The Radical Right in Western Europe, the characteristic feature of the shift of ‘winning formula’ in the current sector of the European far-right wing, which is defined as a formula which cuts across the left-right axis insofar as it is a model combining the defence of certain elements of the welfare state (such as attacks from neoliberalism from the globalist elite) with a restrictive position regarding who might receive the benefits of the social politics, particularly migrants. The concept of national chauvinism has become necessary to explain the rise of illiberal governments because the Orbán’s in Hungary and Law and Justice in Poland, are both largely explained by the popular rejection of the dismantling of the post-socialist commons by neoliberal social democrats. Illiberal nationalist parties rhetorically and sometimes factually celebrate the protection and well-being of the working poor but just in their own country. See Kalb, ‘Post-Socialist Contradictions’.

6. Pigman and Rofe, ‘Sport and Diplomacy’. See also: Wood and Wynne, ‘State Strategies for Leveraging SportsMega-Events’.

7. On March 19, the European Parliament denounced that ‘Hungary is at risk of breaching the EU’s core values, triggering a disciplinary process that could exacerbate deep divisions within the bloc.’

8. In this sense, we consider relevant to mention the response from the Hungarian government before the COVID-19 pandemic (published on March 30) which raised alarms within EU because it granted the Executive ‘radically broadened’ powers, such as suspending laws and blocking the disclosure of information ‘that may obstruct or preclude the defense’ and enforcing imprisonment up to five years for offenders. This penalty is the same for those risking the spread of fake news on the government or the disease under the emergency state established for an unspecified time period. This law has received no response from EU. See: Rankin, ‘Hungary’s emergency law “incompatible with being in EU”, say MEPs group’.

9. Sargentini, On a Proposal Calling on the Council to Determine. Since 2003, the reports of some international organizations (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, etc.) denounced the majority of the central right party politics that tended to run counter to UN and EU standards of human rights for many groups including the homeless, LGBT, students, public workers and the disabled. See Schreier, 25 Years After.

10. Cornelissen, ‘The Geopolitics of Global Aspiration’.

11. Roche, Mega-events and Social Change.

12. Włoch, ‘UEFA as a New Agent’.

13. For a good account of the evolution of the relationships between EU and the UEFA, see: García, ‘UEFA and European Union’.

14. Włoch, ‘UEFA as a New Agent’.

15. UEFA, ‘Football is a Common Language Among Europeans’.

16. Nye Jr., Bound to Lead.

17. As part of the strategic shift from employing ‘hard’ to ‘soft’ power, States have increasingly used sport in general and Sports Mega-Events in particular to serve that purpose. The latter often finds such use as broad-brush diplomatic tools to heighten a state’s international prestige, improve an often-tarnished image, and increase the likelihood of the bidding state’s acceptance on the world stage. The majority of regime types see SMEs as part of their wider diplomatic armoury and, by their very nature, these events cut across all of the areas identified by us and are considered important for generating soft power (Grix and Brannagan, ‘Of Mechanisms and Myths’). The generalization of this type of action leads to dedicating a full chapter in the last edition of The SAGE Handbook of Diplomacy to it. In this context, the SME has a special presence in both branches – ‘classical’ and ‘2.0ʹ – of aforementioned foreign policy.

18. Grix and Brannagan, ‘Of Mechanisms and Myths’.

19. Cornelissen, ‘The Geopolitics of Global Aspiration’.

20. Nye Jr., ‘Soft power and American Foreign Policy’.

21. Cornelissen, ‘The Geopolitics of Global Aspiration’.

22. Ibid.

23. Roche, Mega-events and Social Change.

24. Tomlinson and Young, National Identity and Global Sports Events.

25. Guttmann, ‘The Most Controversial Olympics’.

26. Both were members of the former Communist bloc. Their hosting of the Euro 2012 tournament disrupted the geographical pattern set thus far in the European championship’s history. With the exception of Yugoslavia’s hosting of the 1976 finals, all prior tournaments were hosted by West European countries.

27. Harding, ‘UK Government Boycotts Euro’.

28. Ibid.

29. UEFA, Phase 1 Evaluation Report.

30. UEFA, Euro2020 Evaluat ion Reports.

31. Cornelissen, ‘The Geopolitics of Global Aspiration’.

32. The term ‘irredentism’ broadly defines all political currents which advocate the annexation of a territory belonging to another nation, but considered as own for many reasons. For the Hungarian case, it is referred to as the claim of the territories lost after the signing of the Trianon treaty in 1920, when the Hungarian kingdom lost 70% of its territory to the States of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Likewise, during the period of Nazi Germany, the Hungarian State joined the Axis forces, in lieu of which it received some zones of Austria and Ruthenia, which were lost again in the aftermath of the Second World War.

