Parties of the parliamentary opposition on Monday called on Prime Minister Viktor Orbán not to veto the European Union’s next seven year budget.
Representatives of the Párbeszéd, Jobbik, MSZP (Socialist Party), Democratic Coalition, and LMP parties held a press conference after parliament’s EU consultation council attended by the prime minister and the group leaders of parliamentary parties.
Párbeszéd co-leader Tímea Szabó said that at the meeting, held behind closed doors, Orbán had “repeated mean lies” concerning his plans to veto the budget, and insisted that “each Hungarian would be stripped of 250,000 forints (EUR 695)” through the veto, while the government “is taking out a loan which each Hungarian would service with 400,000 forints”.
Jobbik group leader Péter Jakab insisted that the government was following a scorched-earth policy, and said that Orbán was seeking to “paralyse Europe through the veto even if it also kills Hungarians”. He warned that the EU’s recovery package was instrumental in driving Hungary out of the crisis. He also suggested that Orbán “has started preparations to drive Hungary out of the EU sooner or later”.
MSZP (Socialist Party) co-leader Bertalan Tóth said that the veto was “only about the financial security of the prime minister, his family, and friends.”
LMP co-leader Erzsébet Schmuck said that the government was “practically holding the EU budget to ransom” and was blocking the recovery package. The prime minister has “declared war, but that war will only have losers”, she said. LMP expects the government to withdraw its veto plans before the next meeting of the European Council, she added.
Democratic Coalition deputy leader László Varju also called on Orbán to drop the veto. He argued that Hungary was “too weak to harm Europe with the veto, but it could cause serious harm to Hungary”.
Ruling Fidesz said in response that left-wing parties were “promoting the interests of Soros and pro-migration Brussels once again.” The statement said Brussels “clearly wants to… blackmail countries not accepting migrants by tying monies they are entitled to to politically motivated conditions.”
While the European Commission’s latest migration action plan wanted to “implement the Soros plan” by accepting 34 milllion migrants, anti-migration member states were being “blackmailed financially”, he statement said. Hungarian left-wing parties “represent the interests of pro-migration Brussels in this debate,” it said.
In the featured photo illustration: Jobbik president Péter Jakab. Photo by Szilárd Koszticsák/MTI
