Jobbik

MEP Márton Gyöngyösi elected president of Jobbik

Márton Gyöngyösi chairman of Jobbik

MEP Márton Gyöngyösi was elected the new chairman of opposition Jobbik at the party’s congress on Saturday.

Gyöngyösi received 68 percent of the votes, as against 29 percent received by his opponent István Földi, it was announced at a press conference after the meeting. Gyöngyösi confirmed MTI information that Balázs Ander had withdrawn from the race for party leader in order to support him.

He said Jobbik members wanted to leave behind a period of turmoil and wished for Jobbik to start rebuild itself.

“My job is to shake up the opposition,”

Gyöngyösi said.

He promised to develop Jobbik as a pro-Europe party which is based on values and takes its principles seriously. “I would like Jobbik to be an intellectual home and community for everyone pursuing democratic values and proud of their home country,” he said.

He added that there might be a cooperation of opposition parties once again in the future but currently Jobbik must focus on strengthening its own conservative policies. In response to a question, he said he would keep his mandate as an MEP.

Read alsoMEP Gyöngyösi: Growing contrast between Croatia and Hungary

Jobbik urges higher wages for police

hungarian police drug dealer caught in Budapest

Opposition Jobbik urges higher wages for police, party lawmaker and head of parliament’s national security council Zoltán Sas said on Wednesday.

Sas told an online press conference that one of the greatest problems of next year’s budget was that police were neglected in it and it lacked an allocation for their wage increase. The monthly basic salary for police has been unchanged at 38,650 forints (98 euros) for 14 years and the actual salary paid is insufficient at around 160,000-180,000 forints (405- 456 euros) per month, he added.

He called for an immediate wage increase for police, saying it could greatly contribute to stopping staff leaving the service, which he said already threatened the proper functioning of the police force.

The state could lose one of its basic pillars if the police cannot function and this will “create an extremely dangerous situation for all of us”, he added.

Read alsoJobbik welcomes plans for setting up stand-alone border guard force

Jobbik welcomes plans for setting up stand-alone border guard force

Opposition Jobbik has welcomed Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Monday remarks expressing support for plans to set up a dedicated border guard force.

Deputy party leader László György Lukács told an online press conference on Tuesday that Jobbik had been urging the move for years and the party is calling for setting up the force without delay.

The security situation in the region and the pressure posed by migration on Hungary’s borders have made it necessary to send units of soldiers and police from the country’s central areas to the borders and this has “created a vacuum” there, he said.

Setting up a stand-alone border guards service without delay is necessary and unavoidable, he said. The armed forces must focus on defence activities instead of guarding the borders and police have an important task to combat deteriorating public security, he added.

Read also Protectors of Hungary’s southern borders attacked hundreds of times

Are most Hungarians dissatisfied with the opposition? – poll

Hungarian Parliament

Roughly one-third of Hungary’s opposition voters are uncommitted to any party, the daily Magyar Nemzet said on Tuesday, citing a fresh poll by the Nézőpont Institute.

According to the pollster, an election held this Sunday would be won by the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance with 55 percent of the vote, with just three opposition parties clearing the threshold for seats in parliament.

The leftist Democratic Coalition and radical Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) would each get 6 percent of the vote, while the satirical Two-Tailed Dog Party would have 5 percent.

Conservative Jobbik and the liberal Momentum Movement would both fail to secure parliamentary seats, ending up with just 4 percent each. The Socialist Party, green LMP and the small liberal Párbeszéd party would receive 1 percent each, according to the poll.

Nézőpont said that though 12 percent of voters are critical of the prime minister, they would not vote for any of the opposition parties, either. The pollster added that nearly one-third of opposition voters had become disenchanted with the left-wing parties.

Magyar Nemzet noted that the ruling parties had also dominated the municipal by-elections held last Sunday. It said Nézőpont’s findings confirmed that whereas support for the ruling parties remains stable, the opposition is not only finding it hard to attract new voters but also to retain existing ones.

As we wrote yesterday, four Budapest constituencies held by-elections on Sunday, with three going to candidates of the ruling party and one to the opposition, details HERE.

