Neo-Nazis rally in Budapest as EU powerless to intervene. “Banning or authorizing marches is up to the countries.”

Brussels –The European Union has a problem with nostalgic old-timers and admirers of the Third Reich and what it entails. It cannot stop them because the task (if any) falls to national governments. And it cannot condemn them for the sake of political-institutional quiet life with long-term effects all to be seen. It is precisely a deafening silence from the EU Commission that prompts the European Greens to ask to know how the community executive stands about the “day of honour”, “a neo-Nazi march held in Budapest in February every year.”

Viktor Orban’s Hungary no longer surprises. The Hungarian prime minister himself caused a stir with speeches on race, leading one of his closest aides to resign over intolerable, yet tolerated, parallels with Nazism. This causes concern among the ranks of the Greens, who are probably not at all reassured by the response offered by Ylva Johannson, Commissioner for Home Affairs.

“The Commission is aware of the ‘Day of Honor’marches,” acknowledges Johansson. Who, however, admits that she can’t do much about it: “Member states have exclusive competence to authorize or ban such marches.” What follows is an awkward attempt at condemnation but, at the same time, an implicit assessment of Orban and its regime. In the commissioner’s response,  the ensuing question: if you don’t ban neo-Nazi marches, what are you? 

However, rules are rules. Infringement procedures can be opened, and nothing more. In the specific case, the outgoing Commission member recalls that there is the EU strategy on combating anti-Semitism and promoting Jewish life and that, according to this, “symbols, memorabilia, and literature related to Nazism may constitute incitement to hatred under national laws implementing the Framework Decision when they publicly incite hatred and violence.” They may, and if they don’t, then all is well. 

It is a picture of an EU at the mercy of the goose-stepping advance of an increasingly extreme right wing that Johansson tries, again, to remedy. “In general, the Commission considers these events deeply worrying, particularly the use of violent symbols of right-wing extremism,” the commissioner continues, returning to the neo-Nazi marches in Hungary. In any case, the Commission “is fully committed to using its competencies to ensure that fundamental rights are respected in all Member States, including Hungary,” assures Johansson. 

Among the tools at its disposal is a definition of violent right-wing extremism developed by the Commission services that is, however, “not legally binding.” The EU does what it can, and in the meantime, among promoters, sympathizers, indifferent and collaborators, neo-Nazis parade through the streets of Europe.