EU Commissioner Launches Legal Action

Against Hungary
BY EMILY TAMKIN APRIL 26, 2017 - 11:58 AM EMILY.TAMKIN @EMILYCTAMKIN

The European Union has begun taking legal action against Hungary over a law that would eectively shut down

Central European University, founded by billionaire George Soros in 1991.

On Wednesday, a formal letter of notice was sent to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbans government asking

for an explanation as to why it violated EU law by passing a piece of legislation that, for all intents and purposes,

is custom-drafted to shut down a university. Hungary has one month to respond to the commissions legal

concerns.

The law to shut down CEU is hardly the most egregious thing Orban or his Fidesz party have done to erode

democracy in what is still, for now, an EU state and a NATO member. But the law gives Brussels a specic step

that can be challenged by European bureaucracy to take Hungary to task more broadly for embracing

illiberalism. In a way, its like Turkeys opposition party challenging the recent, deeply-awed constitutional

referendum in European court: For all its aws, Europe still has some institutions that amount to a break-the-

glass last resort by which creeping authoritarianism can be checked.

The notice was sent ahead of a debate in the European parliament, also held on Wednesday. Orban was present,

at his own request, and as he is wont to do, blamed Soros for trying to wield undue inuence over Hungary. He

also said that Hungary had always respected the rules of the European Union, although it believed that the EU

was in need of reform. He stressed that his country is unquestionably dedicated to European values, and that

members of the European Parliament should stick to the facts of the matter at hand.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was not well-received by many members of the European parliament in a debate that

touched not only on CEU, but also on Hungarys oft-criticized stance on refugees and on European values more

broadly. Manfred Weber, head of the European Peoples Party, a grouping that includes Fidesz, criticized Orbans

Stop Brussels campaign, a national a national consultation asking Hungarian citizens for their aid in blocking

Brussels inuence.

Those on the left minced no words. Youre lying and you know that you are lying, Gianni Pittella, head of the

Socialists and Democrats Group, cried, warning, Dont go back to Budapest saying its all our fault.

Guy Verhofstadt, president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, reminisced of rst meeting

Orban, back when the prime minister was a democrat; he likened him to a Hungarian Emmanuel Macron. But

times have changed. You have changed. Now, Verhofstadt said, Orban wants to keep the EUs money, but not its

values, giving in instead to paranoia. You see enemies everywhere Its like Stalin or Brezhnev are back.

Philippe Lamberts, co-president of the Greens, asked why Orban, with his secure parliamentary majority, was so

afraid of a free media and civil society.

Orban found some friends, though. Nigel Farage, who after engineering the United Kingdoms departure from the

European Union cant get enough of his European parliamentary spotlight, suggested Orban joined the Brexit

club.

But Orban is unlikely to do so, of his own volition or kicked out by Brussels. To invoke Article 7, the mechanism

through which the European Council warns a country that its in violation of Europes fundamental rights,

requires unanimity from the other member states. Poland in particular seems a fellow traveler for Hungary.

On Wednesday, Zdzislaw Krasnodebski, a MEP from Polands Law and Justice party which rivals Fidesz for its

embrace of illiberal principles called universities a place of repression for conservatives.

Photo credit: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

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EUROPES FAR-RIGHT ANGER IS MOVING MAINSTREAM

SitRep: White House Talks North Korea; New

USS Carl Vinson Sighting; U.S. Navy Pops Flare
Near Iranian Boat;
BY PAUL MCLEARY APRIL 26, 2017 - 7:58 AM PAUL.MCLEARY @PAULMCLEARY

With Adam Rawnsley

Todays the day. The entire U.S. Senate is taking a eld trip to the White House on Wednesday for an extraordinary

brieng on North Korea, amid rising tensions with Pyongyang and growing questions about how the Trump

administration intends to halt the regimes pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Whats next? The secretaries of State, Defense, the U.S. militarys top ocer and the head of national intelligence

are due to speak to senators. But whats the point? FPs Dan De Luce and Paul McLeary point out that the last-

minute decision to hold the meeting at the White House, coinciding with tough rhetoric from the White House

and bellicose threats from North Korea, took lawmakers by surprise and fueled doubts about the Trump

administrations often disjointed eorts at crafting a policy to neutralize the North Korean nuclear threat.

