Hungarian PM Orbán blackmailed by Putin? – UPDATED

Addressing a debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, opposition Tisza Party MEP Péter Magyar said the premierships of Ferenc Gyurcsány and Viktor Orbán “were the decades of missed opportunities”, insisting that Hungary had become “the poorest and most corrupt” country in the European Union.

Responding to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s speech on the Hungarian EU presidency’s programme, Magyar said Orbán “had every opportunity over the last 14 years to make Hungary a land of fulfilled promises”.

“Our ancestors fought for centuries for our country’s independence and sovereignty and to make Hungary a part of Europe,” Magyar said. “An overwhelming majority of Hungarians voted to join NATO and the EU, and if they had to vote today, they’d say the same thing.”

Magyar said he was in agreement with Orbán on the need to protect the EU’s external borders and take firm action against illegal migration. He criticised Hungary’s government for “releasing 2,000 people smugglers from Hungarian prisons”. He accused “government-affiliated oligarchs” of “doing business with residency bonds” and the government of planning to build a “migrant camp” near the border with Austria.

Photo: FB/Orbán

“Why have you spent 1,309 billion forints (EUR 3.3bn) on propaganda in five years when the Hungarian state isn’t functioning and public services are falling apart?” Magyar said.

Magyar shook hands with Orbán after his speech:

Russians blackmailing Orbán?

Klára Dobrev, an MEP of the leftist opposition Democratic Coalition, said Europe “doesn’t care” about the programme of the Hungarian EU presidency because it considered it “unserious and filled with platitudes”. She insisted that the Hungarian prime minister was “growing more and more detached from reality, fighting enemies that are the figments of his own imagination and alienating Hungary’s true friends and allies”.

Dobrev said Orbán was setting up obstacles to EU policies with the intention of helping Russia and its oligarchs and aiding extortionate Russian gas and energy imports to the benefit of Russian President Putin. She called on Orbán to “reveal what the Russians are blackmailing you with”.

Photo: Facebook/Dobrev Klára

Orbán’s MEP Tamás Deutsch thinks Magyar has mental problems

Tamás Deutsch, an MEP of ruling Fidesz, said Magyar had “mental problems”, arguing that he had admitted to secretly recording a conversation with his wife for the purpose of blackmailing her later, and that he had “psychologically abused” her.

“Magyar’s actions are a textbook example of domestic abuse,” Deutsch said. “But he’s also in legal trouble because he has committed a crime,” Deutsch added, noting the allegation that the Tisza leader accosted an individual at a club and stole his mobile phone before throwing it in the Danube.

Deutsch said Magyar was “hiding behind his immunity to escape accountability”, calling on MEPs “not to be his accomplices”.

Csaba Dömötör, another Fidesz MEP, said the EP was “mounting a witch hunt” against Hungary while the EU’s competitiveness was weakening and the Schengen system “crumbling”.

Zsuzsanna Borvendég of the Our Homeland Movement accused the EU of “punishing” Hungary, withholding funds the country is entitled to and refusing to contribute to border protection costs. She said the EU also wanted to boycott the programme of the Hungarian EU presidency despite the fact that it had put important issues on the agenda.

UPDATE – Orbán’s reactions

Europe must be protected from European left

Europe must be protected from the European left wing, “as they think democracy only exists as long as they win and ends as soon as the right wins”, the prime minister said during a debate on the Hungarian presidency’s programme at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday. In his response to MEPs’ speeches, Viktor Orbán said the debate “has long left behind common sense and the world of facts”. The EP “has become a field of cheap propaganda,” he said.

Orbán said that propaganda rendered intelligent, impartial debate on the rule of law and corruption impossible. According to the European Commission’s report on the rule of law and Hungary’s judiciary, the country “has complied with all demands and requests”, he said, adding that the EC itself had found Hungary’s public procurement system to be fully in line with Brussels requirements.

The proportion of Hungarian respondents who said they were satisfied with the state of democracy in their country was higher than that in most other European countries, he said.

“It is possibly not by chance that Hungarian voters have consistently put their trust in us at elections.”

MEP beat peaceful people with an iron bar in the streets of Budapest

Responding to accusations of graft levelled at Hungary and Orbán himself, he said: “If you read data published by the World Bank, rather than corruption reports funded by George Soros, you would see that Hungary is up to scratch in that regard. It is no different from your countries.”

Orbán called it “absurd” that Green MEP Ilaria Salis, “an antifa activist arrested in Budapest who beat peaceful people with an iron bar in the streets”, was speaking about the rule of law. A Belgian MEP also “lectured Hungary on the rule of law”, even when a conference on that very topic was recently “banned” in Brussels, he said.

Putin sat in their kitchen

Commenting on a statement by the European Socialists, who said Hungary “has an overly friendly relationship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Orbán turned to Democratic Coalition MEP Klára Dobrev, saying: “When your husband [Ferenc Gyurcsány] was prime minister, Putin sat in your kitchen. You used to be proud of that and flooded the Hungarian media with pictures of the event.”

He lamented that an occasion to present the Hungarian presidency’s programme to the EP had “turned into a debate on Hungarian domestic politics”. At the same time, MEPs “can see clearly that Hungarian democracy is fine, thank you; it is robust and strong.”

He said “it isn’t right” that Hungarian MEPs “attacked” their country in the EP. “What sort of person would use an international forum to attack their own country?”

It was also “absurd”, he said, that a Hungarian MEP now sitting in the European People’s Party had recently told the Hungarian public that being an MEP was a “fake job, only for making good money”.

Europe must be protected from the left

Referring to Tisza party leader Péter Magyar, Orbán said: “I think it is egregious that a Hungarian should talk about abuse [of power] here, even as there is an ongoing procedure against him for theft at home,” adding that Magyar had “clearly” taken on his mandate “only to hide behind his MEP immunity”.

“I must say it seems that the left thinks democracy only exists as long as they win, and ends as soon as the right wins,” he said, adding that Europe was to be protected from the left.

“More respect for Hungary! More respect for Hungarians!” he said in conclusion.

Read also:

• PM Orbán in the ‘lion’s den’: can he convince the European Parliament that he wasn’t a traitor? – read more HERE
• VIDEO: Counter-protester interrupts start of Viktor Orbán’s press conference in Strasbourg – details in THIS article