Should (and Could) Hungary Be Expelled From NATO?

It’s a problem most organizations have faced at one point or another: having to deal with a rogue member. But while it’s tricky enough when that member is a person, it’s a whole other ballgame when they’re a nation state — one that’s gone rogue within the framework of the world’s most powerful military alliance. A small central European country of around 10 million, Hungary has the good fortune to sit at the head table of two organizations that require unanimity on key decisions: the European Union, and NATO.

In peacetime, this setup has given Prime Minister Viktor Orban the ability to frustrate his allies. In wartime, it’s handed him the ability to hold the entire Western Alliance hostage. Over the last two years, Budapest has slow-walked Sweden’s application to join NATO, blocked urgent aid to Ukraine, and cozied up to China — all in direct opposition to the interests of its allies.

Is it time to consider the unthinkable — to consider ejecting Hungary from NATO?

No Legal Exit: Why NATO Cannot Expel a Member

It is not legally possible for NATO to kick out a misbehaving member. Over the last decade, people have repeatedly suggested members such as Turkey get the boot, for things as varied as buying Russian S-400 air defense systems or launching an invasion of northern Syria. Each time, the demands to expel Ankara hit the same stumbling block: it can’t legally be done.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg addressed the issue in 2021: “NATO doesn’t have any mechanism to expel members. And I will not recommend that to be introduced in our founding treaty.” Because NATO operates on the principle of unanimity, every member has an absolute veto on treaty changes.

That means even creating a mechanism for kicking out wayward allies in the future is impossible, since renegades like Hungary and Turkey would veto it. Nor is NATO like the EU, which can’t kick members out but at least has Article 7, which allows for the suspension of states’ voting rights in extreme circumstances. As Just Security put it: “The founding instruments of many international organizations provide for the suspension of a member State’s rights… Alas, the North Atlantic Treaty is not among them.

No provision in the treaty foresees the suspension of membership rights, let alone the expulsion of an ally.” While kicking Hungary out of NATO may be impossible, the concept of expulsion serves as a springboard for a wider overview of Budapest’s relationship with its allies — how the alliance arrived at this point where Orban seems to be picking fights with his friends, and what strategic implications that has for the entire West. With Orban willing to wield his veto over multiple policies, the danger is fast becoming that the entire Transatlantic Alliance could be derailed by one man overseeing a nation with a population barely that of Michigan and an economy smaller than Algeria’s.

It didn’t have to be this way. Back in 1948, as discussions on founding NATO were underway, Canada proposed including an expulsion clause. But the other states declined.

Seventy-five years later, the answer to why such a clause was needed is obvious. While the EU has likewise discovered that unanimity is workable when you have eleven or twelve members, each new addition increases the likelihood of someone using their veto — for personal gain, out of spite, or because they’re in hock to a foreign power.

Finland, Sweden, and the Weaponization of NATO Accession

If there is a single issue that demonstrates Hungary’s determination to frustrate its NATO allies, it is the admissions process for Finland and Sweden. On May 18, 2022, the two historically non-aligned Nordic countries handed in their joint application — a decision sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since both nations already worked closely with the alliance, it was hoped their accession would be a mere formality, something that could be neatly tied up by the end of 2022.

Nearly two years later, the loose end of Sweden’s membership still remained resolutely untied. Across the whole of 2022 and early 2023, the other 28 members of NATO were forced to wait on the glacially slow decisions of Hungary and Turkey. In Budapest, Orban’s ruling Fidesz party repeatedly delayed votes, claiming it was busy with other matters.

It wasn’t until mid-March of 2023 that President Erdoğan dropped Turkey’s objections to Finland joining, at which point Hungary agreed to likewise let Helsinki into the club. Sweden, though, was another matter. As of mid-January 2024, Stockholm was still waiting for the all-clear from Ankara and Budapest.

The Hungarian government, meanwhile, seemed to be relishing its chance to stick it to a country that has frequently criticized Budapest’s democratic backsliding. President Katalin Novák noted: “Sweden is or has been quite vocal in condemning the functioning of our parliament or stated a lack of democracy in our country.” Turkey was also dragging the process out, but the wider NATO alliance was fairly certain it understood why Erdoğan was being difficult: he wanted certain Kurds living in Sweden extradited to Turkey, and he wanted American fighter jets.

Orban, by contrast, didn’t seem to have a clear goal in mind. Speaking anonymously to Politico, one diplomat bemoaned the Hungarian prime minister’s veto threat as “an annoying sideshow.” The best anyone could figure, Orban was following Erdoğan’s lead as a way to cozy up to the Turkish president.

A Hungarian official told Politico: “When it comes to NATO accession, Hungary’s position is fundamentally shaped by the preferences of Turkey. If Ankara’s position changes, this changes the Hungarian position.” The idea is that Orban sees in Erdoğan someone like him — an elected autocrat weakening democracy while pursuing the interests of his own ethnicity.