Read alsoLMP official challenges Karácsony’s view on opposition woes

MEP Gyöngyösi: Growing contrast between Croatia and Hungary

Jobbik MEP Márton Gyöngyösi’s thoughts via press release: 

The context for this post is given by the news that Croatia is going to adopt the EURO as of 1 January 2023 and, if everything goes according to the plans, the country will join the Schengen zone as well. It is in stark contrast with my homeland, Hungary, which is taking long strides on the way out of the European Union.

Despite sharing most of their history in Central Europe, Croatia and Hungary don’t show such a huge difference for the first time: when the region’s Socialist regimes collapsed one after the other around 1990, Hungary was still considered as the honour student of the area, while Croatia was entangled in a home defence war to establish and/or protect its mere existence as a state. 

Back then, who would have thought that the “ranking” of the two countries will be reversed?

After the difficulties of the 1990s, Croatia could only join the EU in 2013, with a significant backlog compared to the rest of the region. However, the country has been able to demonstrate its ability to utilize the opportunities lying in European integration. Taking no more than ten years after its accession, Croatia will be able to join the EU’s “innermost circles”, i.e., Schengen and the Eurozone. I think the latter appears to be an even larger achievement as EU member states are required to meet famously strict economic conditions to adopt the common currency. After lapping several countries that had joined earlier, Croatia was able to meet all those requirements.

It’s natural to compare the country’s performance to that of Hungary which was Central Europe’s proud leader in terms of living standards back in the 1990s, but is now considered as one of the stragglers.

Although Hungary became an EU member as early as in 2004, the accession to the Eurozone is nowhere in sight. In fact, the Fidesz government stipulated in the Constitution that the Forint will remain Hungary’s currency. We are talking about the same Forint that has been sinking to historical lows over the past 6 months compared to the Euro. Our currency is being devalued at an astonishing rate while the government regulates food and fuel prices in a feeble attempt to hide the problem from the citizens. If you look at the economy, you see an increasingly gloomy picture with devalued money and an impending commodity shortage resulting from the regulated prices. As far as the political environment is concerned, the Hungarian government, having realized its complete isolation in Europe, is now making ever larger gestures to Moscow, to the point where PM Viktor Orbán used his usual Friday radio interview to joke about how little chance Ukraine has in the war.

This doesn’t mean that the people of Hungary are against the European Union or the adoption of the Euro, in fact.

Under the current circumstances however, when Orbán’s regime uses the Hungarian authorities to block opposition parties so he doesn’t even need to commit electoral fraud to win the elections due to the government’s huge dominance in resources and media, pro-Europe opinions are hardly heard in the public discourse. I hope that the European Union’s institutions soon realize the importance of holding member state governments accountable for European values and the democratic rule of law, since not all countries seem to function as well as Croatia.

Until they come to that realization however, we can do nothing but envy our south western neighbours…

mep gyöngyösi jobbik
Read alsoMEP Gyöngyösi: Can Hungarian citizens still rely on the EU?

Teachers’ Day: infinite party promises but salaries are very low

Teacher kids education

The co-ruling Christian Democrats (KDNP) said in a statement on Sunday, Teachers’ Day, that teachers “hold Hungary’s future in their hands” and “we are grateful to all those who educate our youth in kindergartens and schools.”

Families are in the focus of KDNP’s policy, the statement signed by group leader István Simicskó said, adding that “the future of our homeland and our nation rests on the young generation raised by those families”. Teachers have a huge responsibility in “what kind of people our children and grandchildren will grow up to be,” it said.

Parties of the opposition also thanked teachers for their work, but protested low pay in schools and recent restrictions concerning the rights of teachers to strike.

The Democratic Coalition (DK) said in a statement:

“We should not forget how much we owe teachers whose efforts [Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán’s inhumane system

has rewarded with a successive curbing of their rights, humiliatingly low salaries, an incredible workload and degrading Teachers’ Day benefits in the past 12 years”.

The Párbeszéd party demanded an instant pay rise and benefits for teachers. In a statement, the party noted the high rate of teachers quitting their jobs, and insisted it was “the last chance to reverse the drastic deterioration of the quality of public education”. Párbeszéd will appeal to the Constitutional Court against recent legislation seen as “shockingly” curbing teachers’ right to strike, the statement said.

