Empirical research about the European Union’s impact on domestic public policy has been largely missing from academic research about Hungary. By presenting the results of analysis of three new databases, the aim of this study is to investigate the impact of the EU on Hungarian public policy between 2004 and 2018. The three aspects covered in this article are the Europeanization of law-making in the Hungarian parliament, the implementation of country-specific recommendations issued by the European Commission, and the similarities and differences between different governments in terms of handling infringement procedures. Our results show that the interaction between the Hungarian government (and in general, V4 governments) and the EU is much less conflictual at the policy level than what some high-profile political conflicts might suggest.
A Magyarország és az Európai Unió közötti viszonyról szóló közbeszédben és tudományos kutatásokban egyaránt háttérbe szorult eddig az uniós tagság következményeként hozott nemzeti szintű közpolitikai döntések empirikus vizsgálata. Három új adatbázis elemzésével arra teszünk kísérletet, hogy válaszokat adjunk arra a kérdésre, milyen hatással volt a magyar közpolitikára az uniós tagság 2004 és 2018 között. Áttekintjük, mekkora hatással volt az EU a magyar jogalkotásra, milyen mértékben teljesítette a magyar kormány az Európai Bizottságtól érkező közpolitikai ajánlásokat, és bemutatjuk, milyen hasonlóságok és különbségek vannak a különböző kormányok között a kötelezettségszegési eljárások terén. Eredményeink azt mutatják, hogy a közpolitikai szintű együttműködés az aktuálpolitikai viszonynál jóval gördülékenyebb a magyar kormány (és általában a V4-ek), illetve az EU között.
This paper examines the extent to which Visegrad countries take into account country-specific recommendations received within the framework of the European Semester, and the level of implementation experienced in the region as compared to that in the European Union. Based on a database created by using assessments of the European Commission’s annual country reports, we discuss not only the national-level implementation of recommendations within a term of one year, but also their long-term implementation. According to the annual assessments, the four Visegrad countries all belong to the second half of the field for the EU as a whole, with slightly below ‘some progress’ achieved in implementing recommendations. However, the impact of EU recommendations on the public policy decisions of Member States is much greater in the longer term than annual assessments can show. Important proof of this statement is that, over a multi-annual period, the Orbán government took measures addressing nearly two-thirds of EU recommendations, which were assessed as at least ‘some progress’ by the European Commission. In overall terms, this study demonstrates that European integration can make an impact on Member States not only through hard, binding instruments and exclusive powers, but also in a softer way, through public policy coordination.
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