Orbán: Europe Must Be Protected From European Left – Budapest Business Journal

In his response to MEPs’ speeches, Viktor Orbán argued that the debate “has long left behind common sense and the world of facts”. The EP “has become a field of cheap propaganda,” he said.

Orbán said that propaganda rendered intelligent, impartial debate on the rule of law and corruption impossible. According to the European Commission’s report on the rule of law and Hungary’s judiciary, the country “has complied with all demands and requests”, he said, adding that the EC itself had found Hungary’s public procurement system to be fully in line with Brussels requirements.

The proportion of Hungarian respondents who said they were satisfied with the state of democracy in their country was higher than that in most other European countries, he argued.

“It is possibly not by chance that Hungarian voters have consistently put their trust in us at elections.” Responding to accusations of graft levelled at Hungary and Orbán himself, he said: “If you read data published by the World Bank, rather than corruption reports funded by George Soros, you would see that Hungary is up to scratch in that regard. It is no different from your countries.”

Orbán called it “absurd” that Green MEP Ilaria Salis, “an antifa activist arrested in Budapest who beat peaceful people with an iron bar in the streets”, was speaking about the rule of law. A Belgian MEP also “lectured Hungary on the rule of law”, even when a conference on that very topic was recently “banned” in Brussels, he said.

Commenting on a statement by the European Socialists, who said Hungary “has an overly friendly relationship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Orban turned to Democratic Coalition MEP Klára Dobrev, saying: “When your husband [Ferenc Gyurcsány] was prime minister, Putin sat in your kitchen. You used to be proud of that and flooded the Hungarian media with pictures of the event.”

He lamented that an occasion to present the Hungarian presidency’s program to the EP had “turned into a debate on Hungarian domestic politics”. At the same time, MEPs “can see clearly that Hungarian democracy is fine, thank you; it is robust and strong.”

He said “it isn’t right” that Hungarian MEPs “attacked” their country in the EP.

“What sort of person would use an international forum to attack their own country?” It was also “absurd”, he said, that a Hungarian MEP now sitting in the European People’s Party had recently told the Hungarian public that being an MEP was a “fake job, only for making good money”.

Referring to Tisza party leader Péter Magyar, Orban said: “I think it is egregious that a Hungarian should talk about abuse [of power] here, even as there is an ongoing procedure against him for theft at home,” adding that Magyar had “clearly” taken on his mandate “only to hide behind his MEP immunity”.

“I must say it seems that the left thinks democracy only exists as long as they win, and ends as soon as the right wins,” he said, adding that Europe was to be protected from the left. “

More respect for Hungary! More respect for Hungarians!” he said in conclusion.