Room In EP To Be Named After Former Socialist PM Horn

Budapest, April 15 (MTI) – A room will be named after former Hungarian Prime Minister Gyula Horn in the European Parliament, the Hungarian Socialist Party’s European Parliamentary delegation said today.

Head of the delegation Csaba Tabajdi said in a statement that EP leaders had made a fair decision at their Monday meeting, despite the right-wing majority in the EP. Horn has unquestionably played a historic role in the re-unification of Germany and Hungary’s European Union accession, he added.

Hungary’s Christian Democratic MEP Laszlo Surjan has voiced opposition to the Socialist initiative to name the room after Horn.

National daily Nepszabadsag reported last week that the Hungarian and German Socialists had proposed honouring Horn to mark Hungary’s 10th anniversary in the EU, and the 25th anniversary of Hungary’s opening up its borders and allowing masses of east German refugees to leave for Austria — a gesture associated with Horn, who was foreign minister of Hungary at the time.

Surjan, however, wrote a letter to the body within the EP in charge of the decision on the initiative, and insisted that Hungarian society was divided over Horn because of “his earlier role and activities after the 1956 events”.

The radical nationalist Jobbik party said that Horn had “fought against his own nation, siding with the Soviets” and accused the Socialists of being incapable of renewal. If the EP indeed names a room after Horn, Jobbik will protest the decision by placing photographs of victims there, the party added.

Photo: www.parameter.sk

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters