Whereas just one presidency applies to the U.S. at the federal level, the E.U. has several. There is a president of the European Commission, a president of the European Parliament, a president of the European Council, and a president of the Council of the E.U., the latter being held by a state government on a six-month rotating basis. On July 1, 2024, the E.U. state of Hungary assumed that role. Because that state’s government had recently been found guilty by the E.U.’s top court, the E.C.J., of blocking federal law within the state, the matter of Hungary taking its turn in chairing the Council of the E.U. was controversial at the time. Because Viktor Orbán, governor of Hungary, used the insignia of the presidency of the Council in making unauthorized diplomatic trips to Russia and China on the war in Ukraine, the European Commission, the E.U. government’s executive branch, took the unusual decision to boycott Hungary’s presidency. Shortly thereafter, the E.U.'s parliament followed suit with a resolution condemning Orbán's diplomatic trip to Moscow. I contend that Orbán’s foray into diplomatic relations even as he was taking on a major role at the federal level presents good evidence for why foreign policy should be federalized in the E.U. as it has been in the U.S., and for the same reason.
At the Constitutional Convention
in 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, delegates felt the need to delegate
foreign policy and diplomacy to the proposed federal executive branch out of concern
that the states would be used, and torn apart from one another, by foreign
states pursuing their interests at America’s expense. It went without saying
that a state-level official could not represent the union abroad. Besides not
being able to speak for the other states and the union itself, a governor conducting
foreign policy both for the union and one’s own state would have to contend
with a conflict of interest where the interests of the union diverge from that
of the official’s state. All of these problems were obviated by having the
states delegate foreign policy to the federal level with the states still
retaining residual sovereignty. It bears stating that the thirteen states that
exited the British Empire in 1776 were sovereign states until they delegated
some of their respective sovereignty to the federal level of the union in 1789.
In 2024, in the midst of Russia’s
continued invasion of Ukraine, the federal level of the E.U. was involved in
foreign policy, and yet a governor of any state government could also take on a
role in foreign policy as that was a shared competency (i.e., both federal and
state levels). That the governor of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, used the official
logo of the Hungarian presidency of the Council of the E.U. in his “peace
mission” to Russia and China days after he had assumed the presidency for Hungary signaled or implied a federal foreign-policy
role was troubling enough. That he publicly stated, “China is the only world
power that has been clearly committed to peace since the beginning” of the war
even though the E.U. had dismissed the “Chinese peace plan” for “making a
selective interpretation of international law and blurring the line between the
aggressor and the aggressed” was too much for the E.U.’s executive branch.[1]
That Orbán met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, a person wanted
by the ICC for war crimes against civilians in Ukraine, to “start a dialogue on
the shortest road to peace” just days before Russia bombed a children’s
hospital in Kyiv was also not missed by the Commission.[2]
As a result, the European Commission decided to boycott Hungary’s six-month presidency of the E.U. Council. In addition to going to Moscow and Beijing on peace missions, that Orbán had stated that he would use Hungary’s chairing of the Council to sideline the accession talks so to postpone statehood for Ukraine was likely another factor in the boycott. “In light of recent developments marking the start of the Hungarian Presidency, the President (Ursula von der Leyen) has decided that the European Commission will be represented at senior civil servant level only during informal meetings of the Council,” according to a spokesperson for the Commission.[3] The College visit to the Presidency also would not take place.
Days after the Commission's boycott, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning Orbán's diplomatic visit to Moscow. The resolution itself "stresses that during this visit, he did not represent the E.U., and considers the visit to be a blatant violation of the E.U.'s treaties and common foreign policy, including the principle of sincere cooperation; [and] underlines that the Hungarian Prime Minister cannot claim to represent the E.U. when violating common E.U. [foreign policy] positions."[4] That the governor of a state violated federal foreign policy in going abroad while president of a federal institution and two other federal institutions officially objected points to the serious need for E.U. reform concerning foreign policy in terms of the federal system. In other words, the federal system itself contained a fundamental problem in need of a solution.
Essentially, Orbán was leveraging his temporary presidency of a federal governmental institution of the E.U. to conduct foreign policy at odds with the federal foreign policy against Russia and China. Even if he had been only been conducting bilateral diplomatic relations between his state and Russia and China, that his state government’s position would have conflicted with the E.U.’s position is problematic, for the belligerent foreign powers could have used Orbán’s state of Hungary to drive a wedge into the E.U. and thus weaken not only the defense of Ukraine, but also the E.U. itself as a federal union. Even just in terms of the union’s executive branch boycotting the presidency of the legislative Council of the E.U., the E.U. itself was weakened rather than unified at the federal level.
Most fundamentally, the state governments still had too much power relative to that of the union itself. Also, trying to conduct foreign policy at both the state and federal levels is just asking for trouble because they can work at cross-purposes and even confuse government officials of other countries. Russian officials, for instance, may not have known how much credence to give to Orban versus the condemnations by the Commission and the Parliament.
Even by 2024, European integration had been tangibly realized in a federal union of states to the extent that one voice was needed on foreign policy, lest the E.U. compromise itself from within. Even though the economic domain had been the backbone of the E.U. coming out of the EC, it bears remembering that the European Coal and Steel Cooperative came out of the post-WWII need to keep an eye on Germany lest it remilitarize. A foreign-policy rationale is thus also baked into the E.U. as per at least one of the international European organizations that pre-existed the European Union. Put another way, the E.U. cannot be traced back only to the European Economic Community. Besides providing for smooth interstate commerce in a single market, peace in Europe is also a salient mission for the European Union, and in this regard being able to speak with one voice rather than divergent state and federal voices would be of great value were it operationalized rather than compromised.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
