Viktor and Ursula: Partners in cruelty

Von der Leyen and Orbán are both committed to kicking migrants out of Europe.

Ursula von der Leyen and Viktor Orbán exchange pleasantries. (Philippe Buissin)

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Welcome to the Viktor and Ursula Show. Sit back and try to enjoy a farce in which two experienced politicians pretend they despise each other. The insults will be scripted but one or two of them might be memorable.

Journalists covering European affairs were entertained this week as Viktor Orbán and Ursula von der Leyen appeared together in Strasbourg.

The reporters were mostly on the side of von der Leyen.

She is being fêted as a moderate standing up to an autocrat.

She can be relied on to pound the drums of war against Russia and pray that Kamala Harris will be America’s next president; Orbán allegedly wants to court Vladimir Putin and has spoken about toasting a Trump victory in November.

Excited by the apparent drama of Wednesday’s row, a salient point was overlooked: The differences between von der Leyen and Orbán are slender.

On migration – the issue on which extreme right parties allied with Orbán make the most noise – it is hard to detect any real divergence.

White supremacists

Von der Leyen’s program for her second term heading the European Commission promises “a new legislative framework to speed up and simplify the process” of kicking migrants out. While she contends that “returns” (a euphemism for deportations) should take place in “a dignified manner,” there can be no doubt that she favors being cruel and inhospitable toward people seeking a better life in Europe than they had in their home countries.

Hungary’s priorities for its current six-month presidency of the European Union include paying “particular attention” to “more effective returns.”

The Orbán government circulated a paper to other EU states in late September on people whose bids for asylum have been rejected.

The paper notes that the “general rule” is that deportations should occur following a negative asylum decision. Yet it acknowledges that in some cases deportations cannot be carried out – such as when the principle applies of not returning someone to a country where he or she faces a persecution risk.

The paper recommends a discussion about the “care and reception” of people following a negative decision on their asylum bids.

Despite the use of the term “care,” it is clear that the Orbán government isn’t seeking a system based on compassion.

The EU’s “returns directive” allows the detention of people awaiting expulsion for up to 18 months, as the Hungarian paper says. Budapest argues that EU governments have a “strong interest in improving the efficacity of returns and addressing the challenges faced by the phenomenon of non-removable returnees.”

The message is clear: People from outside coming into the European Union are considered a “burden” (a term used in the paper) rather than as human beings entitled to basic rights.

Hungary’s priorities for its EU presidency commit it to working on the “external dimensions of migration, including efficient cooperation with relevant third countries.”

In June, von der Leyen sent a letter on migration and asylum issues to the EU’s political leaders.

It stated that many governments “are looking at innovative strategies to prevent irregular migration by tackling asylum applications further from the EU border.”

The European Commission, she added, “would continue to support these reflections, always heeding international law.”

Any pledge to heed international law from von der Leyen is suspect. We should never forget that she has backed the worst abuse of international law occurring at this moment: the genocide Israel is committing in Gaza.

Viktor Orbán, it should be added, is a comparably staunch ally of Israel.

None of this is surprising. Von der Leyen and Orbán are essentially white supremacists, who identify with Israel, an apartheid state.

Their racism is evident, too, in the way they wish to slam Europe’s door on people of whose color or religion they disapprove.