Green LMP said a pay rise to compensate teachers for inflation could no longer be delayed, and insisted that the salaries of young teachers was higher in every other European Union member state except Bulgaria. In their statement, LMP co-leaders Erzsébet Schmuck and Máté Kanász-Nagy demanded a pay hike immediately, as well as the restoration of teachers’ right to strike.

The Socialist Party said it would also appeal to the top court concerning the strike law, and demanded that teachers should get a “radical” increase of at least 50 percent of their salaries, and

each teacher should receive a voucher worth 100,000 forints (EUR 255) as a Teachers’ Day bonus.

Conservative Jobbik MP Koloman Brenner said on Facebook his party was working to ensure that teachers are properly rewarded for their work “morally and financially”.

Semmelweis University
Read alsoHungary is home to almost 35,600 international students

Jobbik wants the government to lift the ban on building wind farms!

Koloman Brenner and Péter Jakab

The opposition Jobbik party is calling on the government to lift the ban of building wind farms, arguing that wind power would be a vital component of Hungarian energy security.

Jobbik’s deputy group leader Koloman Brenner told an online news briefing on Thursday that ruling Fidesz had made Hungary totally dependent on Russian energy supplies and missed opportunities to replace them with cheap and secure sources of energy, he said.

Brenner blamed the government for not developing renewable energy sources other than solar energy.

He also criticised Fidesz for its “sinful decision” in 2011 to ban the construction of new wind farms. Jobbik has presented a draft to parliament on lifting the ban and has asked all parliamentary groups to support its initiative, he said.

Brenner also suggested that Hungary should lay more emphasis on utilising fusion and geothermal energy.

Jobbik does not oppose the peaceful uses of nuclear energy but insists that the Paks nuclear power plant should be upgraded with western rather than Russian technology so as to prevent Hungary from depending on Russian nuclear fuel supplies for another 50 to 80 years, he said.

Koloman Brenner and Péter Jakab
Read alsoJobbik wants the government to lift the ban on building wind farms!

MEP Gyöngyösi: Can Hungarian citizens still rely on the EU?

mep gyöngyösi jobbik
Jobbik MEP Márton Gyöngyösi’s thoughts via press release: 

Perhaps it’s pointless for me to write once again something like “here’s the chance for the European Union to prove its unity, otherwise…”, since I have done it so many times on this page. The last time I did it was probably related to the Ukraine war and the sanctions against Russia. A few weeks ago, the EU seemed to demonstrate a real unity in terms of the Russia sanctions, but then Viktor Orbán came again and the illusions were soon gone.

With remarkable assertiveness, the European Commission recently announced the sixth package of Russia sanctions with stricter measures than ever before. 

The promise of European countries being able to abandon Russian oil and gas, coupled with the European Commission allocating €210 billion for this purpose, seemed like a historic step, as this measure has been in the plans in many European capitals for roughly two decades. Budapest was also planning to do so, but the financial difficulties have always prevented Hungary from carrying out the ambitious idea.

Of course, if you have been following European politics over the past years, you are hardly surprised that the Hungarian Prime Minister and his government, who act as Russian president Vladimir Putin’s agent in all forums, soon made it clear that they were not willing to stop buying Russian oil and gas or halt Rosatom’s expansion of Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant at all. For the sake of appearances, there was a bit of a haggling about EU monies allocated to Hungary (as always), but as the deadline for the final decision was approaching, the already inflexible Hungarian position just became harder and harder.

And how did the European Union respond to that? Well, according to so far unconfirmed media reports, it will agree to remove the ban of pipeline-transported oil from the list of Russia sanctions in order to get the package adopted. Nevertheless, 26 EU member states, so all but Hungary, will still likely do whatever they can to become independent from Russian energy.

They will diversify their energy sources and keep moving towards independence.

Orbán will not be bothered by this development at all: he already won, because he got what he wanted.

Did Hungary win, though? One could hardly say so, because 1) Hungary is taking yet another step toward the exit from the European Union and 2) it will be left alone in terms of energy, thus becoming fatally dependent on Russian gas. Let’s not beat around the bush: the European Union let the Hungarian people down, just so it could avoid battling the issue out with Viktor Orbán.

