With days to go before a crucial election, will Brussels’ actions against Hungary over rule-of-law concerns sway voters?
As Hungary approaches parliamentary elections on 12 April, which polling suggests could oust Prime Minister Viktor Orban after 16 years in power, his government has once again become a focal point of tensions with the European Union.
Budapest’s recent decision to block a 90-billion-euro EU loan package for Ukraine has frustrated member states seeking unity at a critical geopolitical moment.
Behind these diplomatic clashes, roughly 18 billion euros in European funds remain frozen over rule-of-law concerns.
Analysts suggest that beyond the financial stakes, the Hungarian case highlights a broader challenge: EU sanctions are not only legal or economic tools, but also political messages whose impact depends on how they are understood by the public.
Sanctions are only as effective as the narratives that accompany them. And in that arena, Brussels may be fighting with one hand tied behind its back.
Sanctions on Trial
Soso Makaradze, a researcher at the Salzburg Center of European Union Studies, has closely examined how EU rule-of-law sanctions (technically known as the “conditionality mechanism”) resonate within Hungary – and how political framing shapes public perception.
In an interview, he describes the European Commission’s activation of the power to impose financial penalties on over Budapest’s failure to uphold its rule-of-law principles in 2022 as a “historic shift,” noting that the EU “for decades had abstained from using financial leverage against its member states internally.”
Makaradze argues that the final design of the sanctions package reflects political compromise. An earlier proposal was much bolder, but because of the impossibility to reach consensus among member states, it was significantly watered down. “A German compromise at the end of 2020, with the help of Angela Merkel, changed the text considerably,” he says.
The result was not a sweeping values-based enforcement tool, but a narrower fiscal instrument.
“The commission has to credibly document all the breaches it identifies and show that these breaches have a direct impact on the ‘sound financial management’ of the EU budget,” Makaradze explains.
This legal framing can be difficult to communicate to a wider public. Some terms are not easily understood outside policy circles. “How many people know what ‘sound financial management’ means?”
Legally, the bar is set high: the EU must show that governance deficiencies in Hungary directly threaten taxpayers’ money. Not every rule-of-law concern automatically counts, and this technical precision, while necessary for credibility, can make the issue abstract and inaccessible to the public.
A possible approach, then, is not to dilute the law but to translate it, Makaradze suggests. Instead of invoking complex terms, the Commission could explain which funds are frozen, which projects are delayed, and what reforms would release them.
By turning legal jargon into tangible consequences, Brussels could preserve its institutional authority while giving citizens a clear, relatable understanding of the stakes.
Because when clarity is missing, alternative narratives quickly fill the space – and in a highly polarized environment, that gap becomes politically decisive.
Rules vs. Rhetoric
While the EU explains conditionality in regulatory terms, in Hungary that vacuum has been filled with political framing.
Government officials starting with Orban have consistently presented the sanctions as an attack on Hungary. Former Justice Minister Judit Varga, for example, publicly characterized EU rule-of-law procedures as politically motivated and framed the sanctions as a punishment from the EU for Hungary’s pro-Christian policies, its child protection law, or its opposition to migration quotas – narratives that appear frequently in domestic political contexts.
If the government’s framing dominates public discourse, is there room for an alternative narrative? Makaradze and colleagues surveyed 2,000 Hungarians in 2023. As expected, the responses reflected a high level of polarization. Domestic debates were pretty much divided along pro-government and pro-opposition lines. Government supporters tended to blame the EU for sanctions, while opposition supporters mostly blamed their own government. Makaradze sees “a clear partisan divide.”
Yet polarization is not absolute. Makaradze and colleagues found the non-aligned respondents particularly interesting. They comprised 41% of the whole sample. “Their opinions were not polarized along partisan lines and, thus, most likely to still be open to other influences,” Makaradze says, noting that this gives an indication that there is room for alternative communication on sanctions.
