The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) calls on President Tamás Sulyok to resign over alleged involvement in crimes related to the illegal sale of Hungarian farmland, DK MEP Klára Dobrev told a press conference on Thursday.
Prior to the press conference, Dobrevhanded over documents to the Chief Prosecutor’s Office which she said had backed up her recent statements alleging that Sulyok as a lawyer had been involved in “illegally transferring Hungarian farmland to foreigners” in the early 2000s.
Sulyok committed crimes?
Dobrev, the leader of the Democratic Coalition-Socialists-Párbeszéd-Greens European Parliament list, said the documents provided clear evidence that the president had “committed crimes by illegally transferring Hungarian arable land to foreigners in the form of pocket contracts as a member of a mafia ring in Csongrád County”.
She said she submitted to the chief prosecutor documents signed by Sulyok on a deal concerning a 103-hectare area of farmland.
“No matter what Chief Prosecutor Peter Polt will do with those documents, it will not change the fact that President Tamas Sulyok committed crimes,” she insisted.
In a statement on Wednesday, the president’s office said that the President, who has not practised his profession as a lawyer for more than 10 years, had observed all laws in line with his lawyer’s oath and had never been involved in concluding any contracts going against the laws.
Farm minister István Nagy on Thursday opened Farmer Expo, an exhibition of farming and food products in eastern Hungary’s Debrecen which drew some 300 exhibitors.
Innovation and development are “unavoidable” and require results from “all fields of scientific research”, Nagy said.
Currently, 85,000 hectares of land in Hungary can be irrigated, he added. The government plans to develop irrigation for a further 100,000 hectares by the end of the cycle, which would raise production by 20 to 25 billion forints (EUR 61.6-76.9m), he said.
In a video message to the fair’s participants, Hungarian President János Áder said “agriculture is one of the most important factors in the challenge endangering human civilisation”. It is the sector most exposed to extreme weather changes, he said.
Agriculture is in need of changes in approach and technology, Áder said.
It will have to lay down the basics of modern irrigation systems, and develop plants capable of adapting to changing weather conditions, he said.
Hvg.hu reports that the price of soil in Hungary has increased by 10% in 2016. The value of the Hungarian soil has surpassed the level of the previous year by 11.2 % thus, on average, 1 hectare of land in Hungary was worth around 1.22 million forints (4,067 euros) in 2016. That is what is revealed by the Soil Index of TAKARÉK.
The rise in the prices has sped up significantly compared to the previous year, but it still lags behind the price present in the 2012-2014 period. Based on the data collected by TAKARÉK, the price of soil in Hungary has doubled in the last 5 years, although it is still not considered to be excessive.
By analysing the Soil Index, it is revealed that the level is around 2.5 million forint/hectare (8,333 euros) above which it is questionable in Hungary whether the investment really pays back.
The Soil Index of TAKARÉK increased to 180.5 in 2016 from the 162.4 level present a year before, while the rate compensated by inflation increased from 133.4 to 147.7.
TAKARÉK Soil Index and Consumer Price Index /takarekbank.hu/
In 2016, the prices increased in all the regions of Hungary.
The biggest increase was in Western Transdanubia where the territories were purchased for 23.4% more than in the same term of the previous year.
Compared to this, the price increase was less significant in Central Transdanubia (+14.1%) or in the Southern Great Plain (+13.8%), but Southern Transdanubia was also less affected by the increase (+12%). In the rest of the regions, the increase still rested below the average.
It was in the Northern Great Plain where they demanded the most for a part of agricultural land, but Western Transdanubia also surpassed Central Hungary that was considered to be the most expensive region for quite a long time before 2015. It is still in Northern Hungary, however, where it is the cheapest to buy a land because the prices did not reach the level of 750,000 forint/ hectare (2,500 euros) .
Why did the prices went up in each region?
The prices of the Hungarian soil in each region in 2016 (thousand forint/hectare) /takarekbank.hu/
In Northern Hungary, it is mostly the price of the vineyard estates that is the highest. It is almost 1.4 million forint/hectare (4,667 euros) making it the 4th highest among the vineyard regions in the country.
In Transdanubia, it is also because of the vineyard estates that the prices went up. In Central Transdanubia, for instance, a land can be worth around 2.3 million forint/hectare (7,667 euros).
In the Great Hungarian Plain, it is the orchards that are the most precious forms of land, while the agricultural lands are the 2nd most expensive ones.