And what will the European Union achieve by this? Its countries can keep eliminating their energy dependency on their own, or they can even unite their efforts, too. 

However, the illusion of the united Europe is gone, because no unity can be formed with just 26 member states.

If Vladimir Putin was going for preventing Europe from taking a united stance, he has just scored a goal.

In the meantime, Hungarian citizens can rightfully ask the question: can they rely on the European Union, which is so vocal about its values, to protect them from a pro-Russia leader who tramples upon democracy? So far it doesn’t seem so.

pipeline
Read alsoMEP Gyöngyösi: Time to cut our dependence on Russian energy

Opposition proposals on helping people struggling with inflation

Poor-Hungarian-sad

The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) has drafted proposals to help families and vulnerable people cope with high inflation, László Varju, the party’s deputy leader, told an online press briefing on Friday, noting that proposals include cutting VAT and excise taxes.

DK wants the government to give families raising children, impoverished pensioners, low-earning public servants and the severely disabled a one-off payment of 100,000 forints (EUR 260), and to set aside budget funds to subsidise a public transport season ticket valid for three months costing 1,000 forints.

Meanwhile, it has called on the government to scrap VAT on basic foodstuffs, meals in the workplace, child-care products, female hygiene products, as well as VAT on solar panels and residential energy upgrades until the end of this year and introduce 5 percent VAT on these products from January 1 next year, he added.

Also, DK wants excise duty on vehicle fuel to be halved for amounts higher than 75 US dollars on the world market, while the party wants excise tax on heating fuel to be scrapped until the end of the year.

The conservative opposition Jobbik party also made similar demands on Friday, proposing zero-percent VAT on basic foodstuffs. Dániel Z. Kárpát, the party’s deputy leader, told an online press briefing that

the government should not be allowed to make a profit “from families in the middle of a crisis”.

Fidesz said in reaction that DK had not backed the government’s price caps. In a statement, Fidesz said the left wing had attacked price caps on vehicle fuel and basic foods, and wanted caps on household utility bills to be scrapped, thereby plunging the country into an energy crisis.

The Hungarian government, the statement added, was taking “unique measures” to protect citizens, noting that the price of petrol in Hungary was “the lowest”, and the government is setting up a fund to protect the cap on utility bills.

Péter Jakab Jobbik
Read also Jobbik re-elected leader who is the last but one most unpopular politician in Hungary?

Orbán cabinet to ease hiring temporary workers from the Far East

worker chinese migrant

Based on a new bill, the government would ease the hiring of temporary workers from the Far East. Therefore, licensed labour-hire agencies would be created in Hungary. Trade unions became enraged because of the bill on the parliament’s desk. They say that the government would like to ease the labour shortage with the help of Far-Eastern guest workers instead of searching for answers to why Hungarian employees quit.

Job in Hungary without a work permit?

According to Népszava, the government would like to open the country’s gates to Vietnamese, Indonesian, Mongolian, and Filipino guest workers. The new bill is part of a “salat bill” including all measures the government would like to introduce after the end of the COVID emergency state. If it passes, third world guest workers could come easier to Hungary with the help of licensed labour-hire agencies. As a result,

they could get a job even without a work permit.

Furthermore, the government decrees would regulate how a labour-hire agency can become licensed.

The idea is not new. Foreign minister Péter Szijjártó thought after the first wave that labour-hire agencies are the key to economic restart. Therefore, they signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Prohumán Ltd. Szijjártó announced last summer that they allowed guest workers to temporarily come to Hungary with the help of licensed labour-hire agencies. Last September, 13 firms could get into that category.

The government wants to deal with labour shortage

The website of Prohumán Ltd, one of the 13 licensed agencies, says that they hire guest workers from 11 non-EU countries: Serbia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Montenegro, and Vietnam. 

Zoltán László, a vice-chairman of the Vasas federation of union workers, said that this measure would not solve the labour shortage in Hungary. He added that only some labour-hire agencies would receive good revenues. He said that the government thought a couple of years ago that the Serbian and Ukrainian guest workers would solve the labour shortage. However, too few came, and most went farther West quickly. 

