Justice Min: Govt Sees Hungary’s Future in EU

The government continues to see Hungary’s present and future in the European Union, Justice Minister Judit Varga, who is candidate for the same post in the next government, said on Wednesday.

The European Union, however, should change, for which the government will take “resolute and active” steps, Varga said in a hearing before parliament’s European affairs committee.

The candidate pledged that in her capacity as minister responsible for EU coordination she would make every possible effort to defend Hungary, its interests and the Hungarian people’s rights in the European Union. She said she would work for the renewal of the EU and find “allies and partners” in those efforts. The EU, however, “considers integration a goal overwriting all traditional values and national interests”, she said. “We can see tangible signs of the construction of a European empire,” she added. “Hungarians, however, consider integration as a means for nations to complete their freedom, in cooperation with and respecting each other,” Varga said, adding “we will make proposals concerning the future of the EU in that spirit”.

Despite “the EU building a Europe rejecting traditional European values we think that traditional communities such as the family, the nation and traditional churches are still key for Europe’s survival… a father and mother raising their children or the moral compass directing our actions are not things of the past but a guarantee for Europe’s future”, she said.

“We think that member states are the managers of the future of European integration, and the exclusive owners of sovereignty; therefore member states alone can determine what powers they wish to exercise jointly,” Varga said. The EU, she said, “is building a Europe without democracy… and seeks to remove European nations’ democratic control over the EU institutions”. Democracy in Europe could only be built through democratically organised national communities, she insisted.

Featured photo by Lajos Soós/MTI