“Enemies of the Hungarian minority are enemies of Hungary,” Says Minister

Anyone who is an enemy of Hungarians anywhere in the Carpathian Basin is an enemy of Hungary, said János Lázár, Minister of Construction and Transport. Lázár gave an interview to the online edition of the Romanian newspaper Új Magyar Szó.

In a video interview, he reacted to speculation in the Romanian press that there could be some kind of cooperation between Fidesz and the Alliance for the Unification of Romanians (AUR) within the European conservative camp.

He said that in the European conservative political space, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is inescapable.

Orbán is unquestionably strong on the values of rejecting migration, supporting families, and national self-determination and sovereignty.

The minister said it was a serious mistake to think that Orbán could be circumvented and outmaneuvered in the conservative sphere in Europe.

Minister Lázár said that the Hungarian government’s policy is clear: whoever is an enemy of the Hungarians is an enemy of Hungary, alluding to rumors about an EP alliance between his party and the Romanian naitonalists. “In fact, I will say more than that: whoever is an enemy of the RMDSZ is an enemy of Fidesz,” he said. He went on to say that what RMDSZ President Hunor Kelemen had already said, that the AUR was a threat to Hungarians, was a guiding principle.

“Hungarians must unite in order to try to prevent the advance of an anti-Hungarian party with the means at their disposal, for example by helping to strengthen the RMDSZ,” he concluded.

The European Parliament is now pushing for hate speech and hate crimes to be included in the so-called EU criminal offenses. Currently, these are treated differently in Member States’ criminal laws, with EU-wide rules only applying when such crimes are committed on grounds of race, color, religion, descent, or national or ethnic origin, at least in theory. The need to prioritize the criminal law fight against hate crimes stems from the fact that such crimes are not only particularly traumatic for the victim, but also intimidate the entire community to which the victim belongs. At the same time, such attacks also threaten the peace of society as a whole, as they can contribute to the escalation of tensions along ethnic, religious, or other fault lines, according to a statement by the Hate Crime Working Group in January.