Communication does not happen on neutral terrain. Hungary’s media landscape is overwhelmingly dominated by government narratives. While journalists are not systematically prosecuted, structural imbalances and smear campaigns create what Makaradze calls “an unfair balance.”
Meanwhile, the EU remains largely absent from digital platforms. “The future of this communication struggle will depend on reaching broader societal groups – especially young people,” he argues.
When Brussels communicates in technical, legalistic terms while Budapest delivers a vivid, emotional narrative, it is the latter that captures public attention and shapes perceptions more effectively.
Legitimacy Lost: When Sanctions Backfire
Kinga Koranyi, a Hungarian political scientist at the University of Wroclaw, explains how EU interventions can falter when communication fails.
“A lot of people think these are tools to protect values, but legally they are tied to protecting the budget,” Koranyi says. A better angle would have been to frame it as a mismanagement of funds, she believes.
She argues that if the mechanism is about fiscal protection, frame it around transparency and corruption. Making the point that “Arguing that Hungary doesn’t respect values is subjective – corruption is something people understand,” Koranyi suggests that when citizens perceive violations of norms they value, they may be willing to hold governments accountable.
The European Commission has not done a really good job in communicating effectively to its citizens, she argues, and seems to forget that Hungarian citizens are EU citizens as well.
In the early years of EU sanctions, public understanding lagged. The mechanism was “incredibly legal and technical,” she recalls – so complex that even journalists attended workshops to follow it. Many citizens simply did not grasp what was happening. “It’s fascinating – we think this must be a big contentious issue, but it’s simply not.”
But with an election looming around the corner, even an issue most voters barely notice can become a powerful political weapon.
Elections in the Shadow of Sanctions
As election day approaches in Hungary, EU sanctions continue to cast a politically charged shadow. The European Commission has temporarily softened its stance, deliberately avoiding sharp criticism of Orban to prevent giving him political ammunition.
Hungary relies heavily on Russian oil, primarily transported via the Druzhba pipeline, which Ukraine is currently blocking. Orban and his government have framed their veto of the 90-billion-euro EU loan to Ukraine as a response to what they describe as Ukraine’s political “blackmail” over the pipeline, stating Hungary will not support EU decisions favoring Kyiv until oil transit resumes.
A permanent EU ban on Russian oil imports tentatively set to take effect on 15 April — just three days after the vote, in what some saw as a tactical move – was postponed in late March as the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran sent global oil markets into turmoil.
Opposition leader Peter Magyar, whose Tisza party currently leads the polls, has made unlocking EU funds central to his campaign, but public understanding of the sanctions remains limited.
The commission fears that Orban could use this to mobilize public opinion against the EU. “There is a potential for public backlash,” Makaradze fears. “Sanctions have featured into the campaign rhetoric.”
Koranyi notes that the topic is largely absent from mainstream debate: “This is something that Orban will definitely want to forget. So that’s why we haven’t been seeing this issue of the frozen EU funds on the news very often.”
Past attempts to frame frozen funds as a deserved consequence of government corruption, such as those by the opposition Momentum party in the 2024 European Parliament elections, proved unpopular and contributed to the party’s collapse. Today, opposition parties tread carefully: they may occasionally mention the sanctions but cannot fully endorse them without alienating voters.
For the EU, the Hungarian case highlights an ongoing challenge identified by several analysts – how to maintain legal credibility while also communicating complex policies in ways that resonate with citizens across member states.
Makaradze suggests the issue could offer strategic opportunities for opposition forces. “This could be a strong message for the Hungarian opposition, but only if communicated strategically, accounting for limited public awareness and the government’s control over narratives.”
As a Hungarian herself, Koranyi concludes that Hungarian voters are not really in the know about this. “They don’t really care. They don’t understand it. It’s not a very super-duper politicized issue.”
Sian Olislagers is an editorial intern at Transitions. He is studying for a bachelor’s in international journalism at the Artevelde University of Applied Sciences.