In Central Hungary, besides the expensive orchards that are worth 1.5 million forint/hectare (5,000 euros), the lawns, meadows and pastures are also in an outstanding position with their value being around 1.3 million forint/hectare (4,333 euros). These properties are also 63% more expensive than the rest of the properties in the country with their average value of 800,000 forint/hectare (2,667 euros).
Based on the results, 2016 was an exceptional year thanks to the land privatization programme launched under the name of Land for the Farmers.
Hungary’s parliament will convene on five days during the upcoming two-week session, and lawmakers on Tuesday are likely to vote in support of cancelling the mandatory annual chimney inspection for households despite President János Áder recently returning the related law to parliament.
Members of government will field questions from lawmakers on Monday afternoon, the first sitting of the session.
On Tuesday, MPs will vote on the cancellation of mandatory annual chimney inspection which Áder has returned for reconsideration, stating that making inspections on a voluntary basis could significantly increase the number of life-threatening cases.
Lawmakers will also vote on amendment proposals by the government to improve competitiveness and changes that will affect the handling of migration.
On Thursday, debates are scheduled on ten proposals, including a general debate on a new tax law.
Lawmakers on Friday will mark November 3 as the day for the celebration of Hungarian science and they are scheduled to debate six proposals, including a general debate on expanding support for youth and amendments affecting the Hungarian Art Academy and the National Land Fund.
The last sitting of the upcoming two weeks will be held on Monday, when lawmakers will discuss in four hours a green opposition LMP initiative on compensating people who suffered losses as a result of mortgages taken out in foreign currencies.
The government has managed to carry out its farmland sales scheme dubbed Land to Farmers in a way that the Constitutional Court has declared lawful and constitutional, government office chief János Lázár said on Thursday. US-Hungary ties would be greatly helped if America appointed an ambassador to Hungary, he said.
Speaking at his weekly press briefing, Lázár said US charge d’affaires David Kostelancik’s recent remarks concerning press freedom in Hungary were “a lot of nonsense”.
“More US diplomats who speak Hungarian are needed,” Lázár said,
insisting that “if they spoke our language they would see that hundreds of articles criticising the government are published daily.” He added it was “far from the case2 that criticism of the government was missing from the Hungarian press.
Soros has ensured financing for his plan
US billionaire George Soros has guaranteed the conditions for financing his plan to import migrants into Europe, having donated a large portion of his wealth to his foundations, Lázár said on Thursday.
Lázár said:
“This money will be put to work everywhere in the whole of Europe, and it will support those civil communities and parties that want to open up Europe’s borders and that want to organise immigration.”
He said central European countries were being weighed down by huge pressures due to immigration, referring to the European Parliament Committee on Home Affairs, Citizenship and Justice’s (LIBE) decision to approve a draft text on modifying the Dublin Regulation. The reforms are aimed at speeding up asylum procedures and ensuring a more equal distribution of the burden of migration among member states. Lazar said the decision would open up the possibility for a permanent mechanism for distributing migrants.
Time for CEU to ‘make up its mind’
It is time for Budapest’s Central European University (CEU) to “make up its mind about what it wants done” in connection with Hungary’s higher education law,
the government office chief said.
Lázár said the CEU had “spent the whole summer” asking for the deadline for foreign universities to comply with the higher education law to be extended, but when parliament extended it “we are once again seeing political protests”.
“This isn’t fair,” Lázár said.
Lawmakers amended Hungary’s higher education law to extend the deadline for foreign universities and colleges operating in the country to meet the law’s criteria to January 1, 2019.
The government expects everyone to meet the law’s criteria within the allotted time, Lázár said.
Hungary tightened rules governing the operations of foreign universities in the country in the spring, requiring foreign colleges and universities in Hungary to operate on the basis of an interstate agreement and to run a campus in the country in which they are based.
The CEU has said that the latest amendment would prolong the state of uncertainty over its future and urged the government to sign an agreement with the State of New York to guarantee its future in Hungary.
Farmland sales scheme constitutional
Lázár noted that the scheme involved the sale of 200,000 hectares of farmland to 30,000 farmers and generated 270 billion forints (EUR 875.6m) in budget revenue.
The top court’s ruling has made it clear that all contracts in connection with the scheme were signed lawfully.
He said the court had also ruled that regulations must be set down on how revenues from the farmland sales could be spent. In addition, the court also declared the sale of land classified as “Natura2000” legal, but specified that the protection of their wildlife must continue to be upheld.
