Petri Sarvamaa has been known for his vicious attacks against the government of Viktor Orbán on behalf of the Hungarian opposition.Continue reading
The Fidesz group in the European Parliament (EP) has sent a letter to the President of the European Parliament and the European Court of Auditors (ECA) regarding the allegedly ethically questionable political and public activities of Finnish MEP Petri Sarvamaa, a candidate for the ECA.
Hungarian MEPs Tamás Deutsch and Kinga Gál wrote in a letter to EP President Roberta Metsola and ECA President Tony Murphy that Sarvamaa was going beyond the limits of political differences. In their view, the Finnish MEP’s political and public activity in recent weeks raises serious questions about the suitability of the candidate.
They recalled that following his candidacy for the ECA, in January,
Petri Sarvamaa sent a letter to the European Parliament asking for the suspension of Hungary’s voting rights.
“This initiative not only fails the standards of independence and objectivity, but also undermines the very foundations of trust and cooperation between the institutions of the European Union and its Member States, if it uses the European Parliament as a partisan political institution to bias against one Member State,” they stressed.
“Sarvamaa’s recent interview with Hungarian RTL television is a clear example of his bias. In this interview he claims nothing less than that the Fidesz narrative is similar to that of the Nazis.
In our view, Sarvamaa has, with this statement, definitively written himself off as a serious, civilized public figure and unworthy of holding any responsible European office,”
they said.
They stressed that the Finnish MEP’s actions are clearly aimed at inflicting unjustified and disproportionate damage on a Member State, threatening to cut off EU funds and voting rights, throwing around the Nazi narrative analogy, all based on unfounded and biased political opinions.
In their letter, Fidesz MEPs asked the leaders of the EU institutions to review how the destructive and biased political activities of the Finnish MEP meet the criteria of independence, transparency, and objectivity that are a prerequisite for candidacy, in order to preserve the authority of the EU institutions.
According to him, the petition has been signed by a record number of MEPs. However, he has also come under attack for his initiative. Slovak MEP Katarína Roth Nevedalová, for instance, pointed out recently: “Hungary is said to be making the European Union dysfunctional and overall there is supposed to be a clear leadership of the European Parliament.” She strongly believes that her Finnish colleague went into battle pointlessly. “Of course, it is an election fight, because in five months’ time, on June 8, we will have the European elections,” said the Slovak politician.
Via MTI, Featured image: Facebook/Petri Sarvamaa