The Hungarian processing industry needs 100 thousand workers. However, considerable fluctuation causes the labour shortage in the sector. For example, there was a company putting into work 800 new staff in one year. But in the end, they had fewer employees than at the beginning of the year. That is because new workers quit in less than three months. Some disappear on their first day.

They do not feel OK and do not have a future perspective, Zoltán László said. Their salaries are low ,and they have to do a lot of overwork because of the labour shortage. Some companies expect the same quantity and quality from a newcomer as a veteran. If employers cannot deal with these problems, even Far-Eastern guest workers will quit.

This is how salaries can be kept low?

Some Hungarian workers have already received threats that they could be easily replaced with Asian guest workers who do not talk back. Many Hungarian companies hire their workers because that makes it easier to adapt to demand changes. Such employees are easy to send away: they terminate the contract with the labour-hire agency.

András Jámbor, an opposition MP, says that the government keeps salaries low for the Far-Eastern guest workers. Temporary guest workers weaken other workers’ interest representation, he added. Instead, he would support adult training programs for jobless people in the labour market. Jámbor believes that it is the only way to put an end to the labour shortage.

Opposition Jobbik and Democratic Coalition would delete the paragraphs making temporary guest workers come to Hungary easier. Their reasons are the same as Jámbor’s. DK and Jobbik would instead increase wages. 

Woodworking Employment Unemployment Work Worker employment rate
Read alsoCould Ukrainian refugees solve the Hungarian labour shortage?

MEP Gyöngyösi: Time to cut our dependence on Russian energy

pipeline
Jobbik MEP Márton Gyöngyösi’s thoughts via press release: 

More clearly than ever before, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has shown that the long-standing concern voiced by so many experts may come true: Russia is ready to weaponize energy against Europe. So, it is vital to cut our dependence on Russian energy as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the results so far are not convincing at all.

Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission walked into a crippling communication trap the other day. At first, when the sixth package of Russia sanctions were announced, the public may have thought Europe was united in its support for the ambitious plans. Such a unity would have been a huge step ahead for two reasons: first, the sixth package would be stricter than any earlier measures in the sense that it would completely ban oil import from Russia, and second, because it would mean that the sceptical member states are finally convinced.

As we saw last week however, it was not the case at all. In fact, the governments of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary are far from satisfied with the current plans since they are significantly dependent on Russian oil. 

Unsurprisingly, the Budapest leaders were the loudest to protest the package, because maintaining good relations with Moscow is not just an economic but a political issue for them: over the recent years, Viktor Orbán’s propaganda media has almost completely converted a significant share of the Hungarian public to a pro-Moscow orientation, to the point where hardcore Fidesz voters vehemently support Russia.

As a result, Ursula von der Leyen’s Budapest visit achieved practically nothing other than letting Viktor Orbán’s media have a field day bashing the European Commission’s president, while the European Union suffered yet another huge loss of face against an authoritarian leader who should have long been sanctioned instead of being considered as a partner to negotiate with. Now the European Union seems to be forced to choose between two bad options: it either backs out of the sixth package or removes its crucial element, i.e., the oil ban. 

Both options would mean an enormous loss of prestige as well as bowing to Moscow-controlled Viktor Orbán. Last but not least, it would send the world a message that Europe is not united.

Regardless of any global political games however, the threat posed by Russian oil dependence is very real, especially in Hungary. The situation only got worse over the past decade, largely due to the Hungarian government’s effective contribution. Looking at the matter objectively, the suspension of the oil ban may be a victory for Orbán, but it’s certainly not a victory for Hungary, because if nothing changes, the security of millions of Hungarian people will remain in the hands of a regime that can turn off the oil or gas pipelines as it pleases.

If the European Union truly means to be a global player, it must do its best to eliminate such risks even if it takes a few head-on clashes with certain authoritarian leaders.

Leftist opposition in crisis after the lost election?

opposition coalition

After their failure in the April general election, the coalition of opposition parties has fallen apart and, with the exception of the Democratic Coalition led by Ferenc Gyurcsány, the rivalling parties are in a state of crisis, according to an analysis of opinion polls carried out by the Twenty-First Century Institute published on Thursday.