Benedek R Sallai of green opposition LMP and 51 opposition lawmakers had turned to the top court because they believed the government had introduced dubious measures retroactively in order to legalise the sale of state-owned land. The court on Tuesday said that some rules governing National Land Fund assets breach Hungary’s fundamental law. Whereas it rejected LMP’s concerns, it found that the law failed to specify the portion of the Fund’s lands that could be sold to reduce the public debt. This opened up the risk that the government could substantially reduce the Fund’s assets, ultimately jeopardising its operation, the ruling said.
Photo: MTI
EC’s position removes all barriers to Paks upgrade
The European Commission has released its written position stating that Hungary’s Paks upgrade project meets all preconditions, Lázár told his weekly press conference, adding that “all barriers [to the investment] have now been removed”.
According to the commission’s position,
the construction of two new reactor blocks will be a profitable enterprise,
which “finally puts an end to the dispute” about whether the project is needed or not, Lázár said. “Those who were doubtful concerning the rationale of the project now have the commission’s response,” Lázár said. The commission says that the project meets all legal, technical and business requirements, he added.
The Constitutional Court has ruled that the current regulation of the sale and utilisation of “Natura 2000” lands breaches the basic law.
Farmland classified as “Natura 2000” can be farmed only by observing specific environmental requirements to preserve wildlife in the area.
The government has sold large expanses of “Natura 2000” lands as part of a scheme to sell land to farmers. Lawmaker Benedek R Sallai of green LMP, along with 51 other opposition lawmakers, has asked the court to annul the relevant regulations to preserve wildlife.
In its ruling on Tuesday, the court established that the measures resulting in or risking the deterioration of the environment in these areas are unconstitutional even if legislation is unchanged. Current legislation does not guarantee the same level of protection for privately owned “Natura 2000” lands as it does to state-owned ones, it said.
The court said that parliament should regulate the sale and utilisation of Natura 2000 lands in line with the basic law until June 30, 2018.
Gergely Gulyás, the group leader of ruling Fidesz, said that the party would respect the court’s decision. The court basically ruled against the opposition parties that seek the annulment of the law, Gulyás said, adding that the court ruled for guarantees to ensure that revenues from the sale of Natura 2000 lands remain with the National Land Fund in the long run.
LMP welcomed the ruling as a “positive step” from the point of view of nature protection, highlighting the part of the ruling which regulates the future sale and utilisation of Natura 2000 lands.
The Constitutional Court on Tuesday said that some rules governing National Land Fund assets breach Hungary’s fundamental law.
Lawmaker Benedek R Sallai of green LMP and 51 other opposition lawmakers had turned to the court, complaining that parts of the law regulating the National Land Fund were unconstitutional and written post-hoc to justify sales connected with the government’s scheme to sell land to local farmers.
The court rejected these concerns but ruled that the law did not specify the portion of the Fund’s lands that could be sold to reduce the public debt.
This opened up the risk that the government could substantially reduce the Fund’s assets, ultimately jeopardising its operation, the ruling said.
The National Land Fund is in charge of protecting and preserving natural resources, including Hungarian farmland, woodland, water supplies and indigenous plant and animal species. These objectives are put at risk if the use of the Fund’s assets is unregulated, the court said.
It ordered parliament to regulate the sales of National Land Fund property to ensure that any reduced assets do not jeopardise its operations.
The court set a May 31, 2018 deadline so that the revised regulations apply when drawing up the 2019 state budget.
Gábor Harangozó, a Socialist deputy head of parliament’s agricultural committee, said the decision demonstrated that the court was operating insufficiently. He said the ruling would not support farmers since a large part of farmlands had been sold and revenues spent on repaying state debt.
Opposition Jobbik expressed regret over the court deciding against annulling related regulations. The party, however, welcomed the part of the ruling that sets criteria on the further use of land.
The Kúria, Hungary’s supreme court, upheld the verdict of a court in Debrecen that the Hortobágy National Park acted lawfully in the cases of four contested land lease contracts, the national park said in a statement on Wednesday.
In its Sept. 5 ruling, the Kúria said the eastern Hungarian national park’s lease contracts were lawful and no attempt had been made to circumvent the law, the statement said.
The Government Control Office (KEHI) conducted a probe into lease contracts three years ago which had turned up irregularities in the data of bids submitted to buy state-owned plots as well as data in official registers.
Unsuccessful bidders in tenders brought the case against the National Park. The final Kúria ruling draws a line under the fourth and final procedure, the top court said.
