Együtt-Dialogue for Hungary

E-PM lambasts House Speaker over remarks on Ukraine crisis

Budapest, September 5 (MTI) – The opposition E-PM party has voiced sharp criticism over recent remarks on the Ukrainian government by the speaker of parliament, and called on Laszlo Kover to withdraw his “intolerable statement”.

E-PM told MTI on Friday that Kover’s words were equal to an “unacceptable outburst against the Ukrainian government”. E-PM also called on Prime Minister Viktor Orban to distance himself from Kover, a member of the ruling Fidesz party.

On the sidelines of an event dubbed Freedom Express marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of Communism in Europe on Wednesday, Kover suggested that the Ukraine crisis was an “externally manipulated process” aimed at separating Europe and Russia “once and for all”. Kover also criticised Ukraine for a lack of democracy by suspending the election law preferential to the Hungarian ethnic community.

Kover highlighted the importance of Hungary’s being a NATO member, a status which he said could protect the country against Russia’s power.

Concerning the Ukraine crisis, Kover said it was not likely that “the military of a non-existent Ukrainian state” could defeat Russia, or that Russian President Vladimir Putin should “change his mind” or that international sanctions could make Russia surrender. “It would be good, instead, if regular cooperation could be developed between Europe and Russia, but there is no chance for that for the time being,” Kover said.

Budget Committee to Meet on Monday over Cbank Spending

Daily News Hungary

(MTI) – Sandor Burany, Socialist head of parliament’s budget committee, has called a meeting of the body for next Monday to hear Gyorgy Matolcsy, governor of the National Bank, as well as members of the supervisory board in connection with recent purchases by the central bank.

Burany told MTI on Tuesday that apart from his Socialist Party, the opposition LMP and E-PM parties have also urged a hearing with the National Bank leaders.

The deputy head of the committee, however, said in a statement that Burany had convened the body illegally and without prior consultations. Lajos Szucs, a ruling Fidesz delegate, insisted that such matters are overviewed by the economic committee and suggested that the head of the central bank is not responsible to the budget committee.

The National Bank’s operations are supervised by the State Audit Office, which reports to the economic committee, therefore the budget committee does not have the authority to investigate the matter or hear members of the supervisory board, Szucs argued. Fidesz-delegated members of the budget committee will “not assist in that unlawful act”, he said, and called on other invitees to Monday’s hearing to follow suit.

Earlier in the day, MP Zsuzsanna Szelenyi, speaking on behalf of E-PM, demanded that the body should hear Matolcsy as well as Economy Minister Mihaly Varga over the central bank’s recent “spending spree”.

The central bank has “again made some extraordinary purchases,” Szelenyi told a press conference. She insisted that the bank’s supervisory board had not convened in the recent period and Matolcsy had “run wild”.

The National Bank of Hungary has spent money on luxury property acquisitions and injected over 200 billion forints (EUR 635.6m) into foundations aimed at teaching “an alternative, unorthodox economics a la Matolcsy,” she said. The governor and leadership of the central bank have absolutely no authorisation to do such things, as the bank is owned by the state and its extra revenues should have been paid into the central budget in the form of dividends, Szelenyi insisted. Matolcsy in this case is “lying” when he cites the independence and financial freedom of the central bank.

Bajnai to head investment fund

Budapest, September 2 (MTI) – Former prime minister and a leading politician of the E-PM opposition alliance, Gordon Bajnai, will take a job as the chief executive of an investment fund, the online news website hvg.hu reported today.

Bajnai said he would be reponsible for the operative management of the French-owned Meridiam group’s fund manager, specialising in infrastructure investments. He said he had been working on the company’s supervisory board for the past two years.

Bajnai will not give up his roles in the Haza es Haladas (Patriotism and Progress) foundation, which he founded, nor will he give up his positions in the Egyutt party, hvg.hu said.

Co-chairman of E-PM Viktor Szigetvari announced early in June that Bajnai would step back from the foreground of politics and will not take part in Egyutt’s day-to-day operations.

Photo: www.hazaeshaladas.org

Fidesz maintains lead, opposition parties strengthen

Daily News Hungary

(MTI) – Although ruling Fidesz maintained its firm lead ahead of its rivals, the opposition left-of-centre parties, namely the Socialists, the Democratic Coalition and the E-PM alliance, increased their support in August, a poll released by Ipsos on Thursday showed.

