At a debate ahead of the preselection of the left-wing opposition candidate for mayor of Budapest, the Socialist and Párbeszéd candidates said they were campaigning for a greener Budapest and for better public transport.
Both candidates, Socialist Csaba Horváth and Gergely Karácsony, pledged to involve Budapest residents in taking major decisions and to take a stronger stand against the government when it comes to local decision-making.
Horváth insisted Vitézy was responsible for billions of forints of losses connected to the introduction of an electronic ticketing system whereas Karácsony maintained that Vitézy had done an excellent job at BKK.
Both candidates vowed to support whoever ends up winning the preselection process.
Opposition party Jobbik is once again threatened by a hundred million forints fine by the State Audit Office, but they are not the only ones in financial danger: government aid for Párbeszéd and Momentum was revoked. The decisions are especially harsh as the next European Parliament campaign is coming up.
Népszava reports that the Hungarian State Audit Office is about to fine Jobbik again for over 100 million forints (EUR 300 thousand). The final decision is yet to be settled, so within a given deadline, Jobbik can comment on the draft. Before last year’s parliamentary election, Jobbik was fined more than 660 million forints (EUR 2 million) by the SAO for unauthorised campaigning.
According to Népszava, the government aid for Párbeszéd and Momentum was revoked, although they have not yet received an official notice. The paper has contacted the State Audit Office, enquiring whether they wish to transfer the aids to the respective parties and if not, what is the reason for not doing so.
The last time Párbeszéd has received their government aid was in October, when 23 million forints (EUR 70 thousand) were allocated into their account.
Kocsis-Cake Olivio, party director of Párbeszéd, told Népszava that roughly the same amount should have already been transferred to them as First Quarter aid.
The prospects of Momentum are not better either. They too have received their aids for the Fourth Quarter in 2018 – the party in October, their foundation in December. However, the party has still not received their 12 million forints (EUR 37 thousand) aid for Q1, nor did the foundation they’re respective 21 million forints (EUR 65 thousand).
Since the State Audit Office could not check on the campaign spendings and it could not find the parties at their registered offices, the SAO threatened to not only suspend government aids but to also fine them.
Párbeszéd has submitted on December 11th the required papers confirming the change of location of their office, along with the receipts, contracts and other documents accounting for campaign funds, the SAO has not yet responded. Hajnal (Momentum) argues that the threats made by the SAO are without basis since Momentum has informed the SAO in time and the proper fashion about their change of office.
Both Kocsis-Cake and Hajnal told Párbeszéd that if they do not receive the aids, they will be put in an extremely difficult situation: Párbeszéd would not be able to pay their colleagues and the party would not have enough money to prepare for the upcoming elections. Momentum would try to fund their European Parliament election campaign from charity, as they have done so previously, though not with such an amount of money. They have lawyers looking into the case, but as Kocsis-Cake reasoned:
the SAO has their own interpretation of the law, so it would come as no surprise if the parties would be helpless against them.
The new premises of the Prime Minister’s Office in the Buda castle district are an overpriced prestige investment and a display of lavish extravagance, the opposition Párbeszéd party said on Wednesday.
Moving the government offices to the Castle District is an attempt to “restore the monarchy … to copy and restore the Horthy era,” the party’s Budapest representative Márta Nászalyi V told a press conference.
Moving the prime minister’s office to Buda will paralyse life there, considering that the three roads leading to the castle are already overcrowded, she said.
The government has created a legislative environment which enables them to take away anybody’s property overnight so “people living in the area are afraid and there is utter uncertainty in the district,” she added.
Featured image: Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister
Hungary’s opposition parties held a joint press conference and condemned the pro-government majority for passing the slavery act in Parliament.
Calling the events taking place in the Parliament scandalous, Jobbik’s faction leader and executive vice president harshly criticized the way how the pro-government majority handled the voting process. He noted that Deputy Speaker János Latorcai conducted the session from his party’s row of seats (the Speaker’s platform was occupied by opposition MPs) and the voting machines functioned even without the MPs’ cards inserted in them.
