Dániel Bartha: every institution in Hungary was modeled after the EU

Dániel Bartha

President of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy Dániel Bartha (Budapest) commented on the problems of the Hungary’s  movement from candidacy to EU membership to Newssky:

The EU accession obviously was a much quicker and easier process for Central European candidates such as Hungary. The main reason is that back in 2004 the EU legal framework was much premature, and the transformation and adaption process was much easier. This means we not only had to negotiate and close much fewer chapters, but also these chapters were significantly shorter. We have to underline that it seems currently impossible for any candidate state to negotiate and close these chapters in a shorter period than 15 years.

Hungary applied in 1994 and received the candidate status in 1998, therefore the negotiations took only 4 years from the official start date, and it was finalized in 2002. However, you have to note that since the start of the transformation in 1989 the official goal was EU accession, therefore every institution was created and transformed to meet the requirements of the EU.

Regional integration also helped, as Central Europe created CEFTA, a free trade agreement that already created a sort of a common market with regional partners. We shared information and negotiated chapters in close cooperation which also quickened the process.

In 1994, it was already clear, that the accession is rather a matter of time, and a large amount of capital started to move towards Central Europe, including Hungary. This process was accelerated in 1998, with the candidate status. Hungarian companies, real estate and the land became popular with foreign investors as they were way under the market price and pre-accession funds started to finance the transformation of the country. Obviously ever since 1998, EU funding is one of the crucial sources of public development. The use of these funds for infrastructural developments seriously improved the accessibility of the region and further accelerated foreign investments.

From the democracy perspective it was also very important that every candidate country during the accession talks have to comply with every democratic principle. In whole Central Europe the most democratic years were the ones around 2004. All candidate state had to improve its relations with its neighbors, provide religious freedom and ensure minority rights, while it must pay attention to the checks and balances, including guarantees for media freedom, freedom of justice or the support of the NGO and civil society organizations.

Ukrainian version

Maryna Kovalchuk, Newssky, contributed