Jobbik

Jobbik MEP Gyöngyösi: What is this EU budget agreement actually about?

Remarks from Jobbik MEP Márton Gyöngyösi:

The European Union’s founding fathers may hardly have thought that the friendship and cooperation based community of European nations gets to the point by the early 2020s where certain member state leaders, after trampling upon the rule of law at home and trumpeting slogans the likes of which were last heard in Western Europe in the 1930s, would go as far as to openly threaten the EU’s vital economic recovery plan with a veto for their own political gains.

The fact that we got here must be a serious lesson for all decision makers who firmly believe in democratic values and the idea of the common Europe.

Despite all the difficulties, the good news is that we can already see the outline of a historic agreement on the common European loan, the recovery fund and the next seven-year budget, along with the most concrete rule of law criteria laid out in the deal. Although it still needs the European Parliament’s nod next week, the lion’s share of the work seems to have been done. Of course, it wouldn’t be a genuine European agreement if it did not allow everyone to interpret the achievements according to their own liking. They can do this for now, since it takes months for the results to be seen.

The biggest debate was about the actual rule of law criteria as the western states are increasingly annoyed by how certain Eastern European governments fail to spend the EU funds on their allocated purposes.

Let us state here that Hungary’s authoritarian Fidesz regime is built on a system where the EU monies are channelled to Orbán’s loyal men and the local oligarchs who secure Fidesz’s election victories through vote buying and electoral frauds in return, often keeping the local people in feudalistic political and societal conditions. No wonder Orbán has categorically opposed the idea of introducing the rule of law criteria, even with no binding force, into any section where money was at stake. For this struggle of his, he found a moderately reliable ally in the Polish government in which the issue caused a serious divide between the coalition partners in the end.

Did Orbán achieve what he wanted? Clearly not. What he achieved by his combative stance and blatant threats in the past months was that he can now challenge the rule of law criteria in the European Court of Justice and if things go his way, he will not have to face such sanctions before the 2022 elections that would jeopardize his pre-election financial plans. Of course, this is just an opportunity and not a security for him as the Court may make a decision much sooner. On the other hand, Orbán has squandered all his remaining political capital for this opportunity: he is now facing truly serious consequences in the European People’s Party. The German and Austrian parties which protected him thus far have had enough of him by now and the V4 Group, which had long been considered as something of an anti-EU alliance, is now completely disbanded: the Czech Republic and Slovakia never shared Orbán’s views while the Polish government coalition got into a crisis.

And yet, many publicists interpreted this agreement in the Hungarian media as a victory for Orbán, since he gained time, in theory at least.

That is an interesting approach, especially in light of the fact that the Hungarian PM has just signed something he specifically had Fidesz’ parliamentary majority “forbid” him last summer and to which he responded by defaming the German nation in an intolerable tone in his letter to Manfred Weber just as recently as a few days ago. Of course, if you have just a little insight into how Fidesz operates, you know that Orbán typically aims to gain time just for the next few months. If you think this is grand strategic statesmanship – it’s your loss.

Fortunately, the European Union has a longer foresight than just two years and, historically speaking, this agreement may be considered successful since we were able to make common progress in several areas where such steps would have been unthinkable even a couple of years ago. The direction is set – and the freeloaders like Orbán might stay with us for a little longer but they have no future in this community.

Europe has made a decision and I hope we, Hungarians are also going to make a good decision at the right moment and show the door to those who look to the 1930s instead of the 2030s for inspiration.

Read alsoThe Guardian: Hungary is worse for the EU than Brexit

December 13, 2020

Former Jobbik MEP charged with fraud

The public prosecutor’s office has charged former opposition Jobbik MEP Csanád Szegedi and seven accomplices with defrauding the European Parliament’s budget of more than 155 million forints (EUR 433,800) and other crimes, the prosecutor’s office said on Thursday.

Imre Keresztes, the head of the Central Prosecutor’s Office of Investigations, told MTI the investigation was launched against a former MEP at the recommendation of the EU’s anti-fraud body, OLAF.

Szegedi was a Jobbik MEP between 2009 and 2012, and then sat in the EP as an independent until 2014. According to the charges, he defrauded the EP’s budget by drawing up fraudulent employment contracts and falsely claiming or overpricing travel expenses, as well as the expenses of hosting visitors and other services.

Some of Szegedi’s assistants acted as accomplices, the charges said.

Szegedi denies the charges, while a former assistant has partially admitted the crime, Keresztes said.

Fraud at such a scale is punishable by up to 10 years in prison under Hungarian law, the statement said.

Read alsoJobbik MEP Gyöngyösi: From a democracy to an authoritarian regime – Orbán’s dirty tricks

December 10, 2020

Opposition calls on PM Orbán not to veto EU budget

Parties of the parliamentary opposition on Monday called on Prime Minister Viktor Orbán not to veto the European Union’s next seven-year budget.

Representatives of the Párbeszéd, Jobbik, Socialist, Democratic Coalition, and LMP parties held a press conference after parliament’s EU consultation council attended by the prime minister and the group leaders of parliamentary parties.

Párbeszéd

Párbeszéd co-leader Tímea Szabó said that at the meeting, held behind closed doors, Orban had “repeated mean lies” concerning his plans to veto the budget, and insisted that “each Hungarian would be stripped of 250,000 forints (EUR 695)” through the veto, while the government “is taking out a loan which each Hungarian would service with 400,000 forints”.

Jobbik

Conservative Jobbik group leader Péter Jakab insisted that the government was following a scorched-earth policy, and said that Orbán was seeking to “paralyse Europe through the veto even if it kills Hungarians”. He warned that the EU’s recovery package was instrumental in driving Hungary out of the crisis. He also suggested that

Orbán “has started preparations to drive Hungary out of the EU sooner or later”.

Socialists

Socialist co-leader Bertalan Tóth said that the veto was “only about the financial security of the prime minister, his family, and friends.”

LMP

LMP co-leader Erzsébet Schmuck said that the government was “practically holding the EU budget to ransom” and was blocking the recovery package.