With two months ahead of the local elections, the electorate became more active which is reflected in the increase of the proportion of those indicating firm intent to vote to 48 percent this month from 44 percent in July, the pollster said.

This trend is also reflected in a drop of voters with no clear party preference to 30 percent from 34 percent, Ipsos said.

Both trends benefitted parties on the left, the pollster said.

While support for Fidesz stayed level at 33 percent in the whole sample, it went up for the Socialists by two points to 12 percent, and for DK and E-PM one point each to 3 percent. Support for radical nationalist Jobbik dropped one point to 12 percent and remained the same for small green LMP at 3 percent.

Among decided voters who are certain to go to the polls, support for Fidesz dropped to 49 percent from 56 percent, while it went up for Jobbik to 19 percent from 16 percent and for the Socialists to 18 percent from 15 percent in July.

In this group DK reached the parliamentary entry threshold of 5 percent, while LMP lost one point to stand at 3 percent and E-PM stayed level at 3 percent, the poll showed.

Ipsos conducted the poll by asking 1,000 voting-age adults in the second week of August.

Együtt-PM to Run Independently at Local Council Elections in Budapest

Budapest, August 12 (MTI) – The opposition E-PM party will run independently at the local council elections in Budapest and will make individual agreements with other parties on a district level, a party statement sent to MTI said today.

E-PM said the decision has been made after the Socialists had refused to accept a deal made with the Democratic Coalition on Friday.

It is regrettable that as a result of the Socialists’ decision, “a situation has developed in Budapest that will not represent a good solution to all districts in Budapest,” the E-PM said. The Socialists endanger the strengthening of opposition forces in Budapest and there could be Budapest districts where more than one democratic opposition candidate will face the ruling Fidesz candidate, the statement added.

Local elections – Socialists endanger opposition election pact, says E-PM

(MTI) – The opposition E-PM party alliance on Saturday said the Socialists were endangering an opposition cooperation agreement for the local elections and asked them not to do so.

After a draft agreement was approved on Monday, the Socialists had unilaterally redrafted the agreement on Friday with elements which were not favourable to E-PM or the leftist opposition Democratic Coalition (DK), E-PM said in a statement sent to MTI.

E-PM welcomes the Socialists’ support for the joint mayoral candidate Ferenc Falus, but re-writing the agreement unilaterally hurts the trust between the parties involved, the statement said.

“We believe that it is only possible to alter an agreed cooperation pact with consent from all parties,” E-PM said.

E-PM calls on the Socialists to remedy the situation by the planned signing of the joint agreement on Monday, otherwise E-PM would withdraw from the cooperation and run alone in the autumn elections, the statement added.

Agnes Kunhalmi, the head of the Socialist Party’s Budapest chapter, said on Saturday that there were only minor issues to be resolved in the cooperation and these should not endanger agreement on the whole. She said that the Socialists had accepted Falus’s joint candidacy while he will be listed in E-PM colours on the voting ballot. She said there were debates regarding candidates in two or three districts, but this should not jeopardise an agreement.

Photo: MTI – Balazs Mohai

Leftist Opposition Nearing Agreement on Candidates for Local Elections

Budapest, August 4 (MTI) – Parties of the leftist opposition have prepared a draft agreement concerning their candidates running for the mayor of Budapest and for district mayors.

The leadership of each party will make their decision on the draft by the next day, and further details will be published on Wednesday, Viktor Szigetvari, co-leader of the E-PM alliance, told a press conference today.

Concerning the opposition’s candidate for Budapest mayor, Szigetvari said that “there is a good chance (incumbent) mayor Istvan Tarlos will be challenged by a worthy opponent”.

Szigetvari said that he saw no chance for further changes to the draft agreement and insisted that the parties “will have to say yes or no”. He added that he was ready to give a “proud and prepared yes” to the question. He said he was confident “corrupt mayors delegated by (ruling) Fidesz to many districts” will be “cleared away” by left-liberal candidates of the opposition.

Csaba Molnar, the deputy head of the Democratic Coalition, said the draft also contained an agreement on the compensation lists of districts, as well as a proposed distribution of constituencies. He added that he expected his party’s board to grant approval to the agreement.

