Chapter 1: What recent events have led to a renewed interest in the EU?
This is The Guardian.
Today, is the EU back in vogue? Now, I don't know how good your Hungarian is, but that is the sound of tens of thousands of Hungarians on the banks of the River Danube chanting, Europe! It's fair to say that the EU is having a bit of a moment. After Viktor Orban was defeated in Hungary on Sunday, his rival, Peter Magyar, promised to repair relations with the EU.
Today, the Hungarian people said yes to Europe. They said yes to a free Hungary. Hungary will once again be a strong ally in the European Union and NATO.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, wasted no time in celebrating Orbán's fall.
So I would like to say that today Europe is Hungarian without any question. The people of Hungary have spoken and they have reclaimed their European path.
But it's not just the new prime minister of Hungary seeking a better relationship with the EU.
We're in a world where there's massive conflict, great uncertainty, and I strongly believe the UK's best interests are in a stronger, closer relationship with Europe.
Almost 10 years after the Brexit referendum, Keir Starmer is trying to reconnect with Europe too.
We've got to look forward now, not backwards.
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Chapter 2: How did the Hungarian election results impact EU relations?
Let's not just have all the old arguments of the last decade. Let's go forward and recognise that a stronger, closer relationship with Europe is in the UK's best interest.
But does Europe want us back? And how strong is the EU anyway, facing a future without American support and with a belligerent Russia on its borders? From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pitt. Today in Focus, the EU after Orban and with Starmer? Lisa O'Carroll, welcome back to Today in Focus. It's been a while.
Can you just start by telling me why was the Hungarian election results celebrated so wildly by EU leaders?
Indeed, as one of our reporters said, it was a bit like watching a World Cup celebration.
Finally, I can say that I can be a proud Hungarian after 16 years.
I think one of the reasons why it was so extraordinary was the size of the majority that Peter Magyar won. Going into the election on Friday even, we were thinking here at The Guardian and the polls were showing that there could be a late swing, but that it would be very close.
And the fear was that Orban, he would declare that the election was stolen and that would prompt a wave of, you know, yet more intervention from Vance and Trump. And that didn't happen.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of Keir Starmer's vision for UK-EU relations?
Yeah, and I'm not sure I've ever seen Ursula von der Leyen look so happy. She was coming out with phrases like, Europe's heart is beating stronger in Hungary tonight. You had the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez hailing Madja's win as a triumph for European values. Why did it matter so much to these big EU figures that Orban was defeated?
Well, Orbán has been an absolute thorn in the side of the EU for the last few years. Even for the year or so that I was there, every single council meeting, I had to deal with the challenge that Orbán would vote against whatever it was in relation to Ukraine.
It's simply anti-European when one person blocks decisions that are important for the entire continent or that have already been agreed upon.
So it's the disappearance of Orban from those quarterly, sometimes monthly meetings. I mean, there was one meeting, I remember, where they were discussing a really key thing for Ukraine, which was the enlargement and whether Ukraine could be fast-tracked into the EU. And Orban came in and said he wasn't going to vote for us. So again, it was going to be blocked.
But they came up with this wheeze where Olaf Scholz, the then German chancellor, asked Orban to take a break. So he went out for a loo break. And in his absence, the 26 voted in favour of an enlargement process, including fast-tracking for Ukraine. So it allowed them to comply with their unanimity requirement, but also allowed Orban to go back to his own base and say, well, I didn't vote for it.
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Chapter 4: How does Viktor Orban's defeat change the EU's political landscape?
Right. Did he know that they were going to do that or was it sneaky?
Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Right. It was a bit of choreography. But that gives you a measure of the frustration the EU leaders have felt over the last few years. Even Fico, the Slovakian prime minister, who is a close ally of Orban, would have pursued similar policies. But in the end, he usually folded. Orban never folded when it came to Russia.
Right. And to what extent do you think it was the EU what won it for Peter Magyar? Because, you know, in his victory speech in Budapest on Sunday night, he promised that he was going to forge closer links with the EU. Do you think that that is what the Hungarian people were voting for?
Chapter 5: What challenges does the EU face with Russia and global instability?
Or do you think it was more like they were voting against a closer relationship with Russia?
Oh, gosh, I think if you speak to Hungarian reporters, and there were many in Brussels, they would tell you how public services have been completely deprived and neglected. The LGBTQ question, the control of the media, the appointment of urban friendly judges. You know, this is about... the whole country changing. And it is a massive victory for democracy.
But I don't think the Hungarians were voting necessarily to be closer to the EU or to be rid of Russians, although there were some people saying, you know, you know, get out of our country, Russia. You know, they just want what they should have as a central, very developed democracy.
They should have a GDP and a wealth system similar to any of the other Central European countries or France or Belgium or the Netherlands. And they don't.