Jobbik’s politician said the vote “was unprecedented in the history of Hungarian politics” which, in his view, is a clear indication that “Fidesz has no respect for any laws, even the ones they adopted themselves”.
Mr Gyöngyösi called Wednesday’s vote unconstitutional and said it was against the Parliament’s house rules, too. Jobbik’s faction leader emphasized that the government’s job was to finally side with Hungarian workers but it made strategic agreements at the expense of employees instead. In the meantime, there’s an unprecedented labour shortage in Hungary: hundreds of thousands of young people emigrate abroad. He stated his party was going to continue protesting against the authoritarian measures.
Socialist party president and faction leader Bertalan Tóth said that Wednesday’s vote was completely unlawful. As he put it, the government may either have made an astoundingly shady deal with the Western big business to pass this law or “maybe the government considers workers as the enemy.” He added:
“We won’t give up, we’ll keep fighting but we’ll need the Hungarian workers and the trade unions in this struggle.”
Tímea Szabó (Dialogue) also pointed out the shocking abuse of the voting process as MPs were allowed to vote without inserting their cards. She said if this was tolerated, you could never verify who actually pushed the button. She also warned that the quorum of the meeting was not established before each vote. Talking about the legislation, she said the government betrayed the families by adopting it. She promised to use all legal measures to get the act withdrawn.
Democratic Coalition’s Ágnes Vadai said Fidesz MPs had proved to be puppets. She revealed that she had talked with President of the Republic János Áder and promised him that the opposition would listen silently if the head of the state made a speech. “János Áder copped out,” she added. In her view, there will be consequences for the fact that the staff of the Counter-Terrorism Centre somehow entered the Parliament.
Politics Can Be Different (LMP) co-president László Lóránt Keresztes said the day’s events were something other than legislation. The slavery act amounts to a betrayal of the people and it is the result of a disgraceful economic policy, he noted. On the other hand, he emphasized that this was just the beginning of the resistance.
“However, it’s time for the trade unions to show an example from now on,” he concluded.
Referring to Human Rights Day to be marked on Monday, the opposition Párbeszéd party vowed to continue its protest against government measures outlawing sleeping rough.
The party’s co-leader, Tímea Szabó, told a press conference on Sunday that “there’s no reason to celebrate” Human Rights Day in Hungary.
She noted that Párbeszéd, for the fifth year in a row, has been providing support for homeless people instead of the state.
Every weekend between Dec. 10 and the start of spring, party activists distribute hundreds of portions of hot foods to the needy, Szabó noted.
The government, she said, has steadily dismantled the rule of law over the past nine years and driven millions of Hungarian people into a state of poverty. The government fails to help the needy and instead has introduced laws that put homeless people into prison, she insisted.
Trade unions mounted a protest on Saturday in central Budapest against the planned change to the labour code that envisages increasing annual overtime from 250 hours to 400 hours, among other measures.
László Kordas, head of the Hungarian Trade Union Confederation, told the sizable crowd that the trade unions were working to improve working conditions and therefore they wanted the planned labor code changes to be ditched. He also vowed that activists would block roads across the nation from Monday.
Kossuth Square was sealed by police, but demonstrators managed to get past a line of officers and shouted anti-government slogans. Demonstrators also carried trade union banners and blew whistles.
Photo: MTI
The demonstrators had gathered at the Jászai Mari Square on the Pest side of the city and proceeded to Nyugati Railway Station. The crowd’s final destination was Kossuth Lajos Square in front of Parliament.
Last week, the bill’s proponents inserted changes to their original proposals, namely any overtime per year up to 150 hours above the 250 hour threshold “voluntarily entered into” must be concluded with a written agreement between employers and employee.
The bill amendments proposed by Fidesz MPs Lajos Kósa, Kristóf Szatmáry and Gábor Bányai also state that collective bargaining covers 300 hours of overtime, and 100 hours above that is possible only if there’s a written agreement between the employer and employee.
