Orbán: EP resolution against Hungary a ‘Soros report’

Budapest, May 19 (MTI) – Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Friday called the resolution adopted by the European Parliament condemning Hungary earlier this week a product of a “flawed policy”, adding that the document was actually a “Soros report”. Hungary’s economic policy based on wage increases and low taxes will have to be protected in next year’s elections, Orbán said.

Speaking to public Kossuth Radio, the prime minister attributed the “attacks being carried out against Hungary” to migration, arguing that there is a community of interests in Europe that aims to bring hundreds of thousands of migrants to the continent each year.

The mastermind, organiser and, in part, financier behind this concept is US billionaire George Soros, Orbán added.

Drawing a parallel between the EP resolution and a 2013 report criticising the Hungarian government prepared by Portuguese green EP Rui Tavares, Orbán said that this time the EP decided to compile a “Soros report” on Hungary, adding that the so-called Tavares report had “failed shamefully”.

Reading this report “one doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry,” Orban said, pointing out as an example a passage discussing clashes between Hungarian police and a group of migrants on the southern border near Roszke in September 2015. The passage says a Syrian national involved in the clashes has been “sentenced to 10 years in prison … on the sole grounds of using a megaphone to ease tensions and of throwing three objects at the border police”. Orbán said that contrary to what is written in the resolution, the Syrian man in question had attempted “to break through” Hungary’s border fence, using a megaphone to try to rile up the crowd and attacked the policemen on duty at the border.

Orbán was asked to comment on remarks made by Manfred Weber, group leader of the European People’s Party, who had said that the ball was now in the Hungarian prime minister’s court, and that if he addressed the EP’s concerns, he would prove that he is a team player, but if not, then there would be consequences for Hungary. Orbán commented saying that such things “would never be said in China”, which he said demonstrated how “distorted” European politics have become.

He lamented that EU member states were “not respected” by European institutions and that those in Brussels, regardless of their party affiliation, can tell member states how they should behave.

“The essence of Europe is not in Brussels, but in the member states. Europe is not Brussels; it is Warsaw, Budapest, Paris, Berlin, Rome,” the prime minister said.

Orbán emphasised the importance of standing by Hungarian national interests.

“We want to be the ones to decide whom we should or shouldn’t live with.”

The attacks being mounted on Hungary will not deter the government from its goals, Orban said, adding that Hungary would continue to “walk its own path”. Hungary will not hand over the right to set taxation policy or energy prices to Brussels, either, Orbán insisted.

He said the view that the current distribution of power within the EU should be kept intact was also a European position.