Socialist politician Csaba Horvath said on Sunday that besides having to select a joint candidate for the mayor of Budapest, the left-of-centre opposition parties have yet decide on candidates for nine of the capital’s 15 districts, where they are planning to run joint candidates.

The leader of the Socialist group in the municipal assembly told MTI that agreements between the Socialists, E-PM and the Democratic Coalition (DK) were close to being finalised with regard to six districts, while differences of standpoint on the other nine were almost unbridgeable or in some cases less onerous.

Unless these outstanding issues are resolved it will be impossible to come to a common standpoint on the question of a joint candidate for the mayor of Budapest, he said.

Horvath, who heads the Socialist Party’s negotiating team, added that it was expected that a public opinion survey on the question who should be selected as candidate for the city’s mayor would be ready by the middle of next week. He said all parties involved should stand behind the candidate with the highest chance of dislodging the incumbent, Istvan Tarlos, who is backed by the ruling Fidesz party.

Opposition Slams Prime Minister Over Baile Tusnad Address

Budapest, July 26 (MTI) – Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s “shocking” address at a summer university course in central Romania’s Baile Tusnad was an obituary for the liberal state, the opposition E-PM party alliance said in a statement sent to MTI on Saturday.

According to the green opposition LMP, Orban and his Fidesz party are responsible for such developments back in the 1990s as the emergence of a liberal democracy which could not ensure sufficient protection against profiteering from public assets .

In its statement, E-PM said that the Hungarian prime minister was copying the president of Russia, and that his Saturday morning speech marked “not just the end of liberal democracy but democracy itself”. The state of Hungary no longer represents all its residents “but a small circle of beneficiaries: those that have been granted land, tobacco stores, public orders or employment”. Signatories to the statement insisted that Orban had also adopted Putin’s idea of “persecuting civil society on grounds that it receives support from other countries, too”. “Civil groups supported by the Norway Civil Fund are crucial components of a Western-style Hungary which Orban seeks to destroy. The foreign agents are not them but Orban himself, who has borrowed from Putin’s Russia nearly 1,000 times the amount of the annual Norway grants, to finance a totally pointless upgrade of the Paks nuclear plant,” E-PM said in its statement.

Speaking to MTI, LMP co-chair Andras Schiffer suggested that Orban’s Fidesz party had supported the privatisation of state assets “without control” after 1989. He also said that the alternative to a liberal democracy should not be a “public work-based society or slavery” but a democracy based on voter participation. Schiffer also lambasted the government for its economic policies, and said that those in the past four years were “not a bit different” from the policies of the previous 20 years. Building the economy on multinational companies will increase the country’s vulnerability, Schiffer said, and added that recent layoffs and the closure of factories indicate that those policies have failed and cannot be used to create new jobs. Public works schemes will not prevent young people from seeking employment in other countries, he added.

According to the Socialist Party, Orban’s speech indicates that the prime minister has “left the values of European and Hungarian democracies behind”. Socialist chair Jozsef Tobias called for a country in which “freedom is a realistic experience”, whether it is the freedom of civil movements or the individual’s freedom of choosing between jobs.

The radical nationalist Jobbik party referred to ethnic Hungarians in Romania as “the largest minority in Europe deprived of their rights” and criticised Orban for “omitting to mention that the EU does not provide a resolution” for them. Jobbik deputy leader Elod Novak said that his party agreed with the government that a work-based society should be encouraged, but said that rather than “doctoring statistical figures” the government should provide incentives for couples raising children.

Board member of the leftist Democratic Coalition (DK) Szabolcs Kerek-Barczy said that in his address that the prime minister had in fact called for “a fascist state and dismantling freedom”. Kerek-Barczy voiced shock at Orban’s citing Russia or China as examples to be followed, “just because those states are efficiently organised”, and said that the welfare or pension systems of those countries are far behind those in the forefront of the European Union. Kerek-Barczy also criticised Orban for dismissing the promotion of freedom rights as a democratic priority, and said that “all democrats in Hungary should be on the lookout and prepare for civil resistance”. He argued that “Orban is ready to set fire not only to Hungary but Central Europe and the whole of the democratic West”.

Photo: MTI – Laszlo Beliczay

Civilians, Politicians Protest Against Erection Of Monument To Nazi Victims

(MTI) – Civilians and politicians staged a protest in central Budapest on Sunday after a contested monument dedicated to the victims of Hungary’s German occupation had been erected overnight.