The issue is that this bond is coming at the expense of Europe’s safety. On January 10, 2024, Sweden’s Civil Defense Minister warned that a war with Russia could be coming. The Swedish island of Gotland is seen as one of the continent’s weak points — somewhere outside of NATO protection that Russia might try to quickly seize in a wider conflict.

For NATO’s other 29 members, these are not things Budapest should be playing around with.

Orban’s Authoritarian Love-In: Courting Putin and Xi Jinping

In October of 2023, the wider Western alliance was treated to the awkward sight of one of its own taking part in what can only be called an authoritarian love-in. The venue was the third Belt and Road Initiative forum in Beijing, an event that was almost uniformly ignored by NATO members. While leaders from Italy, Greece, and Czech Republic had attended both the 2017 and 2019 editions, this year there was only one head of an alliance country in attendance.

Rather than cut a lonely figure on the Chinese stage, Viktor Orban used his appearance to butter up world leaders his allies consider foes. That included becoming the first Western leader to meet Putin since April 2022 — a meeting where Orban used the Russian autocrat’s preferred euphemism for the Ukraine War, “special military operation,” and swore to Putin: “Hungary never wanted to confront Russia.” The BBC reported at the time: “The sight of an EU and NATO leader shaking hands with Vladimir Putin angered Mr.

Orban’s Western allies. The US ambassador to Budapest complained that while Russia was striking Ukrainian civilians, ‘Hungary pleads for business deals.’” Elsewhere at the summit, Orban repeated the same trick with Xi Jinping.

Telling the Chinese leader that relations between their countries had reached “unprecedented heights,” Orban also issued a thinly veiled swipe at America, claiming that Hungary “shall not accept any external ideological pressure” and would follow its national interests in doing business with China. The jab came at a time when the US was leaning heavily on its allies to decouple from China, or at least de-risk their supply chains, and at a time when Europe was beginning to grow increasingly wary of Beijing’s assertiveness. From a Hungarian nationalist perspective, Orban’s outreach made a certain kind of sense.

Despite the cutoff to most of Europe, Hungary continues to receive cheap gas from Russia and has contracted state company Rosatom to build a nuclear power plant. China, meanwhile, rewarded Orban’s visit with electric vehicle investments. Orban is rarely doing these things for the sheer hell of it — he perceives them as being beneficial to Hungary.

What can and should be questioned, though, is why Budapest feels it can have its cake and eat it: why Orban seems happy to rely on NATO’s nuclear umbrella to protect his nation while also taking actions that are directly contrary to US and EU interests. Hungary needs NATO more than NATO needs Hungary. If Orban really disagreed with the alliance’s stance, he could always head out the exit door.

That he doesn’t demonstrates the value he sees in its mutual-defense clause.

Holding Ukraine Aid Hostage Inside the European Union

NATO is not the only international organization the Hungarian leader has been wielding his veto over to devastating effect. Where the Ukraine War is concerned, Budapest seems determined to single-handedly destroy any show of unity within the European Union. From a narrow perspective, Hungary has done its part assisting Ukraine.

Despite being internationally famous for his anti-refugee positions, Orban allowed 25,000 people fleeing the war to remain in Hungary, while hundreds of thousands more were able to cross Hungarian territory to reach other European countries. The government in Budapest has also provided humanitarian aid to the conflict zone and joined the rest of the EU in placing sanctions on Russia — albeit with exceptions that allow Hungary to keep importing oil and gas. From the perspective of much of NATO, though, Budapest hasn’t done nearly enough.

Military aid to Kyiv is not allowed to cross Hungarian soil, and the government has blocked the EU from placing sanctions on key Russian officials. Perhaps nothing has chafed quite so much as the way Hungary has used EU rules to veto money Ukraine desperately needs to remain a functioning state. On December 14, Orban blocked a $55 billion package intended to keep the government in Kyiv solvent through 2027.

The Washington Post noted that included money for everything from servicing debts to paying soldiers’ salaries. Orban’s stated rationale was that the aid was a waste of Hungarian taxpayers’ money. To many others, though, it looked less like the prime minister was looking out for working Hungarians, and more like he was trying to blackmail the rest of the EU.

For over a year, Budapest and Brussels had been in a standoff over billions in funds from the EU’s structural and Covid recovery programs. In December 2022, Brussels froze the funds over concern that Hungary was undermining the independence of its judiciary and failing to safeguard against graft and corruption. The reality is that Ukraine aid became a bargaining chip.

On December 13, the EU unexpectedly unlocked 10 billion euros for Budapest — a move the European Commission claimed was a reward for Hungary meeting certain milestones. There was considerable cynicism that the funds were released as a bribe. Cynicism that seemed founded just a day later, when Orban left a meeting on opening accession talks with Ukraine rather than veto them.