And so obviously the EU is celebrating the end of this 16-year reign of Viktor Orban. But do you think in terms of what Peter Madjar's politics are, could there be some elements of his personality, his policies that maybe won't align quite so closely with what the majority in the EU want?
Yeah, let's face it, this is not a left-wing government. This is not a Sanchez. He is a centre-right politician who used to be in Orbán's party.
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Chapter 6: How is the EU adapting to the rise of far-right parties?
He burst on the scene just two years ago. But he was very careful during the campaign not to get involved in discussions about LGBTQ rights. So we don't really know what he's going to do there. He was very careful on Ukraine, but we do know something about what he says about Ukraine. He's going to be pragmatic.
He will de facto unblock the 90 billion that the EU had agreed in December to give to Ukraine because Orban had completely blocked that last month. And we don't know what it's going to be like on climate change, on lots of other things in the EU that he may disagree with. And he's more right-wing than Orban on migration. He wants to get rid of guest workers.
Europe's energy dependence has been cruelly exposed by the war against Iran. Although efforts have been made to diminish reliance on Russia over the past four years, the disruption to supplies of liquefied natural gas in the Strait of Hormuz shows how vulnerable the EU really is.
Orban's defeat comes at a very precarious time for the whole world and also, of course, for the EU. And all EU countries are feeling the effects of the war in Iran and the ongoing fallout from the argument over the Strait of Hormuz. And it all comes after a fairly relentless barrage of criticism from Donald Trump since he returned to the White House.
And then in the background, you've got the rise of China, a belligerent Kremlin.
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Chapter 7: What specific policies are being proposed to strengthen UK-EU ties?
I wonder how much all of these global events are feeding into a sort of greater sense of unity within the EU, this feeling that whatever differences they have, they are stronger together when coming up against these massive challenges.
Yeah, I think that that is a fair way to look at it. If you think before Davos, which I think was January, the EU were heavily criticised for being weak on Netanyahu, weak on Ukraine, even though it's backing, you know, it's put huge money into Ukraine, but it doesn't have, couldn't produce the arms or the commitment to military funds as quickly as it should have been able to.
And then they folded, apparently, the UK first and then the EU into a tariff deal with the US, which is not good for anybody. So I think then at Davos, we had Mark Carney, the Canadian premier, talking about the middle countries and how they had to stand together.
In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice. Compete with each other for favour. or to combine to create a third path with impact. The middle powers must act together because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu.
And that was at the point when Trump was talking about taking Greenland, wasn't he? Which galvanised European nations really to come to Denmark's aid and tell Trump that that wasn't on.
And I think that was the first time we saw Europe find its voice and speak out about illiberal democracies, of which Hungary is one. And I think from a UK point of view, we have seen Starmer certainly find some sort of metal in the past couple of weeks when it comes to backing Trump on Iran, similarly with France, Germany less so.
No, certainly. And you mentioned Starmer there saying that he's found his metal in the past couple of weeks.
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Chapter 8: Will the Labour Party's approach lead to a closer relationship with the EU?
And the other thing that Starmer seems to be doing with increasing confidence is is talking about wanting to get closer again to the EU, to, if not rejoin the gang, to at least become better friends with our European neighbours. And this week, The Guardian broke the story that Labour are planning to bring in new legislation that will forge these closer ties between the UK and the EU.
Can you just explain what this bill is setting out to do?
Well, the bill is a necessary part of the reset that Labour campaigned for in its election manifesto in 2024. And then there was that EU-UK summit last year in Lancaster House. And there was a laundry list of things that the EU and the UK were going to try and agree on. And the main things were, the highlights were Erasmus, the University Exchange Programme.
The Youth Mobility Programme, which has yet to be agreed. And then a key thing is what they call Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement, which is to do with all the certification and standards of food and farm produce. So everything from wood and leather to cheese to frozen beef to vegetables, etc., So those rules, the SPS rules, came in because of Brexit.
So before, if you're a farmer, if you're a food producer, you could just sell in to the EU with no paperwork, essentially, or very little paperwork, because everybody followed the same rules. We're in the single market. Outside the single market, the UK is treated like Australia, China, India. and has to produce, you know, mountains of paperwork with all cargo.
The choice I am putting to the public and the government is putting to the public is to take away the paperwork tax, the red tape, the costs that businesses up and down the country are paying every week to export to the EU.
So the SBS agreement is about reducing that. It won't get rid of them, but it's about reducing it. And it won't mean that the UK is going back into the single market, but it does mean that there will be legislation to transpose EU law back into UK law where it counts. And on food and drink, there are 76 regulations, laws, that the UK no longer applies. So it has to realign.
And that's what this legislation is about. I think what was significant about that was the suggestion that the legislation would include some sort of chapter that would allow the UK to move beyond the food and drink stuff that they're talking about now and move into other sectors.
And they haven't specified what they're thinking about, but people who know this subject suggest things like medicines. AI, technology services, financial services.
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