Referendum in Hungary on joining the European Union

EU enlargement 2004: Hungary other candidate countries European Union




On April 12, 2003 , a referendum was held in Hungary on the country's accession to the European Union . With a turnout of 45.6 percent, 83.8 percent of those who voted agreed to join the EU, which then took place as part of the EU's eastward expansion in 2004 .

prehistory

→ Main article : EU enlargement 2004

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc after 1989, Hungary began to orient itself towards Western Europe. In 1993, at the EU summit in Copenhagen, the representatives of the EU member states officially invited the former Eastern Bloc states to join the EU, provided the necessary conditions were met. The EU provided funds and aid programs to help the former Eastern Bloc countries align their economic systems with EU standards. Accession negotiations with 6 countries ( Czech Republic , Estonia , Hungary, Poland , Slovenia and Cyprus ) began in March 1998 . These negotiations were concluded by December 2002 and in April 2003 corresponding accession treaties were signed with the candidate countries, including Hungary.

All of Hungary's major parties voted in favor of holding a referendum on EU membership. The result of the referendum should be binding. The legal requirements for holding referendums were precisely defined in a constitutional reform in Hungary in 1997. Accordingly, in a referendum, Parliament had to determine beforehand whether it should have a binding or merely consultative character. A voter turnout of at least 50 percent was necessary for a referendum to be valid. If this was not achieved, the referendum could still be valid if at least 25% of those eligible to vote had voted “yes”. Before 1997, a strict 50% minimum voter turnout was necessary.

Fundamental supporters of EU membership included all four parties represented in parliament (the ruling socialists and the League of Free Democrats , as well as the opposition parties Fidesz and the Hungarian Democratic Forum ). The two conservative parties, particularly Fidesz under Viktor Orbán , were noticeably more skeptical of the EU than the ruling parties . Trade unions and employers' associations also spoke out in favor of membership. The communist Hungarian Workers' Party revised its initial “no” to EU membership, justifying this by saying that the EU could be reformed better from within. The right-wing extremist Hungarian Truth and Life Party spoke out clearly against EU membership. Surveys showed that the main concerns of voters were job security, price stability, pensions and wages, etc. In part, the question of the loss of sovereignty was also raised.

Question of the referendum

The question asked on the ballot papers was:

"Egyetért-e azzal, hogy a Magyar Köztársaság az Európai Unió tagjává váljon?"

"Do you agree that Hungary should become a member of the European Union?"

- Question from the referendum of April 12, 2003

The question had to be answered with Igen / Nem (yes / no).

Results

Cartographic representation of the results (percent “yes” votes). In each county there was an agreement of over 80%

Turnout by counties

During the vote, 8,042,272 people were registered as eligible to vote. 3,669,252 (45.62%) took part. 3,648,717 votes (99.4%) were valid. Of these, 3,057,027 voted with “Yes” and 592,690 with “No”. In relation to the number of voters, these were 83.8% and 16.2%, and in relation to the number of those entitled to vote, 38.0 and 7.4%.

Results by county

County	Yes	No	electoral participation	Valid votes	Invalid votes%
Budapest	82.50%	17.50%	56.18%	55.94%	0.25%
pest	80.63%	19.37%	46.08%	45.87%	0.21%
Fejér	84.65%	15.35%	45.11%	44.94%	0.17%
Komárom-Esztergom	85.41%	14.59%	47.32%	47.15%	0.17%
Veszprém	84.17%	15.83%	48.17%	47.93%	0.23%
Győr-Moson-Sopron	85.16%	14.84%	50.53%	50.31%	0.21%
Vas	85.05%	14.95%	50.42%	50.18%	0.24%
Zala	84.25%	15.75%	43.36%	43.18%	0.19%
Baranya	87.78%	12.22%	48.67%	48.46%	0.20%
Somogy	82.66%	17.34%	42.25%	42.08%	0.17%
Tolna	83.02%	16.98%	43.52%	43.30%	0.22%
Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén	86.32%	13.68%	41.89%	41.69%	0.21%
Heves	84.89%	15.11%	44.73%	44.47%	0.26%
Nógrád	85.46%	14.54%	42.95%	42.73%	0.22%
Hajdú-Bihar	84.39%	15.61%	36.83%	36.63%	0.20%
Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok	83.29%	16.71%	40.13%	39.85%	0.28%
Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg	87.90%	12.10%	36.19%	36.03%	0.16%
Bács-Kiskun	80.65%	19.35%	38.52%	38.28%	0.24%
Békés	83.27%	16.73%	40.93%	40.63%	0.30%
Csongrád	83.45%	16.55%	42.13%	41.84%	0.29%
Hungary as a whole	83.76%	16.24%	45.59%	45.37%	0.22%

rating

The Hungarian EU referendum was the third (after the votes in Malta and Slovenia ) and the first to be held in a heavily populated acceding country. Approval for joining the EU was consistently high across the country at over 80 percent, but voter turnout was extremely low. At just 45.6 percent, it was more than 10 percentage points below the turnout in the last parliamentary election in 2002 . The turnout was the lowest of any referendum held in 2003 in the candidate countries. Despite the turnout of less than 50%, the referendum was valid because more than a quarter of those eligible to vote had voted “yes”. Election analyzes showed that Fidesz supporters voted no more strongly than supporters of the socialists. However, a poll after the vote showed that a large majority of respondents (including Fidesz supporters) were ultimately satisfied with the outcome of the vote.

Hungary joined the European Union on May 1st, 2004.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Orla Doyle, Jan Fidrmuc: Who Is in Favor of Enlargement? Determinants of Support for EU Membership in the Candidate Countries' Referenda. (PDF) December 2003, accessed on October 3, 2016 (English). 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Brigid Fowler: REFERENDUM BRIEFING NO 4: THE HUNGARIAN EU ACCESSION REFERENDUM APRIL 12, 2003. University of Sussex, accessed on October 3, 2016 (English). 
3. ↑ ^{a b} Népszavazás az Európai Unióhoz való csatlakozásról 2003. (No longer available online.) Hungarian Electoral Commission, archived from the original on October 2, 2016 ; Retrieved October 2, 2016 (Hungarian). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ EU-related referendums. Norsk Senter for Forskningsdata, accessed October 2, 2016 .