Vona: Jobbik demands ‘European wage union’

Budapest, December 18 (MTI) – Hungary’s opposition Jobbik party is launching a European Citizens’ Initiative with a view to levelling the playing field for wages as a fundamental principle of the European Union, Gábor Vona, Jobbik’s leader, told a news conference on Sunday.

Vona insisted that a “European wage union” would be morally just and legally possible while also making economic sense.

In order to start an EU citizens’ initiative process, the signatures of one million people across at least seven member states must be gathered over the period of one year. Vona said Jobbik would focus on forming alliances in support of the initiative in central and eastern Europe.

He argued that Hungarians had hoped for wage rises when joining the bloc. Western Europeans, for their part, had had an economic interest in expanding the EU eastwards, he said, adding that twelve years had passed and these aims remain yet price differences have evened out.

Neither Ferenc Gyurcsány nor Viktor Orbán, as prime minister, did anything to advance this cause in Brussels, Vona said.

He said it was a matter of will as to whether there would be a change in the law.

In today’s Europe there are attempts to build a political union based on “unbelievable economic-social differences”. Instead, an economic-social union should be built while respecting political sovereignty, he said.