That is fundamentally incorrect. It treats Hungary as Orban's private lordship and Hungarian citizens as Orban's subjects. Hungary is a republic not a kingdom, Orban does not own it, he serves as Prime Minister at a pleasure of Hungarian people and can be removed. Hungarian people want to stay in the EU and will choose EU over Orban if question if this question is presented to them this way. It is fundamentally wrong to make Hungarian people suffer for decisions, made by their leaders.
Hungary did vote for Orban many times in the past, but that is not because they disagree with EU values or support Putin's values or autocracy. Orban simply got lucky. Ferenc Gyurcsány infamous speech made him and MSZP unlikable and unelectable. Instead of apologizing and quitting politics, like a Western politician would do, Ferenc Gyurcsány not only continued as Prime Minister, but also continues to be present in Hungarian politics even today, repeatedly going against Orban in elections. With an opponent like that, Orban does not need to try hard to get reelected, thanks to Gyurcsany, Orban's Fidesz keeps getting reelected with huge majorities. Now that an opponent not allied with Gyurcsany finally emerged, Orban started trailing in polls and now stand to lose next election.
To avoid losing that majority, domestically Orban plays moderate and conciliatory, catch all role, promising best of both worlds. He is fundamentally an opportunist who wants to take both Putin's and EU's money, not a person who thinks that Putin's regime is fundamentally right and EU is wrong. Given a clear choice he will most likely stick with EU.
However, a Hungarian question does need to be solved and solved in a systemic way. You can't just kick out every country where some questionable character would, sometimes by accident, take power. Soon you will have no union left. Questionable leaders come and go, and Europe remains.
Poland once had a right-wing government, and Kachinski was a much bigger affront to rule of law than Orban is. Slovakia's Robert Fico is on a constant revolving door, winning every election from opposition and equally losing every other one from government. That not only happens in Eastern Europe: among the old members, but France is also at risk of presidency of Putin friendly Marie Le Pen, Germany too has AfD and other member states have their own right wingers.
As you can see bad leaders come and go, but Europe remains. So, a lasting systemic solution that endures is needed no matter what country can elect some problematic leadership for a term or two.
Solutions
Fortunately, long history of liberal democracies already developed many of the solutions we need. For example, rule of law issue. If a local district court made an error of judgement or made biased ruling, such decision can be appealed to a higher-ranking court. It can and should work in the EU, if a local national court makes a decision that violates human rights or EU laws or values, it should be possible to appeal such decisions to EU courts.
Freedom of press too can be addressed in the same way. As far as I know, most of TV in Europe are open air broadcasts. It's not like local leaders could simply order them to stop broadcasting or use North Korea style noise generators. EU already has its own TV and news; EU should expand both number of channels and their content. EU needs to make sure its TV available in every language and every country. That way people of every country will have access to alternative sources of information even if someone buys all local TV channels in an attempt to create information monopoly.
Fundamentally EU has to provide institutions that people can depend on, even if their national governments are not functioning properly. It cannot act solely through the member states. EU has to grow into a proper federal government with its own branches that handles its matters.
Finally, there is true nuclear option: clandestine interference. Russia and other foreign powers do that too so why should EU simply deal with Russian puppets on consul and do nothing. There are ways to handle this issue. For example, if some country cannot put credible opposition together, then EU can do it for them. European security should also run espionage networks to detect and neutralize any non-EU spies.
There however remains one remaining issue, so called veto power, ability of a single member state to block decisions that still require unanimous voting. Orban has been abusing this power all too readily recently. Sure, there is Article 7 that can suspend voting powers of every member state if all others agree to it, but that is both too radical and impossible to use if there are 2 members like that.
Instead, more decisions have to be transferred to qualified majority voting system. There is no reason why sanctions on Russia for example have to be agreed upon unanimously. If not all, then at least most decisions have to be made by qualified majority.
Unanimous voting too can be altered to require at least 3 members against to be valid, to remove single member vetoes. Finally, an alternative to bypass leader's vote should be considered. Sovereignty lies with people and not with the leader. So, EU Consul should be allowed to challenge questionable dissenting votes by individual national leaders by referring them to that nation's highest court or even national referendum.
Finally, there is a question of what issues falls under which voting method. For example, question of sanctions on Russia can be re-classified as one of the issues that require qualified majority instead of unanimity.
These and some other methods that I will outline in a separate article, can not only solve Orban's problem but also made EU into a much stronger union that will stand the test of time and be an example for others to follow.
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