As the Economist noted: “Perhaps not coincidentally, a €10bn slug of EU funds destined for Hungary that had been suspended over its deficient judiciary was released earlier this week. Mr. Orban absented himself from the European Council room at the moment of the vote, thus tacitly acquiescing to the move.”

The New York Times characterized it more bluntly: “Critics have said Hungary’s objections to Ukraine’s long-term funding are best understood as an effort by Mr. Orban to extract E.U. funds.” It seems more than a little absurd that a country of just ten million can stop the EU acting in the interests of its other 438 million citizens — a little like if tiny Rhode Island had the ability to constantly veto US foreign policy.

The Transcarpathia Question and Orban’s Grudge Against Zelenskyy

A deeper question is why Budapest chose Ukraine as the issue on which to play games. Partly, the answer is that it’s high-pressure — Orban knows that EU leaders are aware of time constraints to finance Kyiv, and judges they’ll blink first. But it’s partly something deeper, something that ties into the fractious relationship Orban has developed with Ukraine itself.

Not so long ago, Hungary was one of Ukraine’s best friends in Europe. Because of a large Hungarian minority in the border region of Transcarpathia, Budapest was keen to support development projects. By 2020, the Economist reports that Hungary had given over $264 million in aid to Ukraine’s westernmost province.

Unfortunately, what had once been the basis for a good relationship between the countries would soon become the very thing that drove them apart. Under Orban, Hungary has come to embrace nostalgia for “Greater Hungary” — the full extent of territory Budapest controlled prior to World War I. In the nationalist telling, Hungary unjustly lost two-thirds of this land at the war’s end, stranding ethnic Hungarians inside other states where they became persecuted minorities.

The nations that once made up parts of Greater Hungary — Romania, Croatia, Slovakia, and more — see the dismemberment of the old empire as something closer to a liberation story. The issues really began in 2017, when Kyiv passed a law that made studying in minority languages exceedingly difficult. With up to 100,000 Hungarians living in Transcarpathia, the law naturally riled Budapest.

It was compounded by further laws that all but banned communicating with the authorities in any language other than Ukrainian. Sandor Shpenik, the dean of the Ukrainian-Hungarian Educational Institute at Uzhhorod university, concluded that the Ukrainian authorities “want us to assimilate or leave.” Pressure from the EU resulted in these stricter laws getting watered down — late last year, a new law guaranteed the rights of those from “EU nationalities” to study and communicate in their own language.

Still, the damage had already been done, made worse by Budapest exaggerating the problem for political effect. Senior foreign ministry official Tamas Menczer made the incendiary accusation that Ukraine was committing “atrocities” against its Hungarian minority. Per the Economist: “He was, it turns out, referring to the removal by police of Hungarian flags from some municipal buildings near the town of Mukachevo.”

There are few sane worlds where flags being taken down qualify for the word “atrocity.” Alone among EU leaders, Viktor Orban seems to have a deep, personal grudge against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Even the tiny handful of others who are sympathetic to Russia — such as Robert Fico of Slovakia — don’t seem so driven by personal animosity.

Some see this as a manifestation of Orban’s belief that Ukraine will never win the war and that keeping it in the game by loaning money and weapons is a waste of everyone’s time. Others see it as part of his belief that the EU and Russia require buffer states between them. Finally, others think it’s a sop to the Hungarian far-right, signaling that Orban supports their dreams of resurrecting Greater Hungary.

An Alliance at a Crossroads: What Comes Next

The growing divide between Budapest and NATO’s other 30 capitals, if kept unchecked, risks becoming an unbridgeable chasm. So far, questions about expelling Hungary from various Western institutions remain just that: questions — things policymakers are mulling over in the backs of their minds, even as they hope Orban can be convinced to play ball. Maybe the Hungarian leader will keep walking on just the right side of the line, never getting too personally close to Putin and Xi Jinping, never quite letting his country become the Chinese “bridgehead to Europe” it threatens to be.

But it could also be that, as the decade rolls on, Orban finally steps over that line one too many times and forces his allies to face up to the blackmailer in their midst. Could Hungary survive without NATO’s protection? Could Europe deal with a truly rogue state sat at its heart?

Although EU leaders want to project unanimity, there are mechanisms by which the remaining 26 states could club together to provide Kyiv an economic lifeline without Hungarian involvement. The point is not that Orban alone could collapse the entire Western effort to support Ukraine. Rather, it is how misaligned Hungarian strategic goals are becoming from those of the wider alliance.

For the majority of NATO governments, halting Russian expansionism is a key security priority. For some — like Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — it’s an existential issue. By playing games, Orban is undermining the alliance’s stability and unity just when it needs it most.

Right now, it may be that Hungary should not be expelled from NATO. How it will feel in five years, three years, or even six months is anyone’s guess. It is imperative that Western policymakers start planning for such an eventuality ahead of time, or risk watching the entire Western alliance collapse into indecision and paralysis.

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