33. In this realm, it is worthy to mention Thomas Ross Griffin’s work on the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar where he concludes ‘by arguing that if Qatar 2022 is to justify FIFA’s decision to cross one of the last civilizational bridges left in global sport, it will have to demonstrate that the image and reform it presents to the rest of the world are genuine and lasting’.

34. Kalb. ‘Post-Socialist Contradictions’.

35. Giulianotti, ‘Football Events, Memories and Globalization’.

36. Roche, Mega-events and Social Change.

37. Roche’s categories are: Techno-economic, Political-economic, Cultural-economic, Political-Cultural and ‘Civilizational’ worldview. For our work we will mention the two considered by us as the most clarifying and holistic ones to present the Hungarian case: Political-economic and Cultural-economic.

38. The Social-Liberal coalition won the election in 2006. After the summer holidays, a secret tape recording of the speech of the Socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány was made public on broadcast on 18 September 2006. In this secret speech to the leaders of the Hungarian Socialist Party, he expressed his uncensored criticism of their economic policy and electoral programme. He admitted that he had not been telling the truth – and even called the policies a ‘lie’ – in the sense that they could not have been implemented at all, because of the EU restrictions and stability criteria, which do not tolerate further expansion of indebtedness. The 2006 political crisis in Hungary gave an enormous push towards informal mobilization of resources and protest, and it has transformed the protest culture and demonstration behaviour in Hungary in several ways. After the 2006 riots diverse tendencies emerged: non-violence, acceptance of the legal frame, local character, differentiated conflicts, civic subjects, ritualization within protest, marginal role of police, civic campaigns; while from the crisis were: challenges to the legal frame, global and European trends, polarized conflicts and subjects, rising role of policing, and political campaigns. While in protest the supporters of the progressive far right came to the street with the flag of the ancient Kingdom of Hungary. See Schreier, 25 Years After.

39. Kalb, ‘Post-Socialist Contradictions’.

40. After the 1989 regime transition, both in the transition and the consolidation period, NGOs and civic groups faced discrimination from most of the V4 region governments who were bent upon regaining their social and cultural terrains lost during the turbulent history of the twentieth century. They have different foci, from goals of Western feminism to conventional interest representation in economics and politics. See Schreier, 25 Years After.

41. Their central role in the framing of football policy is crucial. It is also related with the schema of the 1999 ‘status law’ intended to provide education, health benefits and employment rights to Hungarian minorities in order to heal the negative effects of the disastrous 1920 Trianon Treaty. Estimated, there live three-million people in ethnic Hungarian minorities in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Ukraine, amounting to twenty-five per cent of the total of the Hungarian population.

42. Kalb points out: ‘against the multicultural and cosmopolitism Europe: the bloc, driven by the avowed “illiberal democracies” of Hungary and Poland, was adamantly nationalist, celebrated its national cultures as European fines fleures, and declared that it would defend these national cultures and, indeed, Europe itself against a multicultural, cosmopolitan European Union. Neoliberal cosmopolitanism was meeting its “other” in neo-nationalist electoral mobilizations driven by the politics of class without class, endorsed by the “white working classes” of the provinces’. See Kalb, ‘Post-Socialist Contradictions’.

43. Since 2015 to present times the Hungarian government has approved migrants’ laws that criminalize migration and even help migrants, in contravention to the European policy on the subject. See: Győrffy, ‘Austerity and Growth in Central and Eastern Europe’. Also, it is relevant to mention that, when Hungary became a member of the EU in 2004, their Eastern border became the EU frontier. This became more critical by being part of Schengen area starting from 2007.

44. Particularly, the 2017 Law of Higher Education, considered by EU as conflicting with the freedoms of the inner market and the academic freedom.

45. See: Gati, ‘Backsliding in Central and Eastern Europe’.

46. Particularly after the crisis of 2006, with two-thirds majority of Fidesz, the reactive discourse and claim making became dominant, especially tough on migrants since 2005.

