Hungarian Parliamentary Speaker: EP Elections Could Launch New Phase In Life Of EU

  • 24 Oct 2018 8:44 AM
  • Hungary Matters
Hungarian Parliamentary Speaker: EP Elections Could Launch New Phase In Life Of EU
Next year’s European parliamentary elections could bring about the start of a new phase in the life of the European Union, Parliamentary Speaker László Kövér said in an interview to daily Magyar Idők.

Kövér told the paper that next May’s elections would not only change the composition of the European Parliament but also that of the European Commission.

The new phase the EU could then embark on will be one where the questions of the resettlement of migrants and the establishment of a united states of Europe are no longer on the agenda, he said.

Kövér added, however, that the EP elections would not mean the end of the fight for “real European values”.

The speaker said the Hungarian government believes the EU to be “the best way for Hungary to enforce its interests, but right now the EU is tearing itself apart”.

He said those who see themselves as “trustees” of the EU were the ones “steering the continent into a disaster” in part with their immigration policies, and in part by “breaching written regulations” and “pushing the EU in the direction of federalism”.

Kövér said politicians like French President Emmanuel Macron, liberal EP group leader Guy Verhofstadt and European Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans, “not to mention certain European People’s Party politicians”, were the “EU’s gravediggers”.

Central Europe in a broader sense, meaning Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, northern Italy, the eastern part of Germany and Bavaria were the continent’s main hope for survival, he insisted.

Either western Europe can draw strength from this and turn back on “the wrongful path it started down on” or it will continue to try to integrate the tens of millions of people it has taken in and still wants to take in who “have no desire whatsoever to conform to the culture of their new home”, Kövér said.

He said the meaning of history was the survival of the nation and culture “that makes our homeland our home”.

“This is what 1956 is about for us as well,” the speaker said.

MTI photo: Máthé Zoltán

Related articles:
PM Orbán: Hungarians Don’t Gamble With Their Country
Hungary Commemorates 1956 Uprising, Flag Hoisted At Parliament
Torchlight March Commemorating 1956 Revolution Held In Budapest
Local Opinion: Lessons Of The Hungarian 1956 Revolution

  • How does this content make you feel?

XpatLoop Media Partner

Hungary Matters

Launched in January 2014, this newsletter published on week days covers 'everything you need to know about what’s going on in Hungary and beyond', according to its publisher the state media agency MTI.

  • New Head of Momentum Party in Hungary is Anna Donáth

    New Head of Momentum Party in Hungary is Anna Donáth

    • 29 Jan 2024 9:03 AM

    The Momentum party assembly elected MEP Anna Donáth head of the party on Sunday. In her speech to the assembly, Donáth said Momentum was a “liberal, freedom-loving party with an unshakeable belief in human dignity.”

  • EP Threatens to Sue Commission for Releasing Funds to Hungary

    EP Threatens to Sue Commission for Releasing Funds to Hungary

    • 22 Jan 2024 10:37 AM

    A left-wing columnist agrees with the European Parliament in its criticism of the European Commission, while a pro-government commentator describes the repeated moves by the EP against the Hungarian government as a ’despicable soap opera’.

  • Could Hungary Be Stripped Of EU Presidency?

    Could Hungary Be Stripped Of EU Presidency?

    • 19 Jan 2024 9:41 AM

    “It is inconceivable” that Hungary could be deprived of its EU presidency in the second half of the year, Gergely Gulyás told a government press briefing. But, he added, Hungary would be “doing the European Union a favour” by providing “a uniform government, with leadership skills and experience…”