Budapest, December 8 (MTI) – Topics discussed at a Budapest conference held on Thursday, Human Rights Day, included Hungary’s sovereignty within the European Union, special laws for handling terrorist threats, the fundamental law on social inclusion and Hungary’s constitution.
The conference was organised by the Civic Hungary Foundation and the Hanns Seidel Foundation.
Head of the Constitutional Court Tamás Sulyok briefed participants at the event entitled Human rights, integration, migration about last week’s court ruling and noted that it is within the court’s purview to examine whether the EU’s quota system violates the country’s sovereignty.
Attila Péterfalvi, head of the National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (NAIH), briefed attendees about legal regulations concerning the terror threat possibly caused by migration and the NAIH’s proposals regarding special laws and the related restriction of rights.
Katalin Victor Langer, deputy state secretary for social inclusion at the ministry of human resources, highlighted in her talk social inclusion as a basic human right. The goal, she said, was to reduce the number of people in poverty and the socially excluded as well as increasing the chances of access to a whole range of services.
At a roundtable that followed the lectures, deputy parliamentary speaker Gergely Gulyás, of the ruling Fidesz party, said that Hungary has often been accused of ruthlessness in connection with migration, yet nobody remembers the period following 1990 when tens of thousands of migrants escaping from the war in the former Yugoslavia were accepted. He asked whether it was not a humanitarian solution to give the impression that all are welcome but then expel them if they do not meet the requirements. Integration efforts in western Europe are unsuccessful and Hungarians’ fear of integration results from the difficulties they see in integrating the Roma minority, he added.
Former deputy leader of the green opposition LMP party András Schiffer said all people have equal dignity when they are born and their right for equal treatment cannot be questioned. On this basis, nobody has the right to force other political communities to follow the rules of a different community. Instead fearing that mosques will be built, people should be concerning themselves with melting different cultures into a large mass of consumers, he added.
Hungarian Liberal Party leader Gábor Fodor said successful European integration is possible but a limit needs to be set for migration because Europe has a limited capacity. But it is unnecessary to “fall into despair and create an enemy” from migrants because they are just like Hungarians; they include decent people and also “scoundrels”, he added.
Source: MTI
