EP election – Top opposition MEP candidates hold debate

The top candidates of six Hungarian opposition parties in the European parliamentary election held a debate on Sunday.

Socialist leader and top candidate Bertalan Tóth said voters will decide at the upcoming ballot whether a cooperative Europe could be sustained and their programme including a European minimum wage and pension, a European family allowance and “a social Europe” could be made reality.

Klara Dobrev of leftist Democratic Coalition (DK) said that the election will decide whether Europe continues on the path of becoming a “common home to 500 million citizens in an increasingly close alliance” and whether the bloc could have a hands-on impact on its citizens’ quality of life, wages and pensions.

Momentum‘s Katalin Cseh said

Hungary can only preserve its competitiveness in a strong and united Europe. Europe, however, will have to change to remain so, she said.

Gábor Vágó of Green LMP called for the EU to become the standard-bearer of climate protection, with a strong green party family.

Conservative Jobbik’s Márton Gyöngyösi said one of the party’s primary aims is wage harmonisation.

“It will have to be decided” whether the EU can take a decisive stand against migration, he said, by assigning the task to Frontex and a revived border patrol agency.

The candidate of the satyrical Two-tail Dog party, Zsuzsanna Döme, said that at stake at the elections is “preserving the country’s old opposition”. Should the party be elected to the EP, it would have a way to Hungarian parliament and public institutions, she said.

Source: MTI