At a joint press conference of lawmakers of the Democratic Coalition (DK), Jobbik, the Socialists, Párbeszéd and LMP, Gergely Arató of DK asked the prime minister of the government’s plans to access funds necessary to raise teachers’ wages while the EU’s Covid recovery and 2021-2027 funding were being withheld.

He also called on the government to explain its “allowing Russian-type propaganda and disinformation” in Hungarian public media while other EU states are taking measures against it, he said.

Zita Gurmai of the Socialists said the opposition was committed to guaranteeing the country’s security and to promoting its prosperity and European cooperation. The opposition is calling on Orbán to represent those interests and principles at the upcoming meeting of the European Council, she said.

It is in Hungary’s interest that the EU Council finds a united, concerted answer to Russian aggression, she said. It should also promote member states’ coordination in the fight against the pandemic, she added.

The EU will have to cut its dependence on Russian energy and bolster the use of sustainable energy, she said.

Koloman Brenner, the deputy parliamentary group leader of Jobbik, said Orbán had not attended an extraordinary session of parliament called by the opposition, or “explained why he stood next to [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and listened to his claim that NATO should return to its 1997 state”, he said, referring to Russia’s claim that would leave Hungary and other central European countries without NATO membership.

Brenner also noted that Orbán had not visited Kyiv when his Polish, Czech and Slovenian counterparts did so. Such a gesture would have been important to Hungarians living in Transcarpathia, he said.

Orbán and Fidesz’s “politics of hedging” had failed in the face of the aggressive war of Putin’s Russia, he said.

Should it receive mandate to govern, the opposition will return to a foreign policy based on European values, he said.


MTI Photo: Noémi Bruzák