The last pavan in Brussels*

pavane

/pəˈvan,pəˈvɑːn/

noun

noun: pavan

1. a stately dance in slow duple time, popular in the 16th and 17th centuries and performed in elaborate clothing.
   
   

Oh! How I would love to amuse my dear readers with the fascinating etymological history, the musical derivations and geographic variations of the word and the dance! But, alas, this time I must restrict myself to the one and only Hungarian derivation, inadvertently coined by our resourceful prime minister, Mr. Orban, based on a misunderstanding and some deceptions. Mr. Orban somehow understood, mistakenly, that the mating dance of the peacock, that is to say stepping forth, than stepping back, is an apt description of how he is dealing with political obligations that he is going to ignore and will not carry out, no matter what, but for the sake of appearances he and his government are willing to pretend to try; and he named this elaborate, deceptive dance of forward and backward steps the ” peacock dance,” in short: pavane.

The opportunity to philosophize about the pavane is arising this time from the publication this week of the EP CONT committee, the financial checking and visiting group that dropped by Budapest on the 15^th of May this year to see what the Orban Government is doing about implementing the 27 conditions, the hurdles they must clear in order to get the European Union’s transfer payments released – and not a minute too soon. And the report is by no means encouraging to either party. The government is pretending (lying really), to be working hard to implement the requested policy changes, (they have no intention whatsoever of doing so), while the EU, and chiefly this commission, is pretending to believe the efforts (the transparent lies and obfuscations) of the government, although they do understand and see through the ruse and the lies.

The terse report is a veritable master piece of union-speak, trying to be fair but at the same time being unable to ignore the obvious: the shameless lying and dissembling, the usual ingredients of the Orbán Pavane. Albeit the two-page report starts with a couple of friendly sentences, to pay the dues to curtesy, following that it is a round un-masking and condemnation of the political shell game the government has been playing with the EU for thirteen years. But as is apparent also from this report, the game is up; the EU is no longer willing to be the patsy and the sizable amount of money, some 28 billion Euros, will remain in escrow until Hungary reshapes herself into a country of democracy with less corruption and a restored rule of Law.

The chances of realizing these goals are slim at best. Just like the last dictatorship, the Communist one, was calcified, so is this present one and similarly to that one, pulling out any one of the constituting institutions will cause the whole house of cards to collapse, burying the perpetrators under the ruins. The country might be willing to pay that price, but the perpetrators cannot afford to, they have no place to run, or to hide. They are already quaking in their boots as they see what a democracy can do to a thoroughly corrupt politician in the USA. And we have not just one of them, but scores.

Good luck to all concerned!

* The complete report can be found at this address:  https://www.europarl.europa.eu/resources/library/media/20230517RES90802/20230517RES90802.pdf