47. The Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary are now more open to trade and are more export-dependent than ever before and more so than most western countries. Until the mid-2000s they used to receive broadly similar amounts of foreign direct investment per capita as China. Since 2005, countries like Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia have also acquired more complex manufacturing industries. The employment structures of the ‘successful’ Central and East European (CEE) countries therefore tend to be more industrial than those of western or southern Europe, with around 30 percent of the labour market in manufacturing sector. (Kalb, ‘Post-Socialist Contradictions’.

48. See: Szelényi, Szelenyi and Poster, ‘Interests and Symbols in Post-Communist Political Culture’.

49. Following Kalb (‘Post-Socialist Contradictions’), the Hungary workfare is defined by the reduction of the autonomy of the Hungarian National Bank and the Constitutional Court; renationalization of the privatized pension system; attack to the transnational banking sector, as well as the transnational media and utilities, and forcing them (via new taxes and mandated price discounts) to sell out to Hungarian corporations; nationalization of the Budapest stock exchange; and, above all, creation of a punitive regime against the Roma and other surplus populations, institutionalizing the Jobbik-driven moral panics of the 2010s into a permanent zero tolerance workfare regime. The nation recreated its ‘natural’ ethno- hierarchy, both domestically in the governing of populations and transnationally in relation to foreign capital.

50. Schwartzburg and Szijarto, ‘When Orbán Was A Liberal’.

51. Hobsbwam, ‘Qué puede decirnos la historia sobre la sociedad contemporánea?’

52. This prominent use of sports currently contrasts with the marginal place granted in the interwar period. See Zeidler, ‘Irredentism in Everyday Life in Hungary during the Inter-war Period’.

53. Eurostat, ‘How Much Do Governments Spend on Recreation and Sport?’.

54. Károly, ‘Corporate Tax Incentives’.

55. Deák, and Burján, ‘Hungary: Corporate – Tax Credits and Incentives’.

56. See: Buckely and Byrne, ‘Viktor Orban’s Oligarchs’; Rankin, ‘How Hungarian PM’s Supporters Profit from EU-Backed Projects’.

57. Ligeti and Mucsi, ‘Opening the door to corruption in Hungary’s sport financing’.

58. Hungarian Spectrum, ‘Throwing Good Money After Bad’.

59. Hungarian Spectrum, ‘The European Commission’.

60. Csaba, ‘Question for written answer E-004924/2017 to the Commission Rule 130ʹ.

61. Answer given by Ms Vestager on behalf of the Commission, Question reference: E-004924/2017.

62. Brüchner, ‘Sándor Csányi on Banks, Planes, and Football Fields’.

63. Kallái, Majtényi, and Nagy, ‘‘Only Fidesz’‘.

64. In the mentioned territories, it is calculated that there live 3.5 million Hungarian citizens with those conditions. Their voting currently favours Orbán’s party overwhelmingly. See: ‘Választás 2018: itt a levélben leadott listás szavazatok eredménye’.

65. Oroszi and Sipos, ‘The Orban Government spent billions on Hungarian football clubs in Serbia, Romania and Slovakia’.

66. The first number is the global percentage of the Hungarian minority in the country, while the second number refers to the percentage of the Hungarian minority in the mentioned area, where the football team is very likely located, as represented in Figure 1.

67. The name is first indicated in its local ethno-toponymy, while it is then followed in the Hungarian toponymy.

68. Source: Oroszi and Sipos, ‘Hungarian government spent billions on football academies in Slovenia, Ukraine and Croatia’; Oroszi and Sipos, ‘The Orban government spent billions on Hungarian football clubs in Serbia, Romania and Slovakia’.

69. Institutul National de Statistică, ‘Rezultate definitive ale Recensământului Populației și al Locuințelor – 2011 (caracteristici demografice ale populației)’.

70. Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, ‘Ethnicity. Data by municipalities and cities’.

71. Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic, ‘2011 Slovak Census’.

72. State Statistics Committee of Ukraine, ‘All-Ukrainian Population Census’.

73. Croatia Bureau of Statistics, ‘Stanovištvo prema narodnosti. Popisi 1971–2011ʹ.

74. Zupančič, ‘On the Ethnic and Statal Margin on Slovenian East’.

75. Autonomy proposed in Romania: Székely Land (13,000 km², 809,000; 75.65% Hungarians). Autonomy proposed in Serbia: Hungarian Regional Autonomy (3,813 km²; 340,007; 52.10% Hungarians).

76. Menary, ‘Football’s New Cold War’.

77. Chaplin, ‘The Values of UEFA for European Football’s Future’.

78. Ibid.