EU hypocrisy on parade as Netanyahu goes to Hungary  without a peep

The European Union likes to portray itself as the last principled bastion of the “rules-based international order” and global justice standing. Yet its true commitment to that order is a bit suspect. By applying double standards, the EU is actually undermining it, rendering hollow its own exhortations to other international players to respect it.

The collisions around the International Criminal Court (ICC) are a case in point.

The EU itself has no standing with respect to the ICC. That means that its members have a sovereign right to decide to join the Rome Statute that established the court — or not. That said, since the inception of the ICC, Brussels has encouraged its current and aspiring members, as well as other nations, to ratify the 1998 Rome Statute and support the Court’s work.

The EU’s leverage on this matter is more political than legal, but it appears to be deploying it selectively, depending on who the Court chooses to place in the dock.

This week during a visit of Israeli Prime Minister of Israel Benyami Benjamin Netanyahu to Budapest, Hungary announced that it will withdraw from the ICC.

The catch, however, is that the ICC has issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu, having charged him for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Israel’s ongoing campaign in Gaza in which more than 50,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in retaliation for Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks (thousands more are presumed dead, still missing under rubble). Hungary’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute, assuming it is ratified by parliament, could still take months to take legal effect. Nonetheless, so long as the process is not finalized, Hungary has an obligation to arrest Netanyahu during his four-day stay.

The EU’s reaction has thus far been muted. The European Commission’s spokeswoman Anita Hipper, reacting to the reports of Hungary’s intent to withdraw from the ICC, only offered platitudes about the EU’s support for the Court, and predicted “deep regret” if Hungary were indeed to leave.

It remains to be seen how the EU’s top brass will react, should such be the case. However, that is not the point. When the EU summons political will, it could theoretically apply sufficient pressure to prevent undesirable outcomes before they materialize, rather than having to react after the deed.

In 2023, for example, the EU exerted pressure on South Africa concerning the potential attendance of the BRICS summit there by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who by then, like Netanyahu now, had already been indicted by the ICC for war crimes in Ukraine. Brussels reminded South Africa that, as a member of the ICC, it had an obligation to arrest Putin if he were to show up in the country, and that his status as a head of state did not grant him any immunity in this case.

The statements of EU officials, including the then-High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell, generally expressed a “with-us-or-against-us” kind of mindset. It left little room for countries like South Africa, which sought to chart a neutral course — neither condoning the Russian invasion of Ukraine nor joining in the U.S.- and EU-promoted sanctions and isolation of Russia.

Such professions of neutrality — common in the Global South — were routinely dismissed as a sign of “siding with Putin.” While there were no overt threats of sanctions, European diplomats at the time hinted that Pretoria’s access to European markets and foreign investment could be affected should Pretoria fail to comply with its ICC obligations.

The EU pressure and the prospect of strained ties clearly played a role in the internal deliberations in South Africa; in the end, Putin did not attend the BRICS summit in Johannesburg and sent his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, instead.

No such leverage was apparent in the case of Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary. That is ironic as Brussels already has a rather confrontational relationship with the Hungarian prime minister. Brussels and Budapest have clashed regularly over domestic governance issues, particularly regarding Orban’s implementation of his “illiberal democracy,” in Hungary. Yet what really made Orban a pariah in Brussels is his insistence on opening space for diplomacy with Moscow to bring the war in Ukraine to an end.

Frustrated with Orban’s position (which, in fact, is widely shared across the political spectrum in Hungary, but also, increasingly, in other EU countries), senior officials in Brussels are reportedly discussing ways to get Hungary expelled from the EU altogether.

Yet, it would seem that Brussels is only exercised with Orban’s perceived flirting with Putin, but not Netanyahu, despite their both having been indicted by the ICC. Indeed, if the EU’s concern with the ICC and global justice were as consistent as it claims, it could already consider the failure to comply with the ICC orders as a breach of the rule of law — to add to the pile of other, preexisting disagreements Brussels has with Budapest. Yet political will is needed for the European Commission to move in that direction, and there is none.

Perversely, Orban is being hammered for all sorts of issues, including diplomatic initiatives to end the war in Ukraine, but gets a pass for hosting a man accused of war crimes.

And there lies the crux of the matter: The Brussels “blob” no longer appears to be worried about optics. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is as staunch a supporter of Israel as she is a Russia hawk. The contrast is even more pronounced in the case of the new EU high representative for foreign affairs, former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. She is obsessively focused on Russia. Just this week, she spoke in the European Parliament about the need to establish a special tribunal on Russian crimes in Ukraine — presumably in addition to Putin’s ICC indictment. Yet a few days earlier, she talked up friendship and cooperation at a meeting with Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar.

Of note, she also parroted hawkish Israeli talking points about Iran posing an “immense threat to the region and global stability” even though that has never been the EU’s official position.

Such arbitrariness could create a domino effect: Hungary is not the only Israel’s ally in the EU. Other countries, such as the Czech Republic and Austria, may follow suit by ignoring their obligations under the ICC, literally with no consequences. And Netanyahu will have every incentive to exploit these cracks in the EU to vindicate his claim to his increasingly restive domestic audience that he is respected and authentic statesman.

When the EU pressures other countries, such as South Africa and others in the Global South, to align with its geopolitical priorities (on Ukraine/Russia), while giving itself a pass when convenient (on Israel/Palestine), it grates in other parts of the world and undermines the very case for the “rules-based international order” that the EU purports to defend and exemplify.