Anti-spying phone pouches offered to EU lawmakers for trip to Hungary – POLITICO
www.politico.eu

Budapest has faced EU scrutiny over the use of spyware against the opposition and civil society in past years.

Members of the European Parliament were offered special pouches to protect digital devices from espionage and tampering for a visit to Hungary this week, a sign of rising spying fears within Europe.

Five lawmakers from the Parliament’s civil liberties committee traveled to Hungary on Monday for a three-day visit to inspect the EU member country’s progress on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights.

One lawmaker on the trip confirmed to POLITICO that the Parliament officials joining the delegation were offered Faraday bags — special metal-lined pouches that block electromagnetic signals — by the Parliament’s services and were also advised to be cautious about using public Wi-Fi networks or charging facilities.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    4·
    3 days ago

    Fine if it gets annexed by Russia

    If you’re in the EU, you probably retain an obligation to keep Russia from annexing Hungary even if Hungary were to hypothetically leave the EU, since there are also obligations to Hungary via NATO.

    Aside from possibly Ireland and Austria, which have declared neutrality — and there are some disparate interpretations as to how this impacts EU mutual aid clause obligations — EU members are obliged to defend each other:

    https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/article-427-teu-eus-mutual-assistance-clause_en

    Article 42(7) TEU: If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defense policy of certain Member States.

    Commitments and cooperation in this area shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which, for those States which are members of it, remains the foundation of their collective defence and the forum for its implementation.

    NATO members are as well:

    https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17120.htm

    Article 5

    The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

    Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security .

    Article 6

    For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

    • on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France 2, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;
    • on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.

    These are not precisely the same obligations. For example, NATO does not oblige other members to defend metropolitan France in the Pacific, whereas the EU mutual assistance clause does. The EU mutual assistance clause does not oblige other members to defend their vessels against attack in the Mediterranean or Atlantic, while NATO does. But there’s enough overlap that I’d expect Russia rolling into Hungary to trigger both.

    EDIT: I’d also add that there is no mechanism to expel a member from NATO without them choosing to leave; probably the closest you could come would be to have all other members leave and then form NATO 2.0. There is also no mechanism to expel a member from the EU, but given the more-expansive scope of EU powers to impact member states, I imagine that the rest of the EU could probably de facto achieve the same thing by stripping a given members voting power (which is an option with otherwise-unanimous agreement) and then making their life sufficiently miserable using EU powers that they want to leave and choose to do so themselves.

    My own view — and this is as an outsider, an American, so some of this doesn’t affect me, in fairness — is that it wouldn’t be a good move to try to eject Hungary. I remember some people on /r/Europe — well before Brexit — frustrated about the UK’s position on some matter complaining that they wanted the UK out of the EU. I think that the reality of a member leaving is probably less-pleasant than the hypothetical. I think that when someone is frustrated, it is easy to see the negative points of membership, and easy to miss positives. Among other things, Hungary leaving would create a deep geographic split in the EU, cutting off most access among other EU member states in the area, like Romania-Slovakia. Just in general, it would impact the EU’s scale. A Hungary outside the EU might prove to be more-problematic to remaining EU member states than a Hungary inside. Much of the upset seems to me to center around Viktor Orban; countries tend to outlive men and their time in power; and my belief is that the EU can probably afford to take a long-term view of things. I do not think that Hungary-under-Orban has represented any kind of existential threat to other EU member states; just an irritant on a number of matters.

    I remember a while back, when the EU had the UK undergoing the Brexit procedure. Hungary and Poland were under separate Article 9 attempts to strip their voting powers. And then Macron, in some Franco-Italian dispute, called Italy a “rogue EU member”. There were too many people trying to drive divisions and create fights then, I think. I don’t think that moving back to that kind of situation would make the EU a better place.