Abstract:  Although the past decade has shown how populist governments may challenge the EU’s budgetary framework, we still lack an understanding of the circumstances under which populists are more likely to mobilize against EU-level decision-making in this field, and what this mobilization may look like. Combining the literature on populism as an ideology and EU decision-making, the article zooms in on the negotiations regarding the general regime of conditionality in EU budgetary politics and argues that economic and political factors have influenced populist mobilization. A qualitative comparison of the nine cases where populist parties feature in the government highlights that only two countries, Poland and Hungary, have actively opposed the introduction of the so-called rule-of-law conditionality. A closer look indicates that a combination of Euroscepticism, European Parliamentary affiliation, membership in the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, and the political power that populist parties possess at home, along with key macroeconomic indicators, have influenced populists in government to mobilize against the conditionality mechanism. In the second part of the analysis, the article showcases the actions of the Hungarian government, highlighting it as a specific example of populist mobilization. Viktor Orbán’s government has built a populist narrative around the issue, questioned the norm of the decision-making process, exerted a veto to block the agreement temporarily, and later challenged the regulation in court—in short, it engaged in unpolitics.

Keywords:  budgetary policy; European Union; populism; rule of law; unpolitics

Published:   Ahead of Print

Issue:   Vol 12 (2024): Unpolitics: The Role of Populist Governments in EU Decision-Making (In Progress)