December 17th, 2016
A conservative pundit explains the political friction between Angela Merkel and the Hungarian centre-right government in terms of the different paths of consolidation pursued in Hungary and Germany rather than by ideological divergences.
Writing on Mandiner, Zoltán Szalai contends that the disputes between the Hungarian centre-right government and German conservatives led by Angela Merkel can be explained by the different ways in which democracy has been consolidated in the two countries. Szalai argues that in Germany, the Right realized that in order to stop the rise of the 1968 radical Marxist left, it needed to shore up liberal democratic institutions as well as to cooperate with the mainstream Left to consolidate democracy. Conservatives in Germany ground their political vision on consensus-seeking policies and the defence of basic liberal institutions. In contrast to this German model, the Hungarian Right was confronted by a post-Communist left which tried to entrench its power through liberal democratic institutions, Szalai believes. Hence the clash, he suggests.
Tags: Conservatism, Fidesz, Germany, Merkel