The prime minister has “declared war, but that war will only have losers”,

she said. LMP expects the government to withdraw its veto plans before the next meeting of the European Council, she added.

DK

Democratic Coalition deputy leader László Varju also called on Orbán to drop the veto. He argued that Hungary was “too weak to harm Europe with the veto, but it could cause serious harm to Hungary”.

Fidesz reaction

Ruling Fidesz said in response that

left-wing parties were “promoting the interests of Soros and pro-migration Brussels once again.”

The statement said Brussels “clearly wants to… blackmail countries not accepting migrants by tying monies they are entitled to to politically motivated conditions.”

While the European Commission’s latest migration action plan wanted to “implement the Soros plan” by accepting 34 milllion migrants, anti-migration member states were being “blackmailed financially”, he statement said. Hungarian left-wing parties “represent the interests of pro-migration Brussels in this debate,” it said.

Was the whole Szájer-case a trap?

Read alsoOpposition calls on PM Orbán not to veto EU budget

December 7, 2020

Hungarian politics turns out to be quite ripe with sex scandals

Typically, politicians’ fall due to sex scandals happen during election campaigns, but there have been examples of Hungarian diplomats set up by a foreign state. As a response to the latest Szájer scandal, let us take a look at the wide range of similar sex scandals over the past years in Hungary. In the 1990s, the private life of politicians was a taboo, but since the second half of the 2000s, similar stories come by the dozen.

According to Hvg, the fact that the organiser of the sex party in Brussels makes contradictory statements while dirtying the Hungarians and the Poles suggests that there is a political interest behind the scandal, but even if there was not, the events are not independent of politics, nor just a private matter.

Last year, sex scandals came by the dozen

It is characteristic of sex scandals that occur in politics to be deliberately timed;

the tape leading to the fall of the mayor of Győr, Zsolt Borkai, was made long before the 2019 municipal election campaign. It was later found out, that at first, the recordings were used for blackmail, but then they were used for political power-play.

borkai scandal — Zsolt Borkai Photo: facebook.com/BorkaiZsolt

Also last year, the sex scandal of the mayor of Budaörs was a huge hit. It seems that Tamás Wittinghoff was set up by a prostitute using a tape that turns out to have been used for blackmailing. Still, during the campaign, flyers were thrown into civilian mailboxes in Budaörs with a link to the porn site where the footage was uploaded to.

After the municipal election, in December 2019, the spokesperson of DK, Zsolt Gréczy, was the one to get into trouble. Allegations of harassment appeared in the pro-government press, and intimate photographs that he took of himself were posted on the internet. Although the court ordered the media reporting the alleged harassment to be rectified, Gréczy had long since resigned from his parliamentary mandate because of the publicly indecent photographs.

The diplomat who was set up by a foreign government

It is not unprecedented for a state to use a sex affair as an international power-play.

In 2011, one of the diplomats of the Hungarian embassy in Minsk, Zoltán B., was ordered home by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after a sex tape was posted on the Internet of him and a woman. It soon became clear that the Hungarian diplomat had fallen into the trap of the Belarusian secret service. According to the story, the woman’s relative took revenge on the diplomat because, according to him, Zoltán B., who was already married, had affairs with several women at the same time.

The suspicion was also reinforced when, shortly after, the Belarusians also targeted the wife of the Hungarian ambassador, disclosing a telephone conversation. In the conversation, an Italian man and a woman with a strong accent talk about meetings and sex. The Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Belarusian ambassador accredited to Budapest and described the events as a “serious and distasteful provocation”. The timing of the Belarusian action was no accident. At that time, it was the task of Hungary’s diplomacy to monitor, in addition to EU affairs, the extent to which EU human rights expectations were being met in Belarus. Apparently, Minsk did not like that very much.

Similar games exist in Hungarian domestic politics as well.

In the summer of 2010, for example, a tape of the then captain of the Hungarian National Guard Movement, Róbert Kiss, where he kissed a woman who was not his wife was made public. The scandal was Kiss’s undoing, and he resigned. It cannot be ruled out that a Hungarian secret service was involved, as the disintegration of the quasi-military organisation was beneficial to the then National Security Office.

gyurcsány — Ferenc Gyurcsány Source: dkp.hu

The secret service was involved in another memorable scandal that became known as Mucuska-gate. In 2015, a Romanian couple named Szatmári were possibly associated with Romanian intelligence. The woman and the man were allegedly integrated into Hungarian government agencies, and the woman was said to have had an intimate relationship with several members of the Medgyessy and Gyurcsány governments. The secret service employee shed light to the story, later ended up at UD Vagyonvédelmi Zrt., which was said to be a “private secret service” connected to Fidesz.

Sometimes a lover can be the snitch

After the change of regime, the sexual affairs of politicians in Hungary were taboo, the first break of this taboo did not happen until the 2000s.

Lajos Kósa from Fidesz was first involved in such a scandal back in 2002 when Blikk wrote that the police had caught him with a prostitute. The news turned out to be fake, and the paper had to pay millions of forints in damages.

In 2005, the former lover of MSZP’s László Kovács told a tabloid about their affair. The then 40 Éva Endrényi said that she had an intimate relationship with Kovács since 2000, and when the politician was appointed Taxation and Customs Commissioner, she followed him to Brussels and accompanied him to several meetings. In May 2003, Endrényi was introduced to the politician’s negotiation partners as his wife. The woman even had an EU parliamentary ticket in Brussels. Kovács acknowledged the relationship, but he said it was a private matter that belonged only to him and his family.

In February 2010, Blikk released a picture taken by someone in downtown Macau. The photo was taken of János Veres from the MSZP, who was working as a government commissioner for Eastern relations at the time. He was walking with the head of the secretariat, Alexandra Dobolyi, even though he was married to another woman. Veres has since divorced and married Dobolyi.

About the former president of Jobbik, Gábor Vona, his wife wrote in a book in 2018 that her husband had cheated on her once. The former vice-president of Jobbik, János Volner, did not get away with a scandal either, as, during their 2014 electoral campaign, a photo was published about him in a bush with a woman who was not his wife.

