Gyula…

(BRUSSELS2 Gyula Horn, the man is almost unknown in the European pantheon. He has just died in Budapest at the age of 80 after a long illness. And, however... Born in 1932, joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the at the pace of the revolution (*) in 1959, he crossed all the stages and the ideological evolutions to arrive in 1989, to be one of the architects of the removal of the Wall, of barbed wire, which separates the Hungarian border from the Austrian border.

In March 1989, Prime Minister Nemeth raised the issue with his Soviet counterparts in Moscow. The argument is above all economic. Hungary has since 1988 largely relaxed its border controls, liberalizing for Hungarians to go abroad and for foreigners to come to Hungary. And the wall, electronic and barbed wire, designed 20 years ago suffers from a number of weaknesses. According to the border guards, it has even become a real sieve. And it no longer protects anything. Or you have to invest to keep it in good condition. However, Budapest does not have a penny to devote to this investment which is the reverse of history and of the movement of liberalization and opening up initiated in Moscow since Gorbachev came to power.

Premier Soviet's official response would have been: "do what you want, I don't see any problem with that". The Hungarians are quick. They know that conflict can easily happen. At the beginning of May, the first elements are removed. And when Gyula Horn and her Austrian counterpart Alois Mock arrive for the photo at the end of June 1989, the difficulty is rather to find a few barbed wires to still symbolically cut. It is this opening which will allow East Germans to reach Austria via Czechoslovakia and Hungary... The barbecue "beer sausages" in Sopron near the Austrian border by the Pan-European movement of Otto of Habsburg completes the movement, the following August 17. The fall of the Berlin Wall is scheduled...

Back in power in 1994 thanks to the first alternation of democratic Hungary, Gyula Horn directed the country towards a market economy and membership of the European Union and NATO (effective in 1997). He also passed a drastic austerity program which was highly criticized. In 1998, he left power to the "young" Viktor Orban at the head of Fidesz (Alliance of Young Democrats).

(*) "Reactionary hooligans" according to the Soviet terminology of the time.