Also, another change proposed to be written into Hungary’s labour code is that an employer will not have the right to fire an employee if they are unwilling to agree to extra overtime. Read more HERE.
The Socialist Party’s leader, Bertalan Tóth, told a press conference last week that the bill’s aim was to address the country’s labour shortage by forcing Hungarians to work more. He accused the government of making a “secret pact” with multinational companies to this end. He dismissed the ruling party’s insistence that overtime would be voluntary, adding that vulnerable workers would be forced to serve their employer’s interests. “The Socialist-Párbeszéd alliance will take all necessary steps to mobilise worker resistance,” he said, adding that its members planned to attend the Saturday demonstration.
Photo: MTI
If the bill is accepted, the parties will turn to President János Áder and ask him to initiate a constitutional review, he said.
Párbeszéd co-leader Tímea Szabó said a popular vote may be needed to thwart the “slave law”. The bill would open the door to a six-day week “without payment”, she said.
Szabó said the shortage of skilled labour was due to hundreds of thousands of young Hungarians leaving the country during Fidesz rule.
Kordas said “a strange kind of authoritarian capitalism” had emerged in the country, which had taken away the “savings, rights and even the lives” of employees.
József Szilágyi, co-head of the Liga unions group, castigated the government for legislating unilaterally without any meaningful social dialogue beforehand. He called for effective dialogue between government, employers and unions.
Tibor Mezei, head of the union representing employees of the foreign ministry, said that Hungary now had a labour shortage and the government was addressing this problem by increasing working hours and overtime. “But this is not a good solution,” he said.
Tamás Székely, deputy head of the trade union confederation VDSZ, chastised lawmakers for showing a lack of care for families.
“They think 400 hours of overtime is fine and it’s okay to pay three years afterwards,” he said.
Slogans of banners held aloft by protesters read:
“Together against the slavery law!”; “When dictatorship is a fact, revolution is a duty! “;” We won’t be Europe’s China!”.
According to the organisers, the demonstrators filled the whole of Alkotmány Street leading to the square in front of Parliament.
At the end of the demonstration, which was accompanied by a strong police presence, MTI reporters witnessed a man run to the stage and shout:
“Occupy Kossuth Square!”
Photo: MTI
The crowd managed to break through the police lines and stormed Kossuth Square. The police then formed a line of defence at the steps of Parliament. The protesters continued their chants there, but no violence occurred and about 20-30 minutes later crowd gathered in Kossuth Square started to disperse.
The ruling Fidesz-led alliance’s base has strengthened while the fortunes of its main right-wing political foe, the Jobbik party, have waned in the latest poll conducted by the Nézőpont Institute.
Fully 53 percent of decided voters expressed their support for Fidesz, according to the survey completed between November 10 and 27.
This is up 2 percent since the October survey and up 6 percent since the spring general election, Nézőpont said, adding that it appeared extra Fidesz support was at the expense of Jobbik.
Jobbik’s base was 15 percent of the think-tank’s latest sample, down from 17 percent in the previous survey and a 4 percent decline since the general election. Mi Hazánk, the party formed by former Jobbik politicians, increased its voter base to 2 percent.
The core support of the opposition Socialist Party’s alliance with Párbeszéd stayed level at 10 percent while its support among all respondents nudged up a point to 6 percent, or around half a million potential voters, according to Nézőpont’s personal interviews of 2,000 voting-age adults.
Altogether 38 percent of Nézőpont’s entire sample backed the Fidesz-led alliance, amounting to around three million voters.
Jobbik’s support in this category fell from 10 percent to 9 percent, or around 800,000 sympathisers.
The Democratic Coalition’s core support dropped by a point to 7 percent while overall it stayed level at 4 percent, while the satirical Two-Tailed Dog Party increased its core support from 1 percent to 3 percent.
