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PM Orbán: European Parliament Needs ‘New Blood’

• 7 Dec 2018 5:11 PM
• Hungary Matters

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in his regular Friday interview to public broadcaster Kossuth Radio, said the European Parliament was in need of “new blood”.

“I can see the signs of end-of-term fatigue on them,” but there will be new MEPs after the EP elections and “I believe the quality of democracy will improve,” Orbán said.

Commenting on the issue of migrant visas, he said it was “rather funny” that they keep repeating the vote on migrant visas in the EP in order to secure an outcome that is favoured by the “bureaucrats”.

He added, however, that one wonders why this is tolerated by MEPs who have been sent there to represent the interests of the people. No democracy is perfect, including the one in Hungary, but democracy in Brussels is even further away from perfect, he said.

Commenting on a dispute with liberal EP group leader Guy Verhofstadt, he said it highlighted the difference between the democracies of western Europe and eastern Europe.

“They have a tired institutional democracy ... and when the elite feels that it is under attack, they get offended. We never had the luxury of not getting attacked: I have been an MP since 1990 and a prime minister for 13 years, and I wake up every morning expecting to be slammed,” he said.

MTI Photo: Szigetváry Zsolt

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