The opposition Socialists earlier called for an investigation into state land sales in Hortobágy, referring to “a rather strange land-swap deal” in involving a local government representative who had obtained ownership of a municipally owned plot
The opposition Socialists have called for a repeated investigation into issues around state land sales at Hortobágy, in eastern Hungary, the party’s deputy leader said on Wednesday.
The Government Control Office (KEHI) had conducted a probe into lease contracts three years ago which had established irregularities in data in bids submitted to buy state-owned plots and figures in official registers, Zoltán Gőgös told a press conference.
He said that in one instance “a rather strange land swap deal” had taken place in the village of Egyek, in eastern Hungary, in which a local deputy had obtained ownership of a municipally-owned plot.
There are currently 151,250 farmers in Hungary, but only 30,000 of them had purchased state land, Gőgös said.
The agricultural policy of the ruling Fidesz party will lead to “nowhere”, it will only destroy the countryside, he said.
Budapest, December 21 (MTI) – Organic farming nearly doubled in Hungary in the past year, business daily Világgazdaság said on Wednesday, citing the head of the Biokontroll Hungaria Nonprofit company.
Fully 120,000 hectares were organically farmed at the end of last year. Since the number of organic farmers has doubled, it is fair to assume that at least another 100,000 hectares has been added, the head of the company in charge of supervising ecological farms said.
Organically farmed areas covering 2.5 percent of arable land at the end of last year increased to 4-5 percent this year, mainly due to subsidies. During the 2014-2020 European Union budget period, more than 60 billion forints (EUR 194m) can be spent on supporting organic farmers, three times more than in the previous budget period, the paper said. Every applicant for organic farming has received support, it added.
The number of Hungarians involved in organic farming, including food processing and trade, is around 4,000, Világgazdaság said.
Budapest, December 7 (MTI) – The Constitutional Court on Wednesday rejected a lower court’s request to annul certain clauses of the national land fund law and a government decree regulating the use of lands managed by the National Land Management Fund (NFA).
In a ruling issued in October, the Municipal Court of Budapest suspended a lawsuit involving the lease of land used earlier as an organic farm to a private company until the top court completed a review of the clauses and government decree at issue. The lawsuit in question is the Rural Development Centre of Kishantos, an organic farm in central Hungary, versus the NFA. The centre wants the court to declare that the land lease applications opened by NFA in 2012 and the bidding process were unlawful.
The Budapest court requested that the Constitutional Court declare the clauses and government decree in question unconstitutional. The court also ruled that the clauses in question were unconstitutional because the rules governing the acquisition and use of farmland should have been defined in a law approved by at least two-thirds of MPs rather than in a government decree.
It also appealed to the top court to declare that these clauses violate various international treaties and to annul them with retroactive effect, which the Constitutional Court also rejected in Wednesday’s ruling.
The Constitutional Court ruled that the Budapest court’s request was unjustified. The top court said the municipal court’s request pertained to a declaration of unconstitutionality by omission, which it ruled could not be submitted in the form of a judicial initiative. It also said the request had failed to present any constitutional arguments that would have warranted an examination of the unconstitutionality of the laws in question.
The farm ministry reacted to the ruling saying that the Constitutional Court had made it clear that the land lease applications and bidding process opened after 2010 were lawful. In its statement, the ministry expressed hope that the top court’s ruling would “bring an end to the domestic political attacks questioning the legal legitimacy” of the government’s land lease programme.
Greenpeace Hungary said in a statement that the Kishantos organic farm would turn to the European Court of Justice with its help over the top court’s ruling. Greenpeace said it stood by the municipal court’s earlier ruling that the clauses and government decree in question were in breach of the UN’s anti-corruption convention
Disputes have been ongoing over the land leases in Kishantos since late 2013. In April 2014 the new leaseholders started to plough up the fields at the local farms. The organic farmers of the German-backed Kishantos Rural Development Centre, however, said that the newcomers were not “legally in possession” of the area, as there were several legal disputes over rights to the land still under way.
The Kishantos Rural Development Centre was set up under an agreement between the Hungarian and German governments 16 years ago. It operated on 452 hectares of state-owned land and produced the highest-grade organic seeds, as well as offering courses to farmers and carrying out agricultural research.
Budapest, October 11 (MTI) – Lawmakers voted on legislation on the transfer of ownership of farmland reserved as compensation for former landowners and cooperative members on Tuesday. Parliament passed a proposal under which the names of donors and recipients, as well as the amounts donated will be handled as tax secrets in future.
The law was approved with 114 votes in favour, 56 against and without any abstentions.