Administration ocials have publicly jettisoned long-standing U.S. policy on North Korea but have yet to

articulate what will replace it.

A key part of Washingtons plan, it appears, is to pressure China to take a more active role in leaning on

Pyongyang. All sides understand the stakes and understand what needs to happen, a White House ocial told

FP, referring to discussions with China. But the ocial, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it remained to

be seen if China would take the necessary steps against North Korea. He added that there is not innite patience

on our side but did not elaborate. In case youre overly focused on Pyongyangs missiles however, dont sleep on

the 180,000 commandos the regime reportedly elds.

Wheres the USS Carl Vinson today? Still working its way northward, apparently. The U.S. Pacic Command says

the carrier took part in exercises with the Japanese navy in the Philippine Sea earlier this week, putting the strike

group somewhere south of Japan. The exercises consisted of combined air training and information sharing to

increase interoperability and communication among the services, the command said. Several other U.S.

destroyers are conducting exercises in the Sea of Japan and near the South Korean coast with the Japanese and

South Korean navies, according to statements from the U.S. Navys 7th Fleet and Pacic Command.

Close encounter. Over in the Arabian Gulf, the USS Mahan popped o a warning are near an Iranian

Revolutionary Guard vessel that had approached within 1,000 meters on Monday, according to U.S. ocials. The

U.S. destroyer rst tried to turn away from the approaching boat, and the Mahan made several attempts to

contact the Iranian vessel by bridge-to-bridge radio, issuing warning messages and twice sounding the

internationally recognized danger signal of ve short blasts with the ships whistle, as well as deploying a are to

determine the Iranian vessels intentions, Lt. Ian McConnaughey, a spokesman for the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet

said in a statement to the AP.

Un-diplomatic. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson invited the chairperson of the African Union to Washington for a

meeting, then backed out on him at the last minute, infuriating African diplomats, several sources told FPs

Robbie Gramer. The saga began after Tillerson invited African Union (AU) Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki

to Washington the week of April 17, after Faki ended meetings at the United Nations in New York. Gramer has

more:
Several sources close to the matter say Faki scheduled his trip to Washington on April 19 and 20 while waiting for

the details to be sorted out. But then Tillersons oce went radio silent for several days, and left the head of the

55-nation bloc in the lurch and fuming, the sources said. Tillersons team eventually got back to Fakis entourage

as he was about to depart New York and oered a meeting with lower-level State Department ocials, but Faki

cancelled his Washington visit entirely.

The other war in Syria. Turkey dramatically ramped up its bombing campaign against Kurdish ghters on

Tuesday, bombing U.S.-backed Kurdish ghters in northern Syria, killing as many as 20 of the militiamen.

Another airstrike in northern Iraq, near Sinjar, killed several other ghters. Ankara gave Washington and Moscow

about an hour heads up to the strikes to ensure neither had troops in the area, and then launched the predawn

strike. The U.S. military command in Baghdad quickly sent a U.S. Army ocer to the scene of the Syria attack,

and he arrived to cheers from the Kurds and toured the bombing location.

These airstrikes were not approved by the coalition and led to the unfortunate loss of life of our partner forces in

the ght against ISIS that includes members of the Kurdish peshmerga, State Department spokesman Mark

Toner told reporters. He said the United States was deeply concerned about the strikes and we have expressed

those concerns to the government of Turkey directly.

