Hungary's is one of Putin's puppet regimes, so it's really about Russian-style repression of the opposition.
The law in question also dubbed "chat control" has been on the table for the last 3 years now. It's been rejected each time so far but it comes back every 6 months without fail.
The reason Hungary is associated with "Chat control" this time is because Hungary holds the current presidency of the EU. This presidency changes every 6 months. Before Hungary, it was Belgium which was in charge and they too tried to get this law passed.
This is what a country with the EU presidency does, they set their goals and then try to reach a consensus with the other countries. "Chat control" is one of these goals just like it was one of the goals of the Belgium presidency.
So to come out and say the Hungary is pushing for this because they are Putin's puppet is not accurate at all. The EU commission, which I am pretty sure no one can accuse of being a puppet of Putin is the one who keep bringing this law not Hungary or a specific country in particular.
Now, I am not saying that Hungary is not happy about this, in fact they may well be very glad that this law is being discussed (as it would allow them to enable a state of total surveillance on their citizens) but please let's remember that even Sweden and Spain are amongst the many countries in the EU that are actually supporting this law.
To me that is the bigger problem, how can the EU be so supportive of personal privacy then come out with shit like this?
- Hungary's Putin-puppet regime is in favor of banning encryption so as to repress the opposition and stay in power indefinitely.
- Other EU political actors are in favor of banning encryption for their own reasons.
My comment did not imply that all non-puppet political actors in the EU were against banning encryption.
Your first comment was vague and that is why I thought it was worth responding to it. I am glad we agree that Hungary is not the only one who is pushing for this law but you singled out Hungary in your comment so what was the intent there then?
To be honest, I am just a bit fed up with people talking about Hungary as the bad guy in this particular instance due to it's ties with Putin all the while forgetting that even the "nice" and "progressive" countries such as Sweden and France and many others which are usually clamoring for privacy and sovereignty from big tech are also pushing for it.
To me in this specific case Hungary is not the problem. The problem is the law itself and the fact that this law keeps coming back again and again in the so called bastion of democracy that is Europe (supposedly).
- Other EU political actors are in favor of banning encryption to repress the opposition = good
This may feel nifty to say and/or believe in, but has no connection to reality.
Source: any Magyar you will talk to.
Edit: For example [0], posted 5 minutes after I posted this.
Same goes for Lukashenko, Maduro, and Vučić, or for Farage, Weidel, and all the other nice folk who used to poll sub-5% before Russia's troll army started peddling their sewage. The only thing less likely than you convincing me that he isn't would be me convincing you that he is, considering that you hopped onto this thread for this argument.
I'm Hungarian, I hate Orban [1], but your comment is not accurate. We have a lot of problems in Hungary (see my other comment in the thread), but we're not Putin's puppet regime. A puppet regime would imply that Orban was put in place by Putin and/or is kept in place by Putin, and is purely doing Putin's bidding. I've never heard anybody serious say this, nor have I ever seen any evidence of this. Although rhetorically Orban is definitely pro-Russia, in the end (after wasting everybody's time for a while) he always goes along with EU resolutions against Russia.
Orban doesn't need Putin to stay in power, he has access to all of Hungary's tax income, and effectively also beyond that, due to the 2/3 majority which allows him to rewrite the constitution at will.
Likely reasons Orban is friendly with Putin: (i) access to Russian oil (ii) Hungary's one and only power plant is Russian tech run by Russian techs (iii) Orban's regime is like a soft version of Putin's, so criticizing Putin would in some sense mean critizing himself, it'd be counter-productive for him.