Read alsoScandal in Brussels! Hungarian MEP involved in illegal Brussels orgy

Read alsoGay sex party in Brussels: This is how the international press reacted to the Szájer scandal

December 7, 2020

Jobbik MEP Gyöngyösi: From a democracy to an authoritarian regime – Orbán’s dirty tricks

Remarks from Jobbik MEP Márton Gyöngyösi:

My two previous posts described the political and economic aspects of how Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party “drifted out of Europe”, dragging Hungary to a political no-man’s land and an economic uncertainty. These acts seem to have a more and more hefty price, which may as well include Orbán losing his power. This brings us to the topic of today’s post. Apparently, Orbán will stop at nothing to keep his rule, including the most blatant authoritarian measures. This is no exaggeration: the process has already started.

But how could Hungary turn from the eminent student of the Central European democratization era into a state sinking back to dictatorship?

This question has been asked many times, especially since Fidesz got into power with a two-thirds majority in 2010. However, the many intriguing arguments rarely mention the painful deficiencies in Hungary’ public law framework and traditions, which greatly helped Viktor Orbán in shaping Hungarian politics to his own image.

During the post-Communist democratization process, Hungary adopted a mixed electoral system with single-member constituencies and party lists in order to promote “stability in government” at the expense of proportional representation. To put it simply, the system rather punished the loser and reinforced the winner in the Parliament. This arrangement pushed the burgeoning post-Communist democracy to a direction where governments enjoyed a nearly absolute power during their term, without even a minimal consideration for the opposition. On the other hand, political rotation still existed at the time and it functioned as a certain kind of check to keep the current Hungarian leadership under control.

Back in 2010, Fidesz still won the two-thirds majority of the parliamentary seats in this old system which did favour the winner but was nonetheless much more proportional than the current one. Having been given an exceptionally strong mandate, they immediately started to transform the system. However, the goal of the transformation was not to eliminate the anomaly existing ever since the collapse of Communism. Instead, they leveraged the Hungarian political system’s deeply imprinted bad practices in order to make it even more extreme. Adopted in 2012, Fidesz’ new electoral system was based on their realization that the opposition parties – the left and Jobbik – were too far apart politically to cooperate and had no real chance to win many single-member constituencies on their own.

Consequently, Fidesz’ new system was designed to fill up most of the parliamentary seats through the single-member constituencies.

This arrangement brought further two-thirds victories for Fidesz in 2014 and 2018, despite the fact that less than half of the voters actually chose their candidates and lists in the elections. Even back then, Fidesz already needed to take quite a few unorthodox steps that are unusual in any democracy. These steps included preventing the opposition parties from running their advertisements, taking the public media under full government control and imposing a giga-fine of € 3 million on Jobbik in a show trial, right in the middle of the national election campaign.

In addition, Hungary’s political climate went through a major change in 2018. Moving towards the centre right to become a people’s party, Jobbik coordinated its candidates with those of the long-fragmented left in the 2019 elections. As a result, they achieved significant success against Fidesz, which led to the opposition parties declaring their intention to run together in the 2022 elections. This meant that Fidesz got a challenger again; something they have not been accustomed to for quite a while.

It’s important to note here that the opposition cooperation is the result of a highly complicated and diverse negotiation process. It should come as no surprise since it required organizations with very different ideological traditions and lots of past political battles against each other to sit down to the same table first and then to develop the framework of cooperation.

This situation is new for everybody as the Hungarian political sphere, including the opposition is learning the nature of making compromises and agreements with a 30-year delay, due to the reasons mentioned above.

The discussions also raised such questions as how many party lists should be nominated beside the joint opposition candidates of the single-member constituencies to maximize opposition votes.

Learning about these efforts however, Fidesz, which had not refrained from illegally manipulating the elections before either, began to rework the election law once again. In the first round, they just wanted to narrow the opposition’s opportunities by making it harder for opposition parties to nominate separate party lists alongside the joint candidates but a couple of days ago they decided to accept far-right MP János Volner’s motion which completely blocks opposition parties from nominating separate party lists if they run joint candidates in the single-member constituencies. In the meantime, there are more and more rumours about how Orbán may introduce further measures to reduce the opposition’s options, potentially including administrative steps to exclude candidates with good chances from the election (by the way, we have already seen this idea in practice in the 2020 Borsod-Abaúj Zemplén County by-election, where they shrewdly applied some legalistic technicalities to delete Jobbik’s name from the ballot, from right next to the name of the party’s own candidate).

These trends are quite frightening, especially because Orbán is suffering his biggest defeat of recent years in Europe while he has just given up his cautious economic policy and put Hungary in debt in order to increase his diminishing leverage in his battles with the EU.

Furthermore, Fidesz’ propaganda media more and more concretely talks about how Hungary has other options than the EU.

This narrative was further reinforced by the PM in his live Hungarian Radio broadcast, where he said: the reason why the UK can better protect its citizens from the pandemic is because the country is no longer a member of the EU.

So it is clear which way Orbán and his Fidesz regime is going: out of the European Union, and away from democratic norms. The 2022 election campaign will start in 2021, in an economically weakened country that will have probably lost its EU funds by then. It is not entirely impossible that Orbán will see only one way out of the impending election defeat: to apply the methods we have clearly seen in action in Lukashenko’s Belarus. The range of his options is wide: from undermining the operation of other parties, imprisoning potent political leaders or driving them into exile, political murders, completely obvious election fraud, all the way to brutal policing measures against regular citizens.

In the meantime, Europe will face an unprecedented decision: how to handle an increasingly violent dictator, who is not in a geopolitical buffer zone like Lukashenko of Belarus or a despot who tramples on people at home but shows a flattering smile outside like Vučić of Serbia (who is also an EPP member just like Orbán). This time the dictator will be the leader of an EU member state.

Despite all the propaganda, the people of Hungary rely on Europe. The question is: do they matter to Europe?

Read alsoJobbik MEP Gyöngyösi: Orbán takes a loan – is it the end of Hungary’s economic stability?

December 6, 2020

Opposition calls on Fidesz to exclude Szájer from party – UPDATE

The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) on Wednesday called on ruling Fidesz to exclude MEP József Szájer from the party’s ranks with immediate effect.