Relative newcomer Momentum has been “struggling with a permanent leadership crisis”, the think-tank said. Founding member and former leader András Fekete-Győr still dominates the party and as group leader “he will put his stamp on the party” while the departure of Anna Donáth as Momentum’s leader “will cause

uncertainty and managerial instability.”

The think-tank cited “information in the opposition press” suggesting an active connection between Gyurcsány’s party and the youthful Momentum movement. Gyurcsány wants to form a DK-Momentum coalition similar to the pre-2010 Socialist-Liberal coalition, it added.

Both LMP and Párbeszéd identify as green parties, the analysis said, but “they can hardly be called real parties as they lack a mass base and are led by media politicians”. LMP’s leadership, it added, was “quite unstable”, while the co-leaders of Párbeszéd indicated after the election that they would not run for office. Due to the uneasy election cooperation between the two green parties, environmental politics and their party identities have faded, the think-tank said.

Regarding the conservative Jobbik party, the Twenty-First Century Institute said the party’s had

lost its nationalist credentials after teaming up with the left wing and taking up its positions on key international issues,

including relations with Hungarians beyond the border and the European Union. “The party is intellectually vacant,” the think-tank said.

Even though Jobbik recorded “its biggest loss” in the general election, Péter Jakab was re-elected leader at a recent party conference by a dwindling number of delegates, indicating a shrinking party organisation and membership. As radical party Mi Hazánk entered parliament for the first time, Jobbik’s room for manoeuvre has narrowed, and it will be impossible for it to return to its former right-wing narrative, the institute said.

Only the Democratic Coalition is stable and free of a leadership crisis,

according to the think-tank. It is the sole party with a stable organisational hinterland and the resources to develop a strong opposition policy, it added.

Hungarian parliament
Read alsoThe new government will be “significantly reshuffled”, says prime minister

Stummer quits Jobbik

Stummer

János Stummer, a former deputy leader of opposition Jobbik, has quit the party following the election of Péter Jakab as its leader at the weekend.

Stummer said on Facebook on Tuesday that Jobbik MPs had “rejected a clear political alternative and patriotic policy” promoted in his leadership bid.

It became clear, he added, that

“the political community I have been a member and builder of for the past thirteen years does not wish to follow a path of benefitting my homeland”, adding that he did not to share Jakab’s policies or trust in his leadership.

“I have always distanced myself from the policies and leadership practices of Jakab and his inner circle, but I no longer wish to associate with him,” Stummer said.

He said

public affairs would “continue to be part of my life” but he was not planning to set up a new party or movement.

Jobbik re-elected leader who is the last but one most unpopular politician in Hungary?

Péter Jakab Jobbik

Péter Jakab was re-elected as leader of the opposition Jobbik party at a party conference on Saturday, the party said in a statement. Jobbik’s press office said Jakab received 71.4 percent of the votes, while his opponent, János Stummer, got 27.8 percent. Of the 245 ballots cast, 243 were valid, the statement said.

Delegates at the conference are also scheduled to elect deputy party leaders on Saturday.

Péter Jakab has been outdone in the unpopularity stakes only by Ferenc Gyurcsány, the former Socialist prime minister who now leads the Democratic Coalition, according to a fresh survey by the Nézőpont Institute.

Only 23 percent of active voters thought Jakab should fill a top post, the survey published on Saturday found.

Asked the same question about Gyurcsány, only 10 percent would entrust him with a position of responsibility.

Nézőpont said that Jobbik’s support base had also waned since the election four years ago, when 20 percent of voters backed the party.

Now, Jobbik would only capture 3 percent of voters in an election held this Sunday,

it added.

Meanwhile, Péter Márki-Zay, the former prime ministerial candidate of the united opposition who is the mayor of Hódmezővásárhely, and Anna Donáth, the leader of Momentum, each captured 24 percent of active voters in Nézőpont’s poll, though 70 percent would not entrust Marki-Zay with a position of authority, while 42 percent responded the same way when it came to Donáth — whose name recognition is low, with 27 percent of active voters unsure who she was.

Among left-wing leaders, Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest, who is giving up his position as leader of the Párbeszéd party, is the most popular (32 percent).

Nézőpont conducted its representative survey of 1,000 adults by phone from April 25 to 27.

