Article révisé par les pairs
| Résumé : | Populist governments aim to fundamentally challenge the EU, raising the question of when and howbacksliding populist governments disrupt decision‐making in the Council of the EU (hereafter Council). Dueto their anti‐elite and strong anti‐EU stance, along with their opposition to core values of liberal democracy,I argue that these governments are more inclined to resort to unpolitics, understood as “unsettlement.”Analysing the behaviour of the Hungarian Fidesz government in the Council, the article demonstrates thatpopulist governments resort to unpolitics but use an à la carte approach. Populist backsliding governmentsselectively oppose the Council’s formal and informal decision‐making rules. Looking at the voting behaviourin the Council since 2009, the article shows that the Fidesz government preserves the norm of consensus.However, over time, it has become the government that has most often broken with this norm. Conversely,when it comes to “backsliding‐inhibiting competences,” the Fidesz government challenges both formal andinformal rules through a wide range of strategies, i.e., systematically contesting the legality of proceduresand decisions, embracing a confrontational approach and diplomacy, self‐victimisation, bending the truth,and accusatory rhetoric. To illustrate them, the article focuses on decisions related to the dismantlement ofthe rule of law in the country, such as Article 7 TEU, the application of Regulation 2020/2092, and thedisbursement of Cohesion funds. |