Balázs Barkóczi, DK’s spokesman, told an online press conference that “József Szájer’s illegal, drug-fuelled group sex orgy raises several questions“.

Barkóczi said Szájer’s case concerned one of Fidesz’s founding members, author of Hungary’s new “so-called Christian-spirited” basic law who has violated laws and tried to flee from the authorities.

Szájer’s actions went against all the principles that Fidesz has been citing in the last ten years while “driving the country to ruin”,

he said.

After such events, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán obviously owes an explanation to the country about Szájer’s future, Barkóczi said.

“Hungarians have been hearing from Fidesz for ten years about what families should be like, what the traditional and desirable gender roles were and how liberalism was trying to ruin the sanctity of the family,”

he said.

Jobbik: Szájer slid down the gutter to the abyss. Coming next: Orbán?

Press release – Fidesz has become an utter disgrace for Europe. No matter what Orbán wants to negotiate about, his EU veto and his false political credo are now seen for what they are: hypocritical and ridiculous. They were both flushed down the drain with József Szájer.

While József Szájer was sliding down the gutter half-naked with drugs in his bag, trying to flee from an illegal orgy held in a gay bar, Comrade Kövér, the anointed guardian of Fidesz morals lay his head to rest in full confidence that 133 “courageous people” were surely going to vote for imposing a fine of HUF 4.4 million (cca. €12,300) on Jobbik president Péter Jakab for “undermining the Parliament’s dignity” with a bag of potatoes.

Let us emphasize that József Szájer is not just a random member of the Fidesz rank and file. On the contrary, he has been Fidesz’ most well-known and successful politicians, a close personal friend and confidant to Viktor Orbán and, last but not least, the chairman of the committee that wrote the text of the granite solid Fundamental Law of Hungary.

Let’s not pretend it was the first time we have ever heard such stories. In fact, rumours of a far more scandalous orgy in Vienna, also busted by a police raid, have been circulating among politicians for quite a while, and József Szájer was allegedly associated with that one as well. Until now, we did not believe the hearsay but, in light of the latest events, those allegations no longer seem entirely baseless. We all know the truth of the proverb: the pitcher will go to the well once too often.

József Szájer’s whole life is nothing but a grand theatrical act.

As recently as last Sunday, he lied to the Hungarian voters saying that the reason why he resigned from his EP seat after “a long contemplation” was because his “participation in the daily political struggles” has put an “increasing mental burden” on him. It is now obvious that he resigned because Orbán, the thief with a grand act of his own, forced him to do so in his attempt to prevent a much tougher scandal than the Borkai affair, which now seems like a romance novel in comparison, from exploding in the face of the lying, pseudo-Christian and pseudo-patriotic governing parties. After turning from a Soros grant recipient Liberal politician into an anti-Soros illiberal figure in his pragmatic effort to get in power, József Szájer’s latest bust clearly shows the true nature of Fidesz’ conservatism with its loud homophobic propaganda and anti-genderism. Patriotic, Christian, honest and sincere? On the contrary!

Let’s not forget that József Szájer’s wife is Tünde Handó who spared no effort to dismantle the independent Hungarian judicial system while she was the president of the National Judicial Office, and was consequently rewarded with a seat in Hungary’s Constitutional Court.

Considering how much damage József Szájer caused to Hungary and the Hungarian people by representing Fidesz’ lying anti-European and anti-Soros propaganda, we have no sympathy for him at all.

Orbán’s confidant was punished for his lies, just like his boss will be punished for his theft. Today it’s József Szájer’s two faces, tomorrow it’s Orbán’s theft that will come to light! What does the other proverb say? The fish rots from the head down!

There are no two Fideszes: it’s all the same Fidesz that consists of lying, corrupt, thieving criminals. Here’s our message to them: the moment of truth will come for all of you!

Jobbik Movement for a Better Hungary, the real people’s party

December 2, 2020

Jobbik: Academic freedom threatened by ‘anti-democratic tendencies’

Photo by Alpár Kató Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA)

Academic freedom and institutional independence is threatened by anti-democratic tendencies in several European states, including Hungary, Koloman Brenner of the conservative opposition Jobbik party said on Tuesday, citing a resolution adopted by the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE).

Brenner, the author of the report the PACE resolution was based on, told a press conference that Hungary was one of the European countries that regularly ranked low in surveys of academic freedom and autonomy, along with Azerbaijan, Russia and Turkey.

Freedom of education is one of the most important conservative values, Brenner said.

Brenner said the tendency to revamp educational systems on a “purely neoliberal, economic basis” was a wide-spread negative trend in Europe. Regarding Hungary, Brenner criticised the recent restructuring of tertiary education and the separation of certain research institutes from the main body of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

He said that

whereas the government’s policy of placing the operation of some higher-education institutions into the hands of foundations was not in itself wrong in principle, the Hungarian implementation of the method involved the foundations making all the decisions that, in a democracy, were usually delegated to university representatives.

He insisted that “people with ties to the [Hungarian] government often appear on the foundation boards, driving through the government’s anti-science and anti-intellectual policies.”

Brenner said he proposed generic solutions, including a unified monitoring and sanctions system in order to protect academic freedom and universities’ autonomy.

In the resolution adopted by the PACE Standing Committee on Friday,

the body called on “member States to enshrine the protection of academic freedom and institutional autonomy in national legislation, and to provide adequate public funding for higher education and research, enabling institutions to maintain their independence.”

November 24, 2020

Jobbik: Threatening with EU veto harms Hungary

The conservative opposition Jobbik party has demanded the government “stop dangling the threat of a veto” of the European Union’s multiannual budget. Jobbik said on Friday the government’s stance was “dangerous and could inflict enormous harm” on Hungary.

The veto harms Hungary’s “already tattered” reputation, Jobbik lawmaker Zoltán Balczó told an online press conference.

At an EU summit in July, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán already accepted the EU’s seven-year budget and its coronavirus recovery package, Balczó said. That document contained an “unequivocal reference” to the funding conditionality based on the rule of law, which Hungary and Poland now object to, he said.