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Read alsoMEP Gyöngyösi: Rule rule of law procedure is a real European soap opera

The new Parliament is formed in Hungary – UPDATE

The new Parliament is formed in Hungary

Hungary’s lawmakers took their oaths on Monday at the start of the new parliamentary cycle.

The ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance has 135 seats in parliament, the Democratic Coalition has 15 seats, while Jobbik, Momentum and the Socialists have 10 each. The radical Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) party, which passed the parliamentary threshold for the first time in 2022, has garnered six mandates, as did Párbeszéd. The green LMP party has five seats. The German minority has one seat, and one lawmaker is expected to sit in the 199-member parliament as an independent.

The new parliament’s inaugural session was opened by President János Áder.

Journalists and guests were allowed into Parliament amid tight security measures.

Lawmakers of the opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) and Momentum parties left the session immediately after the oath-taking ceremony.

Momentum said on Facebook ahead of the session that its lawmakers had taken an “alternative oath” to serve the “entire society rather than a small privileged elite.”

Ákos Hadházy, who has won a mandate as an independent, did not appear at the ceremony, and is not yet entitled to exercise his rights as a lawmaker.

A body comprising the oldest and youngest members of parliament has found all mandates complies with regulations.

Parliament then certified the mandates unanimously, with 196 votes in favour.

Read this news in Hungarian here: Megalakult az új Országgyűlés | Helló Magyar

Read more news about 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election

UPDATE

Máté Kocsis, the group leader of ruling Fidesz, reacting to the walk-out by DK and Momentum lawmakers, said

parliament was their “workplace” and they must take their work as seriously as they would in any other workplace.

The work of a lawmaker is regulated by the Hungarian constitution and parliamentary law, Kocsis said on Facebook, adding that a lawmaker who disregards the law and only cares about being paid is unworthy of his or her parliamentary position.

MEP Gyöngyösi: Rule rule of law procedure is a real European soap opera

EU Hungary flag
Jobbik MEP Márton Gyöngyösi’s thoughts via press release: 
Sending a note to the Hungarian government this week, Commissioner Johannes Hahn let Budapest know that the EU was going to trigger the rule of law mechanism. If you have been following European politics over the past years, you can now sigh with relief: if the Commission keeps up this mind-blowing speed, Orbán might lose the EU funds before we achieve global carbon neutrality. Or some of the funds at least. Or the EU might send him a symbolic warning that he might perhaps lose them. Or…

Many years have passed since Viktor Orbán began building his so-called illiberal hybrid regime, the essence of which can be summarized as follows: it is basically a copy of Putin’s political methods, with the notable difference that Orbán, who has no energy carriers to sell, uses the EU funds to finance his regime while publicly denying the reception of these funds. As we live in the 21st century with all its highly developed communication tools, it took no more than a few years for the EU institutions to finally notice this paradoxical situation, although it could’ve stayed under the radar for some more time if Orbán hadn’t launched a hatemongering media campaign against former EC President Jean-Claude Juncker.

Ever since then, we’ve been getting closer and closer to the day when the European Union truly holds Orbán to account for breaching European values and doling out the taxpayers’ money to Fidesz-friendly oligarchs. 

If you look at the history of Europe’s treatment of Orbán, you can see we’ve come a long way since the time when it was just a few MEPs who demanded to take action against him, while the highest echelons of German policy makers were still busy trying to pacify Orbán in the hope that he would learn not to behave like a post-Soviet dictator and pick up some sophisticated political communication skills, the same way he had learnt to accommodate the German automotive industry with exceptional tax breaks.

To see the Commission adopting its current semi-assertive stance however, we had to somehow survive until Angela Merkel got close enough to the end of her term to stop caring about Viktor Orbán’s fate. After that, we only needed to wait just a little more until the 2022 elections were over, because the European Commission wanted to avoid launching the rule of law procedure at a time when the suspension of EU funding could still have punched a hole in Orbán’s ongoing anti-EU and pro-Putin campaign budget (in Hungary, Fidesz traditionally uses the taxpayers’ money to communicate such messages in the form of government advertisements).