Related article:
Metropolitan Court rejects referendum on WWII memorial, says Socialist lawmaker 

The plan to set up the monument for the 70th anniversary of Hungary’s Nazi German occupation was announced at the end of last year and it has been heavily criticised by opposition parties and civilians ever since, stating that it distracted attention from the nation’s role in the Holocaust.

The protesters in Szabadsag Square formed a live chain that included Ildiko Lendvai of the Socialists and Tamas Bauer of the Democratic Coalition (DK), with some of the protesters pelting eggs at the monument. MTI’s local correspondent said other politicians who attended the event included the Socialists newly elected chairman Jozsef Tobias, co-chair of E-PM Gergely Karacsony and DK deputy leader Peter Niedermuller.

Police and riot police were present.

Police told MTI on Sunday afternoon that reports had been submitted against three of the protesters for violation of peace, including egg pelting, and police checked the identity of a total of 11 protesters.

DK leader Ferenc Gyurcsany said Prime Minister Viktor Orban was “falsifying the Holocaust” by getting a monument “confusing the murderer and the victim” erected “in the shelter of the night.” He accused Orban of dishonouring all Jewish, Roma and gay victims of the Holocaust and added that it was “characteristic of the regime that it did not dare set up the statue of falsehood during the day.”

The opposition E-PM said in a statement that the monuments would be removed if a centre-left mayor is elected in Budapest at the upcoming local elections this autumn. It said the monument fails to serve objective and peaceful remembrance but attempts to deny the responsibility of the Hungarian state.

The Hungarian Liberal Party said in a statement sent to MTI that instead of being a reminder of the horrors of war, the Nazi occupation monument has become “a memorial to the arrogance of the Hungarian government.” It shows that the Fidesz-KDNP party alliance does not want to promote genuine national reconciliation and jointly face the past.

Pal Steiner, Socialist candidate for mayor in district 5 where the monument stands, announced on Saturday that the Budapest Court of Appeal had rejected an initiative on a referendum for preventing the erection of the statue.

Photo: MTI – Noemi Bruzak

Constitutional Court Rejects E-PM Appeal For Referendum On Paks Expansion

Budapest, July 8 (MTI) – Hungary’s Constitutional Court rejected on Tuesday a petition submitted by the leftist E-PM alliance for holding a referendum on the expansion of the Paks nuclear plant with a state loan.

E-PM turned to the top court in May, after the Kuria, Hungary’s supreme court, upheld a decision by the National Election Committee (NVB) ruling out a referendum on the expansion of the country’s sole nuclear plant.

The Kuria said that it had rejected a petition against the committee’s decision on the basis that the country’s fundamental law bars holding a popular ballot on agreements deriving from obligations set forth in an international accord.

The referendum initiative was lodged by Viktor Szigetvari and Benedek Javor. The question they wanted put to voters was: “Do you agree that the new reactor block should not be built in Hungary using a loan which inflates the public debt?”

Szigetvari and Javor turned to the Constitutional Court as the ultimate possibility to appeal against the Kuria’s decision. E-PM argued that the Hungarian state had assumed no obligation for building new nuclear blocks in the accord so the proposed question did not affect an international obligation. It follows that failure to build such block is not a violation of an international accord.

In E-PM’s view, the supreme court broadened in its ruling the interpretation of the country’s constitution and restricted with this the right to a public referendum.

In its justification published on Tuesday, the Constitutional Court said that the issue addressed by E-PM is not against the constitution and upheld the Kuria’s decision, which it said had not violated any fundamental right.

Photo: www.birosag.hu

Együtt Plans To Become Ruling Party That Supports The Needy, Says Executive Co-Chair

Budapest, June 22 (MTI) – Egyutt (Together) plans to function as a party that is able to govern, supports the development of the middle classes and expresses strong sympathy with the needy, newly elected executive co-chair Viktor Szigetvari said on Sunday.

Szigetvari said the party held a meeting on Saturday where participants decided to make every effort to oust Prime Minister Viktor Orban in 2018 and create a better country.