The sanctions laid down in the agreement clearly apply only to states committing “rule-of-law violations that pose immediate and grave harm to the EU’s financial interests,” he said.

Member states will be penalised only if their institutions handling EU funds are operated irregularly, if their judiciaries are not independent, or if the public prosecutor turns a blind eye to the fraudulent handling of EU monies, Balczó said.

The only solution is to adhere to those regulations, “even though EU monies are clearly essential to maintain Orbán’s feudal regime,”

he added.

Opposition parties turn to EU: Orbán and his government are not synonymous with Hungary

Read alsoOpposition parties vow to settle on joint PM candidate by Oct 2021

November 20, 2020

Opposition parties turn to EU: Orbán and his government are not synonymous with Hungary

Hungary’s opposition parties on Wednesday sent a joint letter to the European leaders, criticising the government’s policies.

The letter signed by the Democratic Coalition (DK), Jobbik, LMP, Momentum, and the Socialist-Párbeszéd parties said: “The Hungarian democratic opposition, in view of the grave situation created by the Hungarian government’s destructive practices, feels the need to declare before all member states and citizens of the EU, as well as its leadership, that [Prime Minister] Viktor Orbán and his government are not synonymous with Hungary.”

In the letter sent to Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, and the German presidency, the signatories said the Orbán government was hindering European and Hungarian crisis-management efforts and acting against the interests and “justified expectations” of European and Hungarian citizens.

“We Hungarians have not ended the one-party [communist] regime and joined …the community of European states only for a corrupt, anti-democratic regime to hold Europe and Hungary to ransom, stripping their citizens of the rights and support they are entitled to,”

the letter said.

It added that the Hungarian opposition parties were bound by respect for democracy, the rule of law and European values, adding that they had joined forces so that the rule of law in the country may be restored as soon as possible.

Hungarian citizens and companies are in dire need of the EU’s recovery package due to the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, the letter said.

“The funding should go to the Hungarian people rather than to the Orbán government, which has put its own power interests before the economic interests of the country. We call on the institutions and national governments of the EU to stop Orbán’s government from hobbling European and Hungarian crisis management and to help Hungarian citizens … access EU funding as soon as possible,”

it added.

The signatories have also called on their supporters to back their declaration that the Hungarian government did not have their assent to “disrupt European cooperation and strip European and Hungarian citizens of European funding”.

Orbán: Hungary’s EU budget veto in line with treaties

The original letter

A call to the president of the European Council, the president of European Commission and the presidency of the Council

We, the forces of the Hungarian democratic opposition, considering the severity of the situation resulting from the destructive politics of the Hungarian government, find it necessary to declare to all citizens, all Member States, and the leadership of the European Union that Viktor Orbán and his government does not equal the entirety of Hungary as a country. With the inhibition of the European, hence Hungarian, crisis management, the Orbán government acts against the interests and rightful expectations of European and Hungarian citizens.

We, Hungarians did not put an end to the single-party system and did not join the value-based community of the European states – worthy of the legacy of the founder of the state, King Saint Stephen and the great men and women of our nation – to let a corrupt, anti-democratic regime take the place of a proud European country and capture Europe and Hungary, depriving Hungarian and European citizens of their granted rights and support. As the presidents of the parties of the Hungarian opposition, we are bound together by our respect for democracy, the rule of law, and European values. Our shared values oblige us to validate, through joint forces, the rule of law in our home country as soon as possible.

The severity of the situation caused by the economic and pandemic crisis, Hungarian citizens and their enterprises are in desperate need of the EU’s recovery fund. This aid is not intended to benefit the Orbán-government who places its own interest of power before the economic interests of the country, but to the Hungarian people. We, therefore, call upon the institutions of the European Union and the governments of Member States to find a solution in order to stop the Orbán-government’s selfishness from putting obstacles before the remedies for the European and Hungarian economic crisis and to help Hungarian citizens, who now fear to lose their existential stability, and their enterprises access the funding provided by EU to Hungary.

We call all our compatriots to join our statement, who are ready to declare with us that the Orbán-government’s destruction of the European cooperation is not on their behalf and that it seeks to deprive European and Hungarian citizens of granted EU funding against their will and against their interests.

Read alsoBREAKING NEWS – Orbán: Hungary to veto EU budget, recovery fund

November 18, 2020

Opposition parties vow to settle on joint PM candidate by Oct 2021

Hungary’s opposition parties have promised to name a joint candidate for prime minister and joint individual candidates for each electoral district for the next general election by October 23, 2021.

The opposition Socialist, Jobbik, Democratic Coalition, LMP, Momentum and Párbeszéd parties said in a statement on Monday that each of their joint candidates would be chosen in primaries.

The parties said they had agreed at a meeting on Sunday that although they “reject the amendment proposals to the election system initiated by the Fidesz regime”, they were “preparing to win and take back the public funds being stolen under the guise of a constitutional amendment”.

The parties also slammed the government’s handling of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, saying its measures aimed at managing the crisis were “too little, too late” after “failing to prepare the health-care system” for the surge in cases.

“The Fidesz regime should only be concerned with protecting the Hungarian people and strengthening the economy and the health-care system during the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, instead of matters concerning its powers,” the statement said.

The parties said they were preparing to replace the Fidesz-led government and usher in the “start of a new era” in 2022.

They added that their joint election manifesto would lay down the fundamental principles “that will serve as a compass for the cooperation between the democratic parties”. The consultations between the parties will also involve professional and civil organisations as well as labour unions, the statement added.

Orbán cabinet changed the election law during the state of emergency?

Read alsoOpposition calls on Orbán to withdraw recent amendment proposals

November 16, 2020

Jobbik calls on government to support ‘average Hungarians, not wealthy’

The government should support people living “in typical, real Hungarian circumstances” and not only “the higher middle class and the even wealthier”, opposition Jobbik deputy leader Dániel Z Kárpát said on Thursday.

Many people are faced with extreme uncertainty, including those working in tourism and the catering industry, he told an online press conference.

