Otto von Habsburg Representative of ‘True European Values’, says Deputy PM Semjén

The values Otto von Habsburg, the last crown prince of the Austro-Hungary Monarchy, represented in 1989 were “truly European”, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén said at a conference held on Von Habsburg’s role in the fall of communism.

Otto von Habsburg (1912-2011) served as President of the International Paneuropean Union between 1973 and 2004 and was an MEP for the Christian Social Union of Bavaria between 1979 and 1999. He was a co-initiator of Hungary’s 1989 Pan-European Picnic, one of a series of events that led to the dismantling of the Iron Curtain and the fall of communism.

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At the conference held on Thursday and Friday in Budapest, Semjén noted that Otto von Habsburg had rejected both Nazism and communism, “knowing that they were both against humanity and against God”.

The Hungarian government looks to Otto von Habsburg “as a guiding star” regarding the “true values” of the Visegrad Group and the European Union, Semjén said.