In his programme as executive co-chair of the party, Szigetvari said he set out to develop a party that is successful, able to govern and places emphasis on liberalism and a centre-left identity that is free of opposition LMP’s “anti-elite populism” and also of left-wing parties’ recent return to populist tendencies.

He said Egyutt would continue to incorporate the Solidarity movement and it would strengthen the alliance with the Dialogue for Hungary (PM) party.

Szigetvari said there is a group of prosecutors in Hungary who keep the justice administration system “in detention” and chief prosecutor Peter Polt is an obstacle to revealing the truth, because he works towards “serving Viktor Orban” instead of working for the truth. In response to a question whether Polt should be sent to jail, Szigetvari said “he should if he commits a crime”.

Photo: MTI – Attila Kovacs

Egyutt To Develop Independent Character, Says Co-chair

Budapest, June 21 (MTI) – The opposition Egyutt (Together) party will aim to develop an independent character, co-leader Peter Juhasz said on Saturday during a break of a party meeting for the re-election of officials and restructuring.

The party’s members want the organisation which has so far focused mainly on garnering votes for the left-wing party alliance to go through a process of democratisation, Juhasz said.

The election defeat of the left-wing alliance resulted from bad compromises, as demonstrated by Egyutt’s success at the European parliamentary election where it ran independently, Juhasz said.

He defined Egyutt as a party dedicated to the development of middle-class and European values.

The Hungarian Solidarity Movement will return to its roots and attempt to address everyday people, those in need and people living outside Budapest, the party told MTI in a statement on Saturday.

As one of the founding organisations of Egyutt, Solidarity will prepare for the autumn local council elections together with Egyutt and will support Egyutt’s candidates, the statement added.

Solidarity will continue to support Peter Konya who will not accept any positions in Egyutt at the party meeting for the re-election of officials, because, next to working in parliament, he will dedicate his efforts to further developing the movement, the statement said.

Photo: MTI – Attila Kovacs

Opposition Slams Orban For Forming Govt “Behind Closed Doors”

(MTI) – Hungary’s opposition slammed Viktor Orban for forming his government “behind closed doors” and by “sleight of hand” after the new cabinet ministers were sworn in on Friday.

Jozsef Tobias, the Socialist Party‘s acting group leader, told reporters it was worrying that it had taken two months to form the new government, which had been finalised “behind closed doors” just an hour before today’s parliamentary session. He accused Orban of sidestepping parliamentary controls “at his own pleasure”.

The co-leaders of the LMP party told a press conference that the new government would enjoy an unprecedented concentration of power both in the hands of Orban and his cabinet chief, Janos Lazar. Referring to Lazar, Bernadett Szel said “the least suitable person has been placed in the most powerful seat”. Lazar launched an “unprecedented attack” against independent sectors, the civil sector and the press, she added.

The Democratic Coalition vowed to mount “the fiercest opposition to the Orbanite world.” Ferenc Gyurcsany, the party’s leader, said in a statement that it “speaks volumes” that the government had been formed behind closed doors with almost no media presence, and it does not have a single female member.

The leftist opposition E-PM alliance said it would seek to expose the government’s “sleaze” over the next four years. Speaking at a press conference, Zsuzsanna Szelenyi said that Orban’s government had pushed Hungary’s future generations into servicing the public debt. If it carries on like this, more funding will be taken away from schools and churches, and Hungary will be pushed into further debt with the project to upgrade the Paks nuclear plant, she said. Peter Konya, a co-leader of the alliance, pledged to act as a distinctive political force which acts “fairly both in parliament and in the streets,” but will be radical if need be. They will take action against the government’s “abuse of its two-thirds majority” and “bring the opposition left into a united front,” he said.

The radical nationalist Jobbik party disagrees with the composition of the government, Janos Volner, the party’s deputy leader, told a press conference. If the government continues its policies, more and more Hungarians will emigrate and the country will fall into decay, he said.

Photo: MTI – Tamas Kovacs

Fidesz Asks Bajnai To Represent Country’s Interests At Bilderberg Group Meeting

Budapest, May 30 (MTI) – The ruling Fidesz party is asking all Hungarian politicians to always represent Hungary’s interests, even when they are abroad, group leader Antal Rogan said on Friday commenting on opposition E-PM leader Gordon Bajnai’s invitation to an upcoming meeting by the Bilderberg Group in Denmark.