They are either without any income or receive significantly reduced salaries as a result of the epidemic, while their bills must be paid just as before, he added.

Z Kárpát said the government “neglects the basic interests of Hungarian employees”.

He referred to plans prepared by Jobbik for the Hungarian job protection fund and said it could be used to pay for four-fifths of lost wages. All multinational companies and banks “that realised record-high profits in Hungary in recent years” should be expected to contribute to the fund, he added.

Read alsoHungarian People’s Party Jobbik welcomes Joe Biden’s victory

November 12, 2020

Opposition parties submit joint anti-epidemic proposal to Hungarian parliament

The parliamentary groups of opposition parties are submitting a joint proposal for measures to help the fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic, the parties’ representatives said on Monday.

László Varju of the Democratic Coalition (DK) told an online press conference held jointly with Jobbik, Párbeszéd, the Socialists and LMP that the government was “clearly unable to stop the spread of the virus and handle the crisis”.

Hungary imposes tough new measures: extending curfew, general ban on events -UPDATE

The opposition parties’ 11-point proposal includes free-of-charge mass testing for all Hungarian citizens and emergency government assistance to pensioners and families raising children, he said.

László Lukacs of conservative Jobbik, said

health-care and social workers, teachers, patients and residents of social care homes should be screened every two weeks.

The proposal also calls for effective contact tracing in order to protect as many people as possible, he added.

Olivio Kocsis-Cake of Párbeszéd said the proposal calls for a 100 percent wage supplement for health workers and Tamás Harangozó of the Socialists said

people infected with the coronavirus and those forced to stay in quarantine should receive sickness benefits equalling their salaries.

Antal Csárdi of LMP said the state should support preparing the conditions for home office, including the purchase of infrastructure and equipment. He also said the proposal includes more effective support for part-time work.

Coronavirus - First Covid-19 patient treated with Hungarian-made remdesivir leaves hospital

Read alsoCoronavirus in Hungary: 86,134 active infections and 6,061 hospitalised patients

November 9, 2020

The reactions of Hungarian politicians to Joe Biden’s victory

It has now become certain that the 2020 U.S. election was won by Democratic candidate Joe Biden against Republican President Donald Trump.

Upon hearing the news, sooner or later many Hungarian politicians congratulated Joe Biden, the 46th president of the USA. These are presented by Telex.

On Saturday night, all authoritative U.S. news agencies reported that the result of this year’s election had come in. Hungarian leading opposition politicians and the head of communications at Fidesz also reacted to the result.

According to Gergely Karácsony, Trump was good for Orbán, but Biden will be good for Hungary.

“Regardless of party affiliation, it can reassure all of us that Biden does not paralyse dictators and does not view foreign policy as a value-neutral business transaction,” writes the mayor of Budapest. According to Karácsony, Biden values the rule of law, human rights, and human dignity. “With Joe Biden, normalcy returns to the White House, and even if the serious troubles of our world don’t go away in one fell swoop, they will at least once again have the opportunity to address them on a value-based, collaborative basis,” he added.

András Fekete-Győr wrote on Facebook that the American nightmare was over, and then he turned to the domestic aspect of the result: “We are past a serious four years: under Trump, the USA – to Viktor Orbán’s greatest pleasure – watched almost in silence as Hungary became a nest for agents of Eastern dictators, with a Russian spy bank and a Chinese spy factory. That’s the end of it: the Biden administration will be Momentum’s natural ally for the next four years,” he reported. According to the president of Momentum, the lesson of the U.S. presidential election is that

“Trump and Orbán’s false populism can indeed be defeated without extremist politics or demonising opposing voters, with respect for the facts”.

The leading man of the Democratic Coalition, Ferenc Gyurcsány, was short and marrowy: “Well then, that’s fine. Congratulation! It is a real hope that the world will be a little better.”

Biden’s victory was also welcomed in a statement by Jobbik. According to them, with Trump’s defeat, “populist lie-making, misleading, and ignorant mass manipulation that has become a daily political practice has been defeated”. The party also underlined that normalcy and people’s sobriety have prevailed. “The fact that a record-high number of American voters went to the polls also means that there is nothing that can be done with people in the United States or elsewhere. Biden’s victory is very bad news for the populists and very bad news for Viktor Orbán.” According to Jobbik, Hungarian-American relations could reach a new chapter, “finally there will be an opportunity to break the power of populist, illiberal despots together with the United States.”

Ágnes Kunhalmi, the co-chair of MSZP, also congratulated Biden. According to her, democracy has proven to be the only device capable of self-correction. The politician wrote on Facebook that the American people fought to “not bring out the populist right-wing Trump card’s exclusionary, deceptive, and selfish responses to the new challenges, but to reconsider the most fundamental values of our civilization, such as human dignity, respect for each other, and equality. According to Kunhalmi, in the spirit of this, the time will soon come to Hungary as well.

LMP also congratulated Biden, “whose election gives the world hope that the United Stated will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, will actively fight to curb climate change that threatens our world, and preserve biodiversity,” wrote Erzsébet Schmuck on her social media page.

From the pro-government side, Fidesz’s communications director, István Hollik, shared a post on Facebook. He did not congratulate the newly elected American president, but he thanked Trump for the past four years. According to Hollik, thanks to Trump, Hungarian-American relations had become as excellent as ever. “We hope that Joe Biden’s administration will not undermine the common results for ideological reasons,” added Hollik, who had previously been a government spokesman.

Tamás Deutsch, a Fidesz member of EP, evaluated the American elections from the perspective of Hungarian domestic politics. “Previously, we won twice with two-thirds under Biden’s vice presidency. Now we will repeat under Biden’s presidency.”

János Áder also congratulates Biden.

November 9, 2020

Hungarian People’s Party Jobbik welcomes Joe Biden’s victory

Donald Trump’s election loss means that populist fake news, misinformation and factually ignorant mass manipulation, which have become part of daily political practice, has also been defeated. Normality and common sense prevailed.

This is a warning sign for Trump’s fervent political friends across the world and it may give strength to the people fighting for their freedom in Belarus, Poland and here in Hungary, too.

