Green opposition LMP party elects Keresztes group leader

Lawmakers of green opposition LMP elected party co-leader László Lóránt Keresztes their group leader on Tuesday.

Keresztes replaces former co-leader Bernadett Szél in the role, who resigned her leadership positions in the party last month.

At a press conference, Keresztes said he did not participate in Tuesday’s vote, and that the party’s deputies voted unanimously in his favour.

The new group leader said it was especially important that LMP represent the people and concrete local issues in parliament.

Answering a question, Keresztes said that

cooperation with conservative Jobbik party was “possible at a local level, concerning actual, local programmes” and suggested that his party’s leadership should only provide a “framework” for such activities.

On another subject Keresztes said that the government had no consistent migration policy and was “using migration as a tool to retain power”;

the government is “not interested in the real causes of the (migration) crisis and does nothing to resolve it”.

He called global migration a “very serious” problem and suggested a debate “to find out what is in the background” before a solution could be found. He added that migration policy should remain a national competency, while the borders must be controlled and illegal migration stopped.

To another question Keresztes said that

LMP’s leadership would come up with a position on the Sargentini report in the second half of this week.

Keresztes stressed the need of structural changes to make his party “more manageable”. He argued that the powers of the chairpersons and those of the national board “should be more clearly defined”.

Photo: MTI

Source: MTI