All five members of the council will be Mr. Orban's party followers. As the representative for press freedom of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe put it, "such concentration of power in regulatory authorities is unprecedented in European democracies, and it harms media freedom."
Hungary's private media have strongly protested. So have its democratic neighbors, who have compared Mr. Orban to Russia's Vladimir Putin. The foreign minister of Luxembourg had the sense to publicly question whether Hungary was suited to take over the rotating presidency Jan. 1. But some governments have kept quiet, preferring not to stir up yet another controversy in the crisis-plagued E.U.
That's the wrong approach. Europe cannot allow a member government to flout fundamental freedoms without consequence. Some ready leverage is available: Hungary is due to host a European Union summit meeting in Budapest in May, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expected to attend. Mr. Orban should be given a choice between curbing his concentration of power and amending the media laws - or suffering the humiliation of having the European Union and the United States move or boycott his summit.