Left-wing opposition politicians call for solidarity, protests at the demonstration
Politicians of the left-wing opposition Socialist-Párbeszéd and Democratic Coalition (DK) called for solidarity and street protests to overturn the Orbán government at a demonstration in Budapest on Sunday.
Bertalan Tóth, the head of the Socialist Party, said that the approval of the Sargentini report by the European Parliament showed that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “is not the strong man of Europe but a branded populist” who professes to build a Christian democracy while the representatives of Christian Democrat parties vote against him. Orbán has “chosen the past, not the future, the East, not the West,” with his policies, he added.
Tóth said the approval of the report is the victory of pro-Europe parties over those opposed to Europe. Parliament does not need a resolution condemning the report, but bills that can correct the problems the report protests, he added.
DK chairman Ferenc Gyurcsány called on people to demonstrate in the streets to topple the government. From now on, it is not just the right, but the duty of the Hungarian people to take the fate of the government into their own hands and “send this regime packing”, he said. He noted that governments had earlier been overturned with continuous demonstrations in Serbia, Egypt and Slovakia.
A dictatorship lies behind the facade of parliamentary democracy, and dictatorships are not overthrown in parliament, Gyurcsány said.
“We cannot rest until the crowd in the streets forces Viktor Orbán to resign and a new election is called, with new campaign financing and media regulations,” he added.
Gyurcsány announced another demonstration for Tuesday, next to the parliament building.
Gergely Karácsony, the co-leader of Párbeszéd, said he was proud of the Hungarian MEPs who voted in favour of the Sargentini report. Those people love their country more than to be afraid of the prime minister calling them traitors, he added.
Karácsony said the first step should be to prevent Orbán from tearing apart the European Union as he has torn apart Hungary. Afterward, the EU’s social pillar needs to be strengthened, which requires sending as many progressive, pro-Europe MEPs to Brussels as possible.
Karácsony said that Orbán’s party loyalists cannot be allowed to get into the majority in the European Parliament in elections in the spring. Afterward, in local council elections, “small circles of freedom” must be organised, he added.
Socialist MEP István Ujhelyi urged people to “take back our national symbols”, saying that one of the first symbolic steps in the “establishment of the Orbán regime” was the “appropriation of the cockade”, a ribbon rosette of the national colours adopted by revolutionaries in 1848 as a symbol of independence.
Photo: MTI
The demonstration was organised a few days after MEPs approved the Sargentini report, so called because of its rapporteur, the Dutch, Greens MEP Judith Sargentini. The approval of the report, which cited the “existence of a clear risk of a serious breach by Hungary of the values on which the Union is founded”, triggered an Article 7 procedure against Hungary would could ultimately strip the country of its EU voting rights.
Demonstrators filled Bem Square, near the Danube, carrying Hungarian and EU flags, as well as displaying emblems of the three organising parties and the Momentum Movement.
After the demonstration, some participants headed to Kossuth Square, in front of parliament, with a police escort. Some 300-400 people continued to demonstrate at Kossuth Square, as a cordon of police stood in front of the parliament building.
Photo: MTI
Ruling Fidesz said in response to the demonstration that the opposition still fails to accept the decision of the Hungarian people.
Opposition politicians supported “Brussels and pro-migration politicians in Strasbourg and continue to do so at home,” the party said.
Photo: MTI
Source: MTI
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2 Comments
Majority of people voted for Fidesz and Orban. Protesters are naive to think their actions mean anything and supported by the people of Hungary. Those in power are usually noisy.
Another sound for the ‘socialists’ in the hope that at least they will learn something! This is what’s going on in the ‘beloved’ European Union:
An angry kiss my ass, said the Luxembourg minister Asselborn, although he interrupted the Italian minister Salvini. The collision between the two took place in Vienna last week during a closed meeting. But European politicians no longer keep the toxic atmosphere in the Union secret. The incident went viral via the Facebook page of the Italian minister. Distrust is great, the atmosphere is bad. Immigration is the divisive part and the reason for the EU summit in Salzburg. But even more than this great subject is the mutual hostility of the ax at the root of the EU. The unusual and undiplomatic break by Asselborn does not stand alone. On the same day European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici described to journalists the Italian government as ‘little Mussolini’s’. And the French president Macron compared this summer the government in Rome with leprosy. A disease that Europeans should fight vigorously. It is clear that the Italian populists are seen as a scum by part of the political establishment in Europe and are treated as such. Behind closed doors and openly in the press. Not only the Italian government is seen as idiots, also those of Poland and Hungary. Because of the undermining of the rule of law and their attitude towards immigration. Together with the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Poland and Hungary form the ‘xenophobic’ member state that does not participate in the integration of migrants from Africa and the Middle East. The verbal violence that has become common during the past few days was heard in the mouth of clown Guy Verhofstadt. The leader of the European liberals called the Hungarian Prime Minister Orban (with a small detour) ‘a neo-fascist’. Verhofstadt also wrote down his anger about Orban in an opinion column on the CNN website. In this he even calls on the US to stop Orban. A MEP who asks the Americans to intervene in the EU by an elected prime minister – yes, what exactly, Guy Verhofstadt? This man is a disgrace to every party and behaves like an idiot! Apart from the desperate impression that scolding people make, the question is how the collisioncourse of these political ‘heavyweights’ will turn out. Do they have something to do with their fury, or are they only emotions and impotent looking for a way out? Poland and Hungary can punish less with less money from Brussels. But I doubt whether it helps against the background of a much larger political and social difference of opinion: the inclusion of migrants and the resistance of the eastern Member States to the multicultural society. The EU does not have its immigration policy in order, just like the ‘Annual Reports’ that never have been approved for decades. The immigration policy is directly linked to the growing number of European citizens who help populist parties to power. Control over who can and cannot enter the country also played an important role in the Brexit referendum. In short, the European Union is stuck with the consequences of its own failure. For that reason alone, the hostility of Macron and associates to their colleagues elsewhere in the Union is misplaced. The European Unity seems further away than ever and there is nothing to repair.