LMP and Momentum were each on 2 percent among all voters, while Mi Hazánk was backed by 1 percent of Nézőpont’s respondents.
Opposition Párbeszéd has called on the Hungarian foreign minister to resign over the case of former Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who is seeking asylum in Hungary, the party’s spokesman said on Sunday.
The circumstances of Gruevski’s arrival in Hungary have not been properly clarified since the affair came to light five days ago, Richárd Barabás told a press conference held in front of the foreign ministry.
He said it was unclear “why the Hungarian government helped Gruevski flee” his home country and has stopped short of extraditing the Macedonian politician to his home country so that he may start his prison term in line with domestic and international law.
Under a 1969 decree, Hungary must extradite Gruevski, who is wanted on an international warrant, to Macedonia since he entered the country without a passport, said Barabás.
Responsibility lies with the government, including the prime minister and the head of his office, he said. But it is the foreign minister who should resign since, according to press reports, members of Hungarian embassies in Tirana and Montenegro assisted Gruevski and were “actively involved in brining Gruevski to Hungary”, he added.
He said
Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó was no longer fit to represent Hungary in international affairs since he had breached several international and Hungarian laws by allowing “a criminal to be smuggled” into Hungary.
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Tímea Szabó and Gergely Karácsony were both re-elected unchallenged for another 18 months as the liberal opposition Párbeszéd party’s co-leaders at a party meeting on Sunday.
Party members also voted to appoint members of Párbeszed’s board. Besides Szabó and Karácsony, the other members are: Zsolt Szabó, András Béres, Beáta Hegyesi, Bence Tordai and Péter Mach.
He said that whereas several opposition parties were preparing their own separate lists for the EP election, many civil society organisations and social movements shared Párbeszéd’s precepts. So it wants the broadest possible social support for their EP list with the Socialists, he added.
Szabó said Párbeszéd’s alliance with other opposition forces would only endure if Karácsony was re-elected as the mayor of the Budapest district of Zugló in next year’s local elections, with the support of their allies at local, regional and national level.
Szabó said Párbeszéd‘s key policy is to introduce a basic universal income. Also, the party wants to work to scrap the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant and solve housing problems, she said. Further, health care and education will be priority areas, she added.
In response to a question, Karácsony said he continued to back a primary for selecting the opposition’s candidate for Budapest mayor and hopefully related agreements would be ready by the end of the year. Any attempt to split the opposition forces in the capital would be irresponsible and lead to the re-election of Fidesz’s István Tarlós, he added. With a primary, votes will converge on the best candidate as part of a democratic process, he said. “I find this principle more important than any personal ambitions,” he added.
The opposition Socialist and Párbeszéd parties will set up a joint list for next May’s European parliamentary elections, the leader of the Socialist Party said on Saturday.
“The majority of Hungarians want Hungary to remain a member of the European Union,”
Bertalan Tóth told a press conference on the sidelines of the party’s assembly meeting.
Tóth said the two parties would fight to limit the influence of political forces working to disintegrate the EU on the bloc’s decisions.
Gergely Karácsony, Párbeszéd’s co-leader, welcomed the Socialist assembly’s “overwhelming support” for a joint election list.
Párbeszéd will discuss a proposal on a joint list at a party meeting on Sunday, Karácsony said, adding that he would advocate for the party to continue its partnership with the Socialists.
Fully 38 percent of Hungarian voters, or around 3 million people, support the ruling Fidesz-led alliance, according to a fresh poll by the Nézőpont Institute.
Based on decided voters, Fidesz would capture an absolute majority of votes,
the survey conducted by personal interviews of 2,000 people between October 10 and 29 found.
The conservative opposition Jobbik party had the backing of 10 percent of the entire sample, or around 800,000 sympathisers, unchanged from the previous month,
Nézőpont said in the report published on Friday. The new party formed by a Jobbik splinter group, Mi Hazank, polled 1 percent.