However, after Orbán gained the two-thirds majority for yet another term as a result of his anti-EU campaign with unlimited financial resources and an election that could scarcely be called fair, the European Commission finally concluded they should indeed trigger the rule of law mechanism, the promise of which had been hanging over Orbán’s head for months. 

As a small flaw in the process, the European Commission has not publicly released the note that was sent to the Hungarian government. Consequently, Orbán had considerable leverage to communicate the procedure to his supporters as if it was another attack by the Western European anti-family LGBTQ lobby, thus paving the political escape route for himself in case the potential loss of EU funds can hurt his regime.

If any of the funds are to be withheld at all, that is. The rule of law procedure may take at least half a year, or perhaps even more if something untoward happens, such as an international conflict, an unusually hot summer, or a potentially heated by-election in a remote village. Any of these serious factors may prompt the EU to suspend the procedure and resume handing out the money to Orbán instead, so he could perhaps go as far as to call for the HUXIT or the dissolution of the European Parliament itself in his 2024 EP election campaign. Although the Hungarian government’s corruption can even be seen from the Moon, some voices have recently suggested that the total withdrawal of EU funds might be too drastic a step, and the EU should just block a symbolic amount instead…

I can’t help but wonder when the interests of the industrial lobby and the memories of certain politicians who still have the Orbán of 1989 on their mind become less important for the EU than stopping a government that keeps undermining all European values while openly supporting Putin’s Ukraine policy.

In the meantime, millions of Hungarian citizens rightfully feel betrayed. 

Opposition parties to be present in the first session of the new parliament

Hungarian parliament first session

It seems the debate about taking part in the parliament’s first session and acknowledging Fidesz’s fourth consecutive landslide victory in the general elections with being present came to an end among the parties of the Hungarian opposition.

Hungarian media reported that even Momentum Movement made it clear yesterday that they would be present at the new parliament’s first session on Monday. Momentum also added that they would swear the oath. That is a prerequisite to becoming a full member of the Hungarian National Assembly. Afterwards, MPs of Momentum will leave the parliament and will not accept positions in the new parliament for the time being.

Only Ákos Hadházy said that he would not go to the first session. Instead, he will sit in Kossuth Square and hold office hours there.

Meanwhile, Jobbik and Párbeszéd set up their parliamentary group yesterday.

Opposition party Jobbik said on Friday that its ten-member parliamentary group has reelected Peter Jakab as its leader. Jakab, who also leads the party itself, called it an honour to have been reinstalled in the post on Facebook.

The opposition Párbeszéd party formed its parliamentary group on Friday, electing Bence Tordai as the group’s interim leader, the party said in a statement. When Tímea Szabó’s term as the party’s co-leader expires in September, she will head the parliamentary group, while Tordai will be her deputy from that time on, the statement said. In the meantime, she will act as his deputy.

Read alsoFidesz proposes divvying out parliament positions based on 2/3rds to 1/3rd

Huge waves of waste come regularly from Romania to Hungary

Tisza River Pollution Environment Waste

The opposition Jobbik has petitioned Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó to take diplomatic steps with a view to stopping the flow of waste on rivers from Romania to Hungary.

Béla Adorján, Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county councillor, on Friday noted at a press conference that Jobbik had tried to present a petition to the Romanian Embassy a week ago. Two days ago, however, another huge wave of waste reached Hungary’s border on the Szamos river, he said.

Lawmaker Csaba Gyüre said that the floodplains of the Upper Tisza region had been flooded with plastic bottles.

Gyüre said he had turned to the foreign ministry, which cited the Romanian side as saying that the problem “has been almost totally settled”, with the waste filtered out on the Romanian sections of the rivers. The recent developments, however, indicated the opposite, he said.

Gyüre asked Szijjártó to take action to ensure that the Romanian authorities responsible put an end to pollution, eliminate illegal rubbish dumps on the catchment areas and monitor the industrial facilities and farms that emit hazardous materials.

He also stressed the need to set up a monitoring system which would alert Hungarian experts about waste approaching Hungary’s border.

MEP Márton Gyöngyösi, deputy leader of Jobbik, requested that Szijjártó turn directly to the Romanian government and that Hungarian diplomacy lobby the UN and EU institutions to help resolve the situation.

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Read alsoUnique European bridge to be finished soon in Hungary – VIDEOS