Cyber top threat, CIA lawyer says. During her tenure as the CIAs top lawyer, Caroline Krass dealt with

investigations into the CIAs enhanced interrogation programs and black sites, unrest in Ukraine and Crimea, the

rise of ISIS, normalizing relations with Cuba, the Syrian refugee crisis, and Russian meddling, writes FPs Jenna

McLaughlin. Now that Krass is headed out the door, she says the most challenging threat the United States faces

comes from cyberspace. I think the hardest [legal questions] were those that surrounded cyber, Krass said on

Tuesday at an event at Georgetown University Law School. Its an evolving area of the law, trying to determine

answers to questions like what constitutes a use of forcewhat are the measures to combat such a use of force?

Army Secretary nominee in ght with liberal left. The Trump administrations nominee to be the next Army

secretary slammed the radical left on Tuesday for calling attention to a public statement he made last year in

which he said transgender is a disease, and his support for a bill while serving as a Tennessee state senator that

allows therapists to refuse to treat LGBT individuals on religious grounds.

Mark Green, a 20-year Army veteran, was nominated for the Army post after Vincent Viola, Trumps rst pick,

dropped out after determining he would have to sever his business ties. After the Human Rights Campaign and

the American Military Partner Association released the video of Greens comments last year to the Chattanooga

Tea Party, Green let loose in a Facebook post on Tuesday, writing, the liberal left has cut and spliced my words,

and I believe that every American has a right to defend their country regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual

orientation, gender identity and religion. Its the radical left that wont allow the latter.

Welcome to SitRep. Send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via

Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.

Intelligence. A declassied French intelligence report seen by Reuters says that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

or his inner circle ordered the chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhoun. The report says that French

intelligence obtained from environmental samples from the scene of the attack as well as blood samples from

victims, conrming the presence of sarin, a nerve agent used as a chemical weapon. French ocials believe that

only the highest levels of the Syrian government have the authority to order chemical weapons attacks and that

rebel groups dont have the capability to produce sarin by themselves.

Counterpoint. Not to be outdone in signaling from North Korea, the U.S. will test an inert Minuteman III

intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times

reports. 30th Space Wing commander Col. Chris Moss said the test was necessary to verify the status of our

national nuclear force and to demonstrate our national nuclear capabilities. Emphasis on the demonstration

part. The test follows the debut appearance of an apparent North Korean ICBM in a parade to mark the 105th

anniversary of North Korean founding father Kim Il Sungs birthday.

Its a girl. Watch out for broken champagne shards because Chinas second aircraft carrier and rst carrier built

in a Chinese shipyard has ocially launched. The ship, the 001A, joins the Liaoning, a Kuznetsov carrier which

China purchased from Ukraine in 2012. No real word on what capabilities the ship actually has and when it will be

operational, but pictures show it has the same jump ramp as the Kuznetsov.
Venezuela appears to be coming apart at the seams and now experts are worried that the countrys vast stocks of

small arms could spark of wave of violence if the government falls. The Miami Herald reports that Venezuela

already has a large supply of advanced shoulder-re Igla-S man-portable air defense systems, which could pose a

threat to civilian airliners should they fall into the wrong hands as the increasingly cash-strapped government

faces down mounting unrest. Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro has further stoked proliferation fears by

announcing the creation of a 400,000-strong militia to be armed with government-supplied ries.

Personnel. The Trump administration is nally moving towards lling the many empty chairs in the Pentagon,

announcing picks for assistant secretary of defense for international security aairs and principal deputy under

secretary of defense for intelligence. The White House announced Tuesday that Trump has tapped Robert Story

Karem, a former advisor to Vice President Cheney, for the international security aairs job and House Armed

Services Committee policy director Kari Bingen for the deputy intelligence slot.

Lightning strikes. The F-35 stealth ghter jet has touched down in Estonia. The U.S. sent two A-variant F-35s to

the Baltic country for training as well as reassuring allies in the NATO alliance, according to a statement from

U.S. Air Forces in Europe. The appearance of a dicult-to-track strike aircraft on the border with Russia is likely

to draw notice in Moscow, with one Estonian ocial telling the paper that Russia will be watching the skies quite

closely. Baltic countries have been on edge as Russia has grown more aggressive in the region and the election of

President Donald Trump raised doubts about American commitments to the NATO alliance.

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