The Socialist Party together with Párbeszéd was steady with 5 percent, while DK had the support of 4 percent of the whole sample. Green party LMP only notched up 2 percent, similar to the Momentum Movement and the satirical Two-Tailed Dog Party.
Among decided voters, Jobbik was 1 percentage point lower than the previous month, at 17 percent, while the Socialist-Párbeszéd joint list had 10 percent and DK was on 8 percent.
Momentum, Two-Tailed Dog, LMP, Mi Hazánk would not pass the 5 percent threshold for parliamentary representation either in the Hungarian or EU legislatures.
Nézőpont reckons that the Fidesz-led alliance with the Christian Democrats would send 13 of their number to the European Parliament, while Jobbik would have 4 of theirs in the EP.
Socialist-Párbeszéd would have two MEPs, as would DK if the election were held currently.
The National Election Committee (NVB) on Thursday rejected referendum bids submitted by two opposition parties on university tuition and scrapping health-care privileges for top government officials.
Last month,
the Párbeszéd party submitted referendum questions on ensuring that state university tuition in Hungary remains in the public sector and is free of charge.
The NVB rejected the bid, arguing the questions failed to define the term tuition and were otherwise too vague. Also, the budget law would have to be changed, it said.
The questions related to scrapping health-care privileges for senior government officials were submitted by the Socialists.
The body argued that the questions concerned personal matters that are defined by parliamentary powers and rejected the initiative for otherwise being ambiguous.
The two parties have 15 days to appeal NVB’s decisions at the Kúria, Hungary’s supreme court. The parties vowed to appeal the committee’s decision.
As we wrote on August, the National Election Committee (NVB) on Tuesday elected Péter Rádi as its new chair after András Patyi resigned the position, read more HERE.
The opposition Socialists and Párbeszéd plan to prepare jointly for next year’s European Parliamentary elections and their campaign will focus on demanding Hungary’s accession to the European public prosecutor’s office (EPPO), Párbeszéd co-leader Gergely Karácsony said in Eger, in northern Hungary, on Monday.
The other key topic for the EP election is how to use EU funds for narrowing social gaps and strengthening the economy rather than financing the power-holders those in power “who took Hungary far from western European democracies over the past eight years”, he said.
Karácsony accused Hungary’s judiciary of “complicity” and failure to effectively fight against political corruption.
EU resources in many cases fail to take Hungary closer to Europe.
Some of the investment projects give cause for pleasure but the way development funding is spent is “extremely centralised” and much of it “funds a corrupt regime which robs Hungary of the chance for a European life,” Karácsony said.
The fight against corruption and the renewal of Europe will be highlighted during the EP election campaign, he said.
The EU should become the Europe of the peoples instead of the Europe of power elites, and the Socialists-Párbeszéd alliance will promote this vision in the EP so that Hungary should become a true western democracy, he added.
The Socialist and Párbeszéd parties have submitted to parliament an education bill which aims for a fairer system, with the involvement of other opposition parties and civil organisations.
Hungary’s education system “is in crisis”, Socialist MP Ágnes Kunhalmi said. The number of functionally illiterate school-leavers is rising and teacher shortages are getting to be an acute problem, she added.
The draft prepared in January by two teacher movements signed by nine parties and non-parliamentary organisations has been submitted in form of a decree proposal, Kunhalmi said.
Párbeszéd MP Bence Tordai said the bill put the principle of student equality at its heart.
“We want every student to have the opportunity to earn qualifications based on their performance and skills, irrespective of their family background,” he said.
Among the proposed measures are uniform school-leaving exams in secondary schools and ensuring that students gain equal access to higher education. It also proposes ideological neutrality in education and urges eliminating segregation in schools, Tordai said.
Opposition parties and civil groups staged a demonstration in Budapest’s Bem József Square on Tuesday calling for Hungary to join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO).
Independent MP Ákos Hadházy, the organiser of the demonstration, said that if the opposition managed to collect one million signatures in support of a campaign aimed at getting Hungary to join the EPPO, the government would agree to join.