In response to a question about Bajnai’s invitation to the meeting, reported by news portal origo.hu, Rogan told a press conference that regardless of political affiliation, Hungarian politicians should represent Hungary’s interests and it would be unacceptable for anyone to do the contrary.

Fidesz deputy leader Lajos Kosa said that the Bilderberg Group claims it collects the world’s most influential people at its conferences. However, if they thought of nobody else but Bajnai from Hungary, then they are an “all-talk-no-action club,” he added.

In response to Fidesz’s call, co-leader of E-PM Viktor Szigetvari voiced agreement and said that Hungary’s politicians should enforce the country’s interests in all circumstance. He added that he was certain that Janos Martonyi, Hungary’s outgoing foreign minister, did so when he had attended a Bilderberg conference back in 2008.

Szigetvari said that Prime Minister Viktor Orban should have considered Hungary’s interests before “selling off the country’s energy independence to the Russians”, or Kosa, when he had “brutally weakened the forint through making a single statement”.

Radical nationalist Jobbik deputy group leader Marton Gyongyosi urged that details of the Bilderberg meetings should be made public alongside with the instructions given to Hungarian representatives.

The Bilderberg Group is an annual private conference of political leaders, financial experts and bankers and the details of their meetings are kept confidential.

Photo: MTI – Zoltan Mathe

EP Elections – Opposition Result Remaps Politics, Says Javor

Budapest, May 26 (MTI) – The European parliamentary elections have created a power balance in the opposition, which remaps politics, Benedek Javor, an MEP candidate for E-PM, said on Monday, the day after the election.
A result of 7.2 percent for E-PM is a great success for a party formed only a year ago, Javor said.

The opposition is now made up not only of one dominant party, but of political forces with similar social backing and this will change opposition politics, he insisted.

“I believe that E-PM will be the flagship of renewal,” said Javor.

Javor said the results could mean that E-PM would run on its own in the local government elections in the autumn.

The radical nationalist Jobbik party garnered 14.68 percent of the overall vote in Sunday’s election, as against 10.92 percent by the Socialists, 9.76 percent by DK, 7.22 percent by E-PM and 5.01 percent by LMP.

Photo: MTI – Zoltan Mathe

EP Elections – E-PM Expects Votes From Those Who Want To Be European And Hungarian

Budapest, May 25 (MTI) – E-PM expects the votes of Hungarians in today’s EP election who want to be Europeans, and, at the same time, remain Hungarians, the opposition alliance’s leader said on Sunday.

Gordon Bajnai, a former prime minister, cast his ballot in Budapest in the morning.

He said one of the main stakes of the ballot was to decide in what sort of Hungary voters’ children and grandchildren would grow up in, and whether they could be just as much European as Hungarian citizens.

In order to achieve this, a Hungarian opposition is needed that renews and strengthens itself so that it can offer an alternative to the current regime of Viktor Orban, Bajnai said. The Sunday EP election can serve as the first step in the process, he added.

Hungarians who cast their vote for the E-PM alliance want the opposition to undergo a renewal and to become stronger, they want “to build a normal European Hungary after the Orban regime”, and they want to prevent a takeover of power by radical nationalist Jobbik from the Orban regime, Bajnai said.

Voting in the EP election in Hungary started at 6am.

A little more than 8 million Hungarians are eligible to vote to elect 21 members to the 751-member European Parliament from candidates on eight party lists in a single-round ballot.

The 10,386 polling stations will close at 7pm. It is expected that preliminary results will be announced at around 11pm, when nearly all votes have been counted, except for those cast abroad. The final result is expected to be announced on May 29.

Photo: MTI – Zoltan Mathe

EP Elections – Six-Party TV Debate

(MTI) – List leaders of six of the eight parties participating in the Hungarian EP elections on Sunday held a televised debate about the European Union and the stake of the vote.

The debate organised by commercial broadcaster ATV was attended by representatives of the Socialist Party, Jobbik, Politics Can Be Different (LMP), E-PM, Maria Seres’s Allies and the Homeland Not For Sale Party while the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance and the Democratic Coalition (DK) stayed away from the event.

Krisztina Morvai (Jobbik) said the public had become fed up with the politicians focussing on themselves and inter-party skirmishes rather than the ways of promoting Hungary’s rise. She expressed hope that the participants would agree on a national minimum which they can represent in Brussels together.