Trump appears to have been using the Republican Party as a rented tuxedo and now he is returning it stained and torn. The Republicans will need to work hard to restore their party’s credibility and make it a real Conservative political force again.

The record high voter turnout is a clear indication that politicians must never go too far and take popular support for granted, no matter if they are in the US or anywhere else in the world. Biden’s victory is very bad news for populists and very bad news for Viktor Orbán.

Joe Biden is a calm and circumspect centrist politician with a lot of experience in finding the balance in domestic political issues and he was able to gain the support of the majority of Americans looking for a peaceful resolution of societal conflicts. He will work to fill the trenches left behind by his predecessor and, after an extremely intense and highly emotional campaign, serve the entire country and not just his own supporters.

The 46th president-elect is also experienced in foreign affairs. One of his priorities will likely be to normalize US-EU relations, which became tense during Trump’s presidency. Unfortunately, Joe Biden’s campaign has referred to Hungary several times as a negative example where democracy is under threat.

The Hungarian government responded by launching dishonourable attacks on Biden’s family and attempting to interfere with the US elections.

This kind of loose cannon foreign policy, which fails to meet even the most basic requirements of diplomacy, does not reflect the opinion of the majority in Hungary. The Euro-Atlantic alliance is of utmost importance for Jobbik, the Hungarian people’s party. We will do our best to establish good relations with the new president, his administration and the future US ambassador in Budapest.

Today, US-Hungary bilateral relations have also arrived at a new chapter. We will finally have the opportunity to cooperate with the US in breaking the power of populist, illiberal despots. Hungary must show that we do not belong on the dunce’s seat. On the contrary, we can learn from the American example and, when it comes to the 2022 national elections, choose a government that is democratic, free and committed to the western values.

Read alsoBiden declares victory after divided election as Trump refuses to concede

November 8, 2020

Jobbik: Government should favour Hungarian labour over importing migrant workers

The opposition Jobbik party says the government should work to reboot the Hungarian economy by giving jobs to young people and those inactive on the labour market instead of importing migrant workers.

The Hungarian economy should be restarted using domestic labour rather than by importing hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, Jobbik’s deputy leader Daniel Z. Kárpát told a press conference on Thursday.

The government’s economic policies “still serve the interests of multinationals over Hungarian workers”, Z. Kárpát insisted. He said the migrant workers coming to Hungary were not being hired in the industries actually facing labour shortages.

He said temporary employment agencies were making “brutal profits” and should be replaced by state employment agencies.

The money saved from transitioning to publicly funded agencies should go towards workers’ salaries, Z. Kárpát added.

The politician called for policies that would make it worthwhile for skilled workers to stay in Hungary instead of seeking employment abroad.

Read also“Hungarian dream” mostly attracts underqualified foreign workers

Read alsoShocking! Indian workers on the Budapest-Belgrade railway project starving

October 29, 2020

Jobbik MEP Gyöngyösi: The message of 1956 is still valid

Remarks from Jobbik MEP Márton Gyöngyösi:

The history of the Hungarian nation has no shortage of revolutions and freedom fights. People interested in the past can find something in each one of them to carry an important message or guidance for our present and future.

For some reason however, we always feel 1956 especially close to us. Perhaps this is because many of the participants of the revolution are still alive or maybe because 1956 is still a point of reference in Hungarian politics to this day. Everybody who is involved in political affairs needs to somehow relate to 1956 and its legacy.

Honest people undoubtedly empathize with the freedom fighters of 1956 who showed an example for the whole world with their stance against tyranny and courage to engage in battle even with the Soviet army.

But beyond the symbolic politics, does everybody in Hungary and the world truly understand the message of 1956?

Just as it has done with so many other things, the Fidesz regime has tried to appropriate and monopolize the memory of 1956, too. On the other hand, the parties of the Hungarian left did give them a significant boost because, for a long time, they were unable to handle 1956 and the heavy burden of the authoritarian past on the shoulders of certain leftist leading figures. Furthermore, ever since 2006, 23rd October means something more for many Hungarian people than the memorial day of the 1956 revolution. It also means the bloody police attack ordered by the Ferenc Gyurcsány-led Socialist government against the crowd celebrating the 50th anniversary of the revolution.

On 23rd October 2020, when the parties of the Hungarian opposition; Jobbik and the leftist parties release a joint message to commemorate 1956, it is especially important to see through Fidesz’ pathetic attempts at falsifying history and understand who truly honours the spirit of the revolution and who truly stands for freedom.

With a lot of help from the Soviets and rigging the elections in post-World War II Hungary, the Communist regime solidified its grip on power and developed a terror machine to exercise full control over every aspect of life. Such factors as the foreign occupation, the destruction of the independent and democratic institutions, the elimination of the freedom of conscience and expression, the treatment of political prisoners and the increasingly unbearable social situation caused by the strict Communist regime together led to 23rd October 1956, when the widest groups of the Hungarian people said they had had enough. There and then, people who would not have thought a few years or even a few months before that history would ever bring them on the same side, stood up together, shoulder to shoulder, against the dictatorship. On this day citizens, former business owners and farmers who had been trampled upon by the Communists stood up against the terror and the daily political oppression together with workers supposedly “favoured” by the system and even with leftist intellectuals disillusioned by the regime’s modus operandi.

Nobody asked where the others came from and what ideas brought them to join the revolution. The only question was if they were willing to fight for the freedom of the Hungarian people.

Today, there is no foreign occupation or open, physical terror in Hungary, fortunately. However, there is a power that penetrates every aspect of our lives, that requires unconditional submission from the intelligentsia and the middle class while using existential threats to keep the lower middle class under control. It invades or undermines the operation of scientific institutes, drives away universities or attempts to exercise political influence over them.

Today, Viktor Orbán’s regime is aiming for the same kind of totalitarianism as the Communist dictatorship did. His goal is to eliminate any resistance and control all thoughts. That’s why they annihilate the free press and ruin opposition parties by imposing giga fines on them.