He said this would not result in the suspension of the transfer of European Union funds to Hungary, but would instead drive back corruption.
Hadházy announced that opposition and civil activists would soon start collecting signatures for the suspension of home evictions.
Péter Márki-Zay, the mayor of Hódmezővásárhely, said the “Orbán regime” could only be ousted if the opposition joined forces. “We’ll need 3,200 Hódmezővásárhelys in order to defeat the party-state in next year’s local elections,” he said, referring to the opposition cooperation that allowed him to win the city’s interim mayoral election in February.
Tamás Harangozó of the Socialist Party said the European prosecutor’s office would be used by the opposition as a weapon “in the freedom fight against the Orbán regime” before it leads the country to a dead end.
Párbeszéd MEP Benedek Jávor said the government, which he called a “thief regime”, was turning Hungary away from the EU for its self-enrichment.
Photo: MTI
Democratic Coalition board member Judit Földi urged the elimination of the consequences of “destruction caused by the Orban regime” and called for the creation of a liveable Hungary.
At the event, Anna Donáth, a deputy leader of the opposition Momentum Movement, reassured the campaign of her party’s support.
The demonstration was attended by a few hundred people.
Following the demonstration at Bem József Square, some two hundred protesters headed over to the Budapest headquarters of Hungarian public broadcaster MTVA to demonstrate in support of independent news coverage.
In a speech in front of the HQ, Hadházy said a “disinformation-filled dictatorship, or demagoguery” was the best way to describe the current state of affairs in Hungarian media. He said the April general elections had been “rigged”, and therefore the current parliament was illegitimate.
The opposition Párbeszéd party is submitting a referendum initiative with a view to ensuring that university tuition in Hungary is free of charge, party board member Gábor Erőss told a press conference in front of the National Election Office building in Budapest on Friday.
Currently, students are required to pay a tuition fee unless they qualify for a state grant.
The party will submit the question:
“Do you agree that students of state-funded higher education courses should not pay for tuition?”
Erőss said that ruling Fidesz wants to “privatise” Budapest’s Corvinus University, to be followed by “all other institutions”, further restricting access to higher education in an “already very unfair system”.
On the surface the government is enhancing their autonomy while actually “putting public funds into the hands of Fidesz oligarchs”, he said.
Lawmaker Bence Tordai said that
the party’s proposal for a universal basic income would benefit university students, who would receive 3.6 million forints (EUR 11,000) over 5 years.
CORVINUS UNIVERSITY TO HAVE 4 MILLION TUITION FEE AND MORE FOREIGN STUDENTS
With 4 million forints of tuition fee per semester, Corvinus University of Budapest can easily become the University of rich people. From 2020, state-sponsored semesters will no longer be available, and everyone who would like to study at the university will have to pay, read more HERE.
The State Audit Office (ÁSZ) has proposed suspending state funding for the opposition Párbeszéd and Momentum parties.
Under Hungarian law, a political party that receives voter support of one percent or more on its national list must submit to a state audit of their campaign spending within twelve months of the ballot.
Opposition Párbeszéd and the newly established Momentum Movement failed to submit data or documents and could not be reached at their respective premises where they are registered, the auditor said on Thursday.
ÁSZ has told the parties to get in touch and notify the authority within 15 days of their availability.
Párbeszéd responded that it had submitted all data required by law to the authority in time.
The party said that they had moved to new premises at the start of the year, adding that the registration of the new premises was underway.
Garancsi owns the MOL-Vidi soccer club, which is sponsored by Hungarian oil and gas company MOL, he noted.
“There is much confusion in government communication in connection with the affair,” he said.
Párbeszéd will request the committee’s position whether a parliamentary politician is entitled to receive private jet travel as a gift and whether it has to be entered into the annual declaration of assets, Kocsis-Cake said.
Hungarian law obliges lawmakers to declare any gift or benefit that has a value greater than their monthly salary, he said.