President János Áder earlier returned the legislation to parliament, expressing concerns over the law’s failure to clearly define the scope of the farmland in question, allowing, in principle, the state to take over any land farmed by cooperatives not previously designated for compensation land funds free of charge.
The law stipulates that farmland taken over by the state is to be offered in ongoing sales of land to local farmers.
The law also repealed earlier legislation allowing the former cooperative members to purchase the farmland using compensation coupons, thus bringing the compensation process to a conclusion.
Parliament passes changes to tax secret rules
Parliament adopted the government-initiated motion in an expedited procedure, with 138 deputies in favour and 31 voting against.
In his justification to the bill, Economy Minister Mihály Varga said that the concept of tax secret should be taken broadly, and apply to any information concerning taxation.
Parties of the leftist opposition have protested against the proposal.
Budapest (MTI) – A Budapest court handling a lawsuit involving the lease of land used earlier as an organic farm to a private company has turned to the Constitutional Court over the matter, suspending the case until the top court completes a review of several laws governing land lease applications.
The lawsuit in question is the Rural Development Centre of Kishantos, an organic farm in central Hungary versus the National Land Management Fund (NFA). The centre wants the court to declare that the land lease applications opened by NFA in 2012 and the bidding process were unlawful.
In a ruling issued on Wednesday, the Municipal Court of Budapest requested that the Constitutional Court declare certain clauses of the national land fund law and the government decree regulating the use of lands managed by the fund unconstitutional. The Budapest court also appealed to the top court to declare that these clauses violate various international treaties and to annul them with retroactive effect.
The municipal court found that the clauses it referred to the top court were in breach of the principles of the rule of law and legal safety. It said the national land fund law did not prescribe any objective or transparent criteria regarding the evaluation of land lease applications.
The court also ruled that the clauses in question were unconstitutional because laws governing the acquisition and use of farmland should be two-thirds laws while the laws in question were not.
Further, the laws also violate of the UN anti-corruption convention, the court said. It said the sale or lease of state land also concerns public funds, but the laws in question do not present any objective criteria in terms of the land lease application process that could later serve as basis for determining whether the bidding process was conducted lawfully.
Disputes have been ongoing over the land leases in Kishantos since late 2013. In April 2014 the new leaseholders started to plough up the fields at the local farms. The organic farmers of the German-backed Kishantos Rural Development Centre, however, said that the newcomers were not “legally in possession” of the area, as there were several legal disputes over rights to the land still under way.
Earlier this year, the Kúria, Hungary’s supreme court, upheld a ruling by a lower court finding the state at fault for leasing the plot to Mezovidek, a private company. The court said Mezovidek had not conducted any farming activities and was ineligible to hold the land under the tender’s criteria.
The Kishantos Rural Development Centre was set up under an agreement between the Hungarian and German governments 16 years ago. It operated on 452 hectares of state-owned land and produced the highest-grade organic seeds, as well as offering courses to farmers and carrying out agricultural research.
Brussels, September 28 (MTI) – Hungarian farmland should stay in domestic ownership and it should be exempted from rules on the free movement of capital, LMP leaders said on Wednesday.
LMP co-leaders Bernadett Szél and Ákos Hadházy were in Brussels to meet leaders of European green parties. Hungarian ownership of farmland should be enshrined in the country’s constitution instead of a cardinal law, Szél said.
The LMP leaders also said European Commission activities should fall under a brighter spotlight with free access to the minutes of commission meetings.
Meanwhile, they discussed with Tibor Navracsics, commissioner for education and youth affairs, the use of EU funds allocated for Hungarian education. Generous funding has dissipated, Hadházy said, worsening the situation which is in any case hampered by “a bad curriculum and administrative system”.
They also discussed prospects for the EU-Canada free trade pact (CETA) with Fidesz MEPs József Szájer and Ildiko Gáll Pelcz, asking them to lobby the European People’s Party for their support to ditch the accord.
European Green leaders will discuss Brexit, said Szél, adding that LMP will promote the rights of Hungarians to remain working in the UK.
Budapest, September 26 (MTI) – The opposition Socialist and LMP parties have joined forces to protest against a government bill on how revenue from the sale of state farmland should be used. They argue that instead of ploughing the money into rural localities, as it had promised to do before, the government was now turning funds towards reducing the public debt.
At a joint news conference on Monday, Benedek R Sallai (LMP) and Zoltán Gőgös (Socialist) noted that the government had submitted two proposals to parliament on how the revenue should be spent.
