EP Elections – Socialists Vow Fidesz Botched Palinka, Tokaj Brand Cases

(MTI) – Fidesz is unfit to represent Hungarian interests effectively in the European Union, as it has been unable to protect such issues as palinka distillation or the Tokaj wine brand, the Socialist opposition’s European election candidate said on Sunday.

Gyorgy Mudri told a press conference that Fidesz has botched the issue of allowing tax-free palinka (brandy) distillation in Hungary at the start and that they were unable to help keep rights to the Tokaj wine brand, which now Slovakia can use, too. He said leftist governments had been able to promote these issues more successfully.

Campaigning in Nyiregyhaza, eastern Hungary, the party’s leader, Attila Mesterhazy, said on Sunday that the Socialists are pursuing “common sense” politics instead of Fidesz’s power demonstration, which isolates Hungary. Mesterhazy also insisted that the radical nationalist Jobbik party was unfit to represent Hungarians in Brussels. Their leader talks about exiting the EU, while his personal assistant urges crowds to spit on a prominent Voivodina Hungarian politician, and their third candidate on the party list “represents Russian interests”, Mesterhazy said, referring to recent scandals associated with Jobbik.

Photo: MTI – Attila Balazs

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters