The devastating effects of the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak have taken Europe by storm. The pandemic has swept through the continent and has so far resulted in more than one million confirmed cases and a death toll of over 100,000 in the European Union (EU) alone. Threatening signs of economic recession loom on the horizon and many analysts are already foreshadowing a radical shift in the global order once the pandemic is over. Parallel to world recovery, State control over national assets and a new wave of growing scepticism towards economic globalization are bound to consolidate.

All across the EU, strategies to contain the spread of the virus and flatten the contagion curve have been plentiful and diverse. Arguably, however, one of the most controversial episodes of political activity amid the outburst has come from Hungary. In late March this year, the Hungarian National Assembly passed the so-called Bill on Protection Against Coronavirus with 137 votes in favour and 53 votes against.

This act, pushed forward by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s supermajority-holding party Fidesz, allows for the government to circumvent the Parliament and rule by special decree until the end of the state of emergency – which has been extended indefinitely. The bill also includes harsher measures on the distribution of information, whereby disseminating fake news around the government’s response to the pandemic could entail up to five years in prison. Many local and international observers, including members of the Hungarian opposition, have voiced their concern over how this bill could represent the emergence of “the EU’s first dictatorship”.

The COVID-19 crisis has uncovered the worst of our national political and governmental establishments. In the EU and beyond, by and large, political elites have manipulated the situation to their own advantage and profit, be it via pushing through legislative adjustments, spreading misinformation, stoking inter-party conflicts or all of the above – to the despair of the citizenry.

This, however, should not come as a surprise. Hungary’s virus bill is the foreseen outcome of ten years of PM Orbán’s undermining liberal-democratic institutions, crushing civil liberties and pulverizing the rule of law. A comparable process is consolidating in Poland, where the conservative-nationalist ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is spearheading a series of legislative changes bound to wreck judicial independence.

The EU’s neglection, partly conditioned by its very internal functioning, has contributed to this.

It is known for a fact, albeit reluctantly acknowledged, that EU membership per se does not guarantee the preservation of core EU values. A candidate country’s successful accession process and its attainment of membership is nothing more than a mere administrative-legal procedure if the values that come implicit with it –freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law– are not constantly polished and strived towards, both from within the State and from European institutions. As though the EU was a garden, all its flowers must be taken scrupulous care of – or they will wither away.

The EU lacks the internal mechanisms to prevent democratic backsliding in Member States, mostly considered a matter of domestic affairs. This is why strengthening the rule of law and ensuring the vibrancy of civil society from the outset is key in the future preservation of liberal-democratic institutions in accordance with core EU values – not only in Member States, but also (and more so) in candidate and potential candidate countries.

Because of this, Hungary’s Bill on Protection Against Coronavirus sets a very dangerous precedent for the six Western Balkan countries seeking EU membership (WB6). PM Orbán’s democratic illiberalism is actively inspiring the regional political elites in the further implementation of autocratic measures with the security that they will not be held to account – “if an EU Member State can do it, why can’t I?”.

To a large extent across the WB6, the liberal-democratic frame of governance is still fragile and undergoing transition, and these States’ systems of civil rights and freedoms remain susceptible of stumbling. Hungary provides a textbook example of how a compliant candidate country can turn its entire scheme of values inside out after becoming a Member State. This must be avoided in the WB6.

Enlargement is, undisputedly, one of the EU’s greatest foreign policy tools, but it is imperfect and can backfire. For this reason, human and economic resources must be diligently put into strengthening the liberal-democratic system of governance and into bolstering civil society’s presence and actions. It is in the EU’s best interest to remain a trustworthy partner and to ensure, by all technical and political means, that the WB6 will uphold and defend core EU values of freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law before, during and after accession.