Hungary to Hold Referendum on Migrants in Fall

[Valin]

Via Meadia:

Nicholas M. Gallagher

July 5 2016

 

Europe’s next big referendum may just have been set. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban wants the people’s backing to reject a new EU migrant quota scheme. Hungarians will go to the polls on October 2. Reuters reports:

 

(Snip)

 

The legal consequences of such a vote may not be as stark as Brexit, where there was a straight in-out decision that (presumably) will lead directly to the invocation of the exit clause of the Lisbon Treaty. Here, it’s unclear whether this will do anything beyond bolstering Orban’s mandate to fight changes to the immigration policies at a European level. But that’s still pretty explosive stuff; it would deepen the divisions on the EU’s most contentious political issue. Depending on how the EU implements the change and how Orban fights it, it could potentially trigger an intra-European constitutional crisis.

 

So far the pro-EU playbook both for fighting referenda and for arguing about immigration in general has been to insinuate (or increasingly, say outright) that the voters who lean the wrong way are racist, and to suggest that the wrong sort of vote will undo the European project as a whole, putting an end to the post-nationalist moment. But in a world where the EU still doesn’t have a credible plan to staunch immigration flows, nor how to unwind the euro mess, nor really an idea of how to get that post-nationalist project back on track, voters are less afraid of the latter, and increasingly unswayed by the former. The eurocrats have cried wolf racist too often over the years for it to be taken as seriously as it once was. And while racism may play a role in some people’s thinking, even the most cosmopolitan person can be worried about the current European migrant/refugee crisis.

 

(Snip)

 

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

The Next Shoe?