Government hopes there will be a right-wing majority in the European Parliament

Justice Minister Judit Varga in an interview said the European Parliament may look forward to a new era with a right-wing majority in the next cycle. In an interview published in Italian daily Libero on Sunday, Varga discussed Hungary’s child protection law, Italy-Hungary relations, migration, and ties with Russia.

Varga said Italy’s government was alone in understanding Hungary’s “solid arguments” in the legal dispute over the child protection law, noting that Italy had not joined 15 EU member states in the European Commission’s lawsuit against Hungary. The law falls in line with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, stating that parents and families have the right to decide on the upbringing of their children based on their own beliefs, so the law did not fall foul of European legislation, she argued. Varga said the lawsuit was politically and ideologically motivated, adding that “the gender lobby is present in many countries”. The law, she added, was backed by broad social support in Hungary.

Good ties with Meloni

Addressing relations with Italy, Varga said ties with Giorgia Meloni had been good even before she became prime minister, with common agreement on strategic issues such as immigration policy and the protection of families. Meloni should “stay strong” so Italy and Hungary can cooperate in the European Council “to protect conservative values”, she added. The minister said Russian ties were a “pragmatic issue”, and Hungary’s energy needs were such that the country “must do business with Moscow”. She said Hungary’s conservative government had done “everything to establish connections” with neighboring countries, but the main source of gas was from Russia.

Aim: defeating the left

She said Hungry had no plans to “change our dependence on Russia to dependence on the United States”. Varga added, however, that Hungary “is a partner of the United States, a member of NATO and the EU, and wishes to remain so…” The minister noted that Hungary had condemned Russian aggression from the start and supported Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity. Hungary was also among the first to propose Ukraine’s EU membership, she added. Addressing migration, she said that whereas Hungary was in agreement with President Sergio Mattarella that the Dublin Treaty was outdated, bringing in a redistribution mechanism would be tantamount to an invitation to enter the EU, so Hungary will not change its position that the cause rather than the consequences of migration must be dealt with. Instead of importing the problem to Europe, the solution must be handled at the source of the problem, she said.

Put to her that Fidesz is not a member of any EP group, Varga said: “We’re in the land of the strong and we are happy.” She said Fidesz was a member of “the great community of the continental right”, which was growing in strength, and it should believe in its ability to defeat the left and win a majority in next year’s European elections. Varga said progressives, socialists and left-wing liberals had failed to provide answers to “the real needs of European citizens”, and “a new era” was on the cards, with a fresh European Commission no longer in thrall to NGOs and bureaucrats hijacking democratic processes.

Fidesz: impractical solutions on the migration crisis

The European Parliament “keeps pushing the same, impractical solutions as ever and protracting the migration crisis,” Fidesz MEP Balázs Hidvéghi told public radio on Sunday. Whereas the EP advocates distributing illegal migrants across the bloc to be accommodated by member states, the EU should prioritise border protection and “make it a fundamental principle that the EU cannot be entered illegally, and those doing so will be sent back to where they came from,” the ruling party MEP told Kossuth Radio. This, he said, could be “the beginning of the real solution” to reining in people smuggling and illegal entry.

“Many do enter the EU and stay; this is the problem to be addressed … but the EU’s pro-migration side does not think so, and they keep pushing the wrong solutions,” he said. He slammed Hungary’s leftist MEPs for supporting the EP’s recent position on the matter. “Not taking our own laws and rules seriously only protracts the crisis; we cannot expect the crisis to be over while failing to enforce those laws, since migrants, many of whom are not refugees but economic migrants, will exploit Europe’s weakness,” Hidvéghi said.

Meanwhile, the MEP said that corruption connected with travel by several officials of the European Commission was “yet more evidence of systemic corruption in Brussels”. “It’s increasingly obvious that the whole decision-making apparatus of Brussels has become corrupted,” he said. Another sign of the “corruption” is that officials “have abused their power on a number of occasions, for example by waging a political revenge campaign against Hungary and Poland, blackmailing and threatening [them],” he said. “It is unacceptable that European officials travel to have talks at which there are high stakes, with the other side paying for their flights and accommodation … accepting those you cannot negotiate objectively and impartially,” he said. “This is a textbook example of bribery, and it seems that a number of the European Commission’s officials have been involved,” Hidvéghi added.

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