Ex-PM Gordon Bajnai (E-PM) said Hungary’s political life had been dominated by lies, narrow-mindedness and incitement for hatred. “Lies can only be covered up in debates,” he said, adding that this is why he had asked the radical nationalist Jobbik to participate. Bajnai said that the policy pursued by Jobbik is damaging national interests as it calls for Hungary to exit the European Union and get into the Russian sphere of influence. “As for Russian interests, Jobbik is acting hand in glove with Fidesz”, which has “escaped” from debates for several years, Bajnai said. He added that he respected but disagreed with DK’s arguments for staying away. The stake in the Sunday elections will be on which side of the Iron Curtain Hungary falls into: the West which champions European values, or the East “where [Prime Minister Viktor] Orban is pushing and [Jobbik leader Gabor] Vona is drawing the country,” he said. The other issue at stake is who will replace the Orban regime in 2018: will Jobbik offer an alternative or will there be a “decent, European option”.

Tibor Szanyi (Socialist) criticised Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the list-leader of Fidesz for their absence.

Tamas Meszerics (LMP) said the debate over the European Union’s future slipped sideways when parties started discussing whether they wanted more or less Europe. LMP is interested in how to create a better Europe, he said. LMP would like to see a European Union in which “the land belongs to those who cultivate it”, each employee is eligible for the same protection and all young people have access to a job in their own country.

Arpad Kasler (Homeland Not For Sale) said his party represents those who are fed up with politicians who do not practise what they preach. He added that the party had developed from a movement that sought to expose anomalies and violations of law connected with forex mortgage loans.

Tamas Toth (Maria Seres’s Allies) said they wish to protect life amidst poor public security. He said that Hungary should restore death penalty for murderers.

Assessing the past ten years, Szanyi said that Hungary had done well from joining the European Union and this had been the country’s best achievement it its thousand-year history. He said the Socialists had five expectations going into the European Parliament: a European minimum wage and pension, equal worker rights and conditions for men and women, guaranteeing full employment for youth below the age of 25, and affordable food prices with a view to eliminating hunger.

Morvai said that Hungary’s past ten years as an EU member have been a disaster.

Employees who work on assembly lines or in the departments of foreign-owned multinationals are deprived of their rights. Morvai said “farmland is being stolen,” Hungary’s agriculture had been destroyed and rural residents were impoverished while small firms are unable to keep pace with an inflow of goods from abroad.

Jobbik does not want to exit the EU because the party’s programme contains a Europe of nations model, she said, adding the party does not want a United States of Europe where Hungary’s affairs are directed from Brussels, Morvai said.

Bajnai noted that ten years ago three million Hungarians had voted for joining the EU but many of them had become disappointed. Fidesz and Jobbik tend to lie the blame on Brussels for the failure, he said. In reality, errors committed by the governments of the past decade and bad economic policies should be blamed, he said.

Photo: MTI – Laszlo Beliczay

EP Elections – Fidesz, Jobbik: Difference Slight, Direction Same, Says Bajnai

Budapest, May 21 (MTI) – There is only a slight degree of difference between ruling Fidesz and radical nationalist Jobbik, their direction is the same, both parties are driving Hungary out of Europe, Gordon Bajnai, the leader of the E-PM alliance, said on Wednesday.

Fidesz’s policy is aimed at “opening to the East,” but what the party fails to add that it also means “closing to the West,” Bajnai told a press conference in Szeged, where he was campaigning for the May 25 MEP elections.

The result of Fidesz’s policy “is Hungary’s thinning relations with the West, with Europe,” Bajnai said, adding the party wants to move the country into the sphere of Russian influence.

Fidesz serves Russian interests, a proof of which is the pact concluded with Russia on the upgrade of the Paks nuclear plant. The project, if implemented, will be the biggest mistake of the past 50 years, he said.

Jobbik obviously serves Russian interests as well, as one of its MEP candidates seems to have been working for Russia, Bajnai, an ex-prime minister, said.

Voters will have to decide on May 25 which policy they support, that of Fidesz and Jobbik that aim to take Hungary back to the Russian sphere, or the one that had taken the country into the EU, Bajnai, the list leader of the E-PM for the MEP elections, said.

Photo: MTI – Szilard Koszticsak