The two-day conference is set to take a year of action but the preparations have been overshadowed by questions about some invitees' democratic credentials and complaints from uninvited countries. The US leader has not invited Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to spark a diplomatic row in the EU. The whole bloc's participation in the summit was vetoed by the Hungarian leader. The move by the US President was driven by a report by NGO Freedom House, which stated that Hungary is no longer a democracy and Poland is not far from following the same path.
The authors noted a democratic breakdown and warned that fewer democracies in the region than ever since the annual report was launched in 1995 and blamed the EU Commission's ineffective measures against Hungary and Poland in the report, which included 29 countries from Central Europe to Central Asia. They wrote: Neither Poland nor Hungary have faced repercussions for the rule of law at home, and Hungary s ruling Fidesz party has even remained a member of the European People's Party, the largest grouping in the European Parliament. The report said Hungary adopted an emergency law that allows the government to rule by decree indefinite manner, which has exposed the undemocratic character of Orban's regime, adding that Hungary's decline has been the most precipitous they have ever tracked. READ MORE: Euro exposed as a stepping stone to single state after Lagarde commented
The report was published last year. At the time, Zolt n Kovacs, Hungary's secretary of state for international communication and relations, said on Twitter that Freedom House was once known as the bipartisan human rights organisation. They ve declined with their George Soros funding, becoming the fist of the Soros network. Anyone who doesn't conform to their liberal view gets downgraded. The top US State Department official for civilian security, democracy and human rights Uzra Zeya said today's event would bring together established and emerging democracies and help them deliver for their people at a moment of democratic reckoning. The conference will be a test of Biden's assertion that he would return the United States to global leadership to face the authoritarian forces led by China and Russia, as announced in his first foreign policy address in February. Both countries were not invited to this week's event, which coincides with questions about the strength of America's democracy. Biden is trying to pass his agenda through a polarised Congress and after former President Donald Trump disputed the 2020 election result, leading to an assault on the US Capitol, the legislative seat, by his supporters on January 6. ANALYSIS US-UK trade talks erupt as AMT threatens to impose tariffs on goods and services INSIGHT An invitation list last month included countries that have accused human rights groups of harbouring authoritarian tendencies, such as the Philippines, Poland and Brazil. It included Taiwan, which stoked anger from China, which considers the democratically governed island part of its territory. A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said that the invitation of Taiwan showed that the United States was only using democracy as cover and a tool to advance its geopolitical objectives, oppress other countries, and serve its own interests. Washington has imposed sanctions on officials in Iran, Syria, and Uganda in the run-up to the summit to accuse them of oppressing their populations and against those accused of being connected to corruption and criminal gangs in Kosovo and Central America.