Hungary

It's only a blip on the radar screen for the few Americans who pay attention (around the 70th percentile in all 4 rankings in the Handbook), but Hungary has come up twice on this blog over the years for its increasingly nasty policies (here and here).

Hungary is part of the EU, but maintains its own currency outside the EMU.

In Hungary's defense, their policy issues have been motivated by two primary issues. First, a sense that the EU government in Brussels is too liberal for Hungary's political tastes. Second, because Hungary has been on the prime immigration route to the EU from failed states in the Middle East. If you've forgotten the news from 2015, check out these pictures. In response, Hungary built a fairly secure wall on their border.

Hungary has been run by the same guy, Viktor Orban, for the last 10 years, and 14 of the last twenty-two. He's another not-so-nice-guy that Trump seems to think highly of.

Today, Hungary's Parliament voted to give Orban the right to rule by decree, suspend parliament, and to punish journalists without trials ... oh yeah, and punish quarantine violators because there's that whole pandemic thing going on.

What's the old political saw? Never let a good crisis go to waste.

P.S. Oh ... and Hungary was on the bad side in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.