A government law which required a two-thirds majority already specifies that the revenues can only be spent on rural projects and small and medium-sized farm holdings. At the same time, the government has said an amendment would be submitted to allow the revenues also to be spent on reducing the public debt. Gőgös also said the ruling Fidesz party wanted to decide the issue through a parliamentary decree when the Socialist Party had already initiated a referendum on the matter. The Socialists’ initiative of a national referendum on preventing the further sale of state-owned farmland was quashed in July by the National Election Office.
Gőgös called Fidesz’s manoeuvre a “cheap trick” to avoid declaring their position on whether they supported the referendum or not.
To pass such an amendment with a simple majority would also “legitimise all past land sales”, which the Socialists regard as improper, he added.
He insisted that the ruling party had “lied many times about reducing the public debt”. The Socialist politician said the biggest lie had concerned use of 3 trillion forints “stolen” from the pension system.
Both politicians said they refused to assist in Fidesz’s move. Neither would they accept the government using a simple majority law to change one that required a two-thirds majority.
Fidesz insisted in a statement that the opposition was “unpatriotic and unfriendly to farmers”. Even in government, the Socialists always defended the interests of foreign speculative investors and large landowners, in contrast to the Fidesz government, which has managed to keep farmland in the hands of Hungarians, the statement said.
Budapest, September 23 (MTI) – The government will propose to parliament to wrap up the auctions of state-owned farmland and will use the expected 270 billion forints (EUR 880m) in revenue from the sales to reduce public debt, the farm ministry said on Friday.
If parliament approves the series of bills submitted by the ministry, it will officially wrap up the auctions of farmlands larger than 3 hectares.
Hungary started auctioning the land to local farmers under the Land to Farmers programme last October and planned to wind up the third and final round of auctions by the end of July.
The ministry said the farmland sales scheme had contributed greatly to increasing the share of privately-owned plots smaller than 300 hectares in relation to privately-owned larger plots. Some 80 percent of privately-owned farmlands are now plots smaller than 300 hectares, whereas before the land privatisation programme their share was 50 percent, they added.
Altogether 30,000 farmers had bought about 70 percent of the nearly 290,000 hectares of farmland that were put up for auction, the ministry said.
Budapest, August 26 (MTI) – Hungary’s supreme court, the Kúria, has rejected a request by opposition Socialist MP Zoltán Gőgös for the National Election Office to once again review the validity of signatures for a referendum to prevent a further sale of state-owned farmland.
The Kúria said that Gőgös had failed to specify in his request which signatures he believed the election office had failed to check in line with the regulations.
Gőgös submitted the collected signatures on June 28 and the election office started checking them on July 4. The head of the office said on August 19 that Gőgös had failed to collect the required 200,000 valid signatures to support his initiative.
Gőgös , however, said that during the election office’s review of the validity of signatures, the office failed to follow relevant legal regulations.
Under Hungary’s referendum law, if the number of supporting signatures collected falls between 100,000 and 200,000 the decision of whether or not to hold the referendum rests with parliament.
The Socialist Party said in response that they acknowledge the Kúria’s decision.
“The Kúria has passed a decision that is in line with the election law designed by ruling Fidesz,” the party said, adding that “the matter of the referendum will continue in parliament.”
Budapest, July 28 (MTI) – If the October 2 referendum on the European Union’s migrant quota is invalid, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán should resign, the opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) said on Thursday.
While ruling Fidesz’s “hate campaign is at full swing on every front,” the democratic opposition parties have gradually come to agree that their members and supporters should stay away from the “senseless” referendum, which “causes serious damage to Hungary”, party spokesman Zsolt Gréczy told MTI.
If people who never take part in elections and referendums plus supporters of the opposition parties that reject it stay away from the vote, then there will be a realistic chance for the referendum to be invalid, namely the turnout will remain below the 50 percent limit, he added.
Orbán should then resign because it was he who initiated the referendum and should therefore take the political responsibility for its failure, Gréczy said.
UPDATE:
In a reaction, the ruling Fidesz party called on the leftist parties to “make a clean breast of it” and admit that they support the “forced settlement” of migrants in Hungary.
In its statement, Fidesz insisted that Hungary’s left is making “desperate attempts” to thwart the government’s upcoming referendum.
“Hungary and the future of Hungarian people are jeopardised by the planned forced settlement,” the statement said. “Brussels wants to deprive member states of all their powers over immigration and wants to distribute migrants among European countries while there is no end to the influx.”
The statement accused Hungary’s “pro-migration Left” of complicity with Brussels, “spreading the threat of terrorism and destroying Europe ethnically, culturally and in religious terms”.