In today’s Hungary, thirty years after the fall of Communism, we are once again in a situation where opposition-leaning citizens cannot trust the Hungarian authorities because they see that they function as political organizations under political control. Today, Hungarian students often experience that their school is headed by a political appointee who exercises direct political pressure on both teachers and students. Today, Hungarian business owners often experience that Fidesz expects them to demonstrate their political loyalty to the party in return for the state support.

In the meantime, more and more people with completely different ideological background; conservatives, rightists, liberals and leftists alike are saying they’ve had enough of this.

They have one thing in common: they want nothing to do with this oppressive power. Fidesz has long capitalized on the fault lines of the Hungarian society and played people with different ideological views against each other. Today on 23rd October however, when everybody, regardless of any political ideology, is standing by the protesting students of the University of Theatre and Film Arts that Fidesz stigmatizes as a leftist and anti-Hungarian institution while also trying to take it under direct political control, I believe the message of 1956 is more relatable than ever.

There are situations when a call overrides all political debates, and that is the call of freedom.

My party, Jobbik has understood this and that is why we issued a joint message with the centre-left opposition parties and that is why we have cooperated with them in every election since 2019. I think this is the real message of 1956.

October 25, 2020

The government’s nominee elected for top court head – opposition parties left the parliament

Lawmakers on Monday approved the appointment of Zsolt András Varga as the new president of the Kuria, Hungary’s supreme court. Varga was elected with 135 votes in favour and 26 against in a secret ballot.

1Varga, who took his oath of office after the vote, will assume his post on January 2, 2021. Speaking to MTI after the vote, Varga said he viewed his nomination and election to head the supreme court as an expression of trust in him by Hungary. He vowed to do his best to live up to the trust placed in him as a member of the community of the Kuria’s judges.

Varga said he would spend the next two and a half months

getting to know the opinions of the court’s judges on the future of the institution while sharing his own views.

Under Hungary’s constitution, the president of the Kuria is elected for a nine-year term by a two-thirds majority of lawmakers. President János Áder nominated Varga to succeed Péter Darak as the head of the top court on Oct. 5.

Varga graduated from the Faculty of Law at Budapest’s Eotvos Lorand University in 1995 before going on to obtain a PhD degree there. He was habilitated at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University. Varga has worked as a university professor since 2012. He worked at several prosecutor’s offices in Budapest before joining the Parliamentary Commissioner’s Office. He later became a member of the Venice Commission and served as a constitutional judge from 2014. Between 2017 and 2019 he was vice-chair of the Venice Commission’s subcommittee for international law, and later the subcommittee for constitutional law. Varga is also a member of the public body of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

The leftist Democratic Coalition (DK) stayed away from a parliamentary vote

on the head of the Kuria, Hungary’s supreme court, while green LMP has said it would reject the appointment of Zsolt András Varga, nominated by President János Áder earlier this month. DK lawmaker László Sebián-Petrovszki told an online press conference that Varga had “never been a judge and not passed a single sentence”.

Sebián-Petrovszki also noted that Varga had been the chief public prosecutor’s deputy for nearly ten years and in this capacity

he had “assisted in scandalous cases” during the Fidesz governments.

The deputy said that “Fidesz’s trying to make a prosecutor chief judge” was unprecedented in Europe, and insisted that it would be a “profanation” of the principle of the separation of government branches. DK will appeal against the procedure to the European Commission and other forums, Sebian-Petrovszki said.

In a statement, LMP group leader Lórant László Keresztes also cited Varga’s lack of experience. He noted that the National Judiciary Council had also rejected to endorse the nomination.

Koloman Brenner, Deputy House Speaker for the conservative opposition Jobbik party, called the nomination a “disgrace”, adding that Varga had been “the right hand” of Chief Public Prosecutor Péter Polt and had so far worked in a “dictatorial system based on following orders”. Speaking at a press conference in front of Parliament, Brenner called the nomination “another level of undermining the judiciary, thereby dismantling Hungarian democracy”.

October 20, 2020

Who is plotting against Hungary in the European Union?

Fidesz MEP Tamás Deutsch on Sunday slammed left-wing opposition MEPs for “making it their mission to organise attacks against Hungary in Brussels”.

Deutsch told a press conference that Momentum Movement MEP Anna Donath had “happily admitted” to holding regular talks with European Commission Vice-President Vera Jourova, insisting that Donath was on tape as saying that her aim was “to turn the EC against Hungary by spreading misinformation”. He noted that Donath rejected the accusation.

Further, Deutsch accused

all left-wing Hungarian MEPs of working against their country

by “badmouthing others, spreading fake news … lecturing, writing letters and reports to their leftist comrades, and drawing on the constant support of Soros organisations,” he said, referring to NGOs funded by financier George Soros. Deutsch said Klára Dobrev of the Democratic Coalition (DK) had organised a conference in Brussels amid the coronavirus pandemic and questioned the legitimacy of the 2018 general elections in Hungary.

He said Momentum’s Katalin Cseh, “in the present situation and despite being a trained doctor”, attended weekly meetings discussing “alleged infringements on the rights” of LGBTQ people in Europe. Socialist MEP István Újhelyi, he said, had claimed in Brussels that

new Hungarian parliamentary regulations made it virtually impossible for left-wing lawmakers to have their say. “That is a big fat lie,”

Deutsch said.

Deutsch also accused DK MEP Csaba Molnár and Jobbik’s Márton Gyöngyösi of playing a role “in those campaigns spreading outright lies”. “The attacks of opposition MEPs cast a shadow over all Hungarians, not only those who support the government,” he said.

The Fidesz MEP said leftist MEPs voted for every EU proposal that was at odds with Hungary’s interests while failing to submit a single one that favoured their own country, all the while calling their

“campaign of blackmail” a fight for the rule of law.

He noted that in the spring, left-wing politicians had accused the Hungarian government of using the coronavirus pandemic to pass laws that undermined parliament, adding that their warnings Fidesz was building a dictatorship had been since proven to be unfounded. Deutsch accused Hungarian left-wing MEPs of making it their mission to harm their homeland as much as possible. The Fidesz-Christian Democrats, on the other hand, regard Hungary’s prosperity as their priority, he said.

October 19, 2020