Interview with Judit Varga, Minister of Justice of Hungary, for El Correo de España.
The fall of Afghanistan has provoked a new migration crisis. But unlike in 2015, it is not only Hungary or Visegrad that are refusing to open their borders, Austria, Slovenia or Greece are not going to do so, and even Germany or France do not seem very enthusiastic. Is this proof of the failure of multiculturalism? Has time given Hungary the reason?
Actually, you’ve just hit the nail on the head, since more and more politician in Western Europe start to realize that criticizing Hungary for building a fence on its borders in 2015 was in fact a mistake. What Hungary has been advocating for six years is that letting crowds of migrants of unknown background into Europe only to solve our demographic and workforce problems is a wrong answer. Instead, we should support families and help locally in the conflict zones. The Hungarian position remains clear in this regard: if we invite others from outside Europe, that will change the cultural identity of Europe, and that would mean a challenge to our cultural, Christian heritage. We should not let that happen, so we stopped migration.
Nevertheless, we still see the insistence of Brussels on its ideological agenda of quotas and the sharing of migrants. Why does the EU elite turn its back on the member states? Perhaps they have learned nothing from Brexit?
What we see is that certain left-liberal politicians in Brussels are trying to blackmail those Member States, which do not to take the line on key issues, such as migration. They launch political witch hunts disguised as infringement procedures disregarding the Treaties of the Union. Look at the European Parliament: now they want to bring the Commission before the EU Court only because it acts according to what was previously agreed by the Member States and even by Commission President von der Leyen herself. It is, however, worrying that while European institutions seem to be preoccupied with their own ideological debates with the aim to bring Hungary or Poland to their knees, we are overlooking the real problems, like finding a solution to mass migration or prevent enlargement fatigue. After the departure of the United Kingdom, we simply can’t afford the luxury of losing candidate countries as well. So to sum up: if effectively addressing the above-mentioned issues only works individually, then let’s give back the competences to the Member States. It is our long-standing motto that what we need is not a deeper but smarter Europe with a deeper integration only on those areas on which joint action is more effective, like defense.
With the recent Hungarian child protection law, President von der Leyen pointed out that LGBTQI rights, in this case the teaching of gender ideology in schools, are one of the EU’s core values. But these were not European values when Hungary or Spain joined the EU.
We believe that the question on how to raise a child is the sole responsibility of the parent. Not a single EU entity has the right to force or compel parents to give sex education to their children without their unambiguous consent. Our critics say our law is contrary to EU Treaties but which one exactly? The law in question is in line with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and does not infringe on anyone’s right to sexual self-expression since it does not apply to adults. When Hungary joined the EU in 2004, we joined a treaty framework with carefully designed competencies: what belongs to the EU and the EU Court, and what remains in national competencies. Today, on the other hand, we see an ever-looming enlargement of competencies by Brussels, hence trying to have a say on almost every area of our national legislation. We won’t let that happen because we believe in those core values like the protection of children and families or the respect of national sovereignty. The Brussels Committee must understand that there’s a line they can’t cross. Rule of law and the treaties must be respected by the institutions, too.
The European Commission has initiated two infringement procedures against Hungary. How do you intend to respond to these procedures?
We have now got used to the fact that when we don’t play by the liberal rules, they attack us on an unprecedented scale. Our politics has been reaffirmed by Hungarian citizens at three consecutive elections and by several national consultations, therefore we know that what we are doing reflects the will of the citizens. So if the Commission launches procedures against Hungary, it’s actually the Hungarian people who they attack. The government can’t let that happen; we must use all means to protect the people. We naturally remain open to dialogue but we expect respect for the Hungarian people!
Do you think these procedures against the child protection law are actually part of a bigger campaign aimed at weakening the Hungarian government in the run-up to next year’s elections?
First of all, when you see that an anti-Semitic party make coalition with left-liberal parties only for the sake of political gains, you have no more illusions, you will know that we are ahead of a violent campaign during which the opposition will use all means to discredit the government. Facts are stubborn things, however, so if you check the country’s economic progress or the government’s successful vaccine procurement strategy, you’ll see that figures confirm our politics: the performance of the Hungarian economy increased by 17.9% in the second quarter of 2021 compared to a year earlier while OECD reports the unemployment rate in Hungary to 3.9%. You’ll not hear about that in the left-liberal media of course. Furthermore, there have already been events indicating that a similar campaign is going to happen on a European level as well. All of a sudden, for instance, it has become very urgent for the European Parliament that the EU Court gives a judgement on the conditionality mechanism. Just as I’ve mentioned before, they even want to bring the Commission to the Court for failing to apply the mechanism against Hungary. We have bad news to all our critics though: We won’t give up.
When Reporters Without Borders included Prime Minister Orbán on the list of “predators” of press freedom, you said that the “Soros ‘ex machina’ kicked in again”. Is George Soros the driving force behind all this campaign?
You can answer that question very simply by just looking at the donors of all those organizations, which constantly criticize our politics, regardless of content. You’ll only see sponsors that are somehow all related to Mr Soros. You’ve mentioned Reporters Without Borders, an NGO that received $200,000 in 2017 and $175,000 in 2019 from the foundations of George Soros. We don’t mind if a billionaire invests in such organizations (I could suggest him far more better initiatives though) but they should finally just admit being political bodies and not acting as fully independent and impartial organizations. On this matter, we agree with the EU Court’s statement, which clearly underlines that such NGOs can have a significant influence on public life and public debate. Like in other countries, therefore, we also introduced a law to make such associations’ activity more transparent. This is a legitimate, democratic expectation.
Hungary announced earlier this year a future law to combat censorship of large social networks, which you yourself have experienced on Facebook. Do you plan to introduce a law similar to the Polish one?
Hungary took on a very important role when started to discuss the possibilities on fighting censorship in the online space. We set up a so-called Digital Freedom Committee inviting stakeholders from different fields. Our commitment in making the social media more transparent and democratic was undeniable as we had further negotiations even with the European Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton. He was pleased to learn that, thanks to the work of the committee, Hungary has already made resolute actions to prepare the establishment of an EU-wide regulation. He asked for our patience before submitting a Hungarian law. We agreed that the regulation of social media can be the most effective on an EU-level, thus the ball is now in the EU institutions.
Fidesz has signed a declaration with political parties such as VOX, RN, FdI and Lega in the European Parliament, and Hungary’s policy is increasingly supported in Central and Eastern Europe. Do you believe that this force will be able to bring the European Union back on track, to confront the Brussels project of a United States of Europe?
With the declaration, the center-right political communities sent a strong message to the Union’s institutions: we believe in a strong Europe of strong nation states where unity is just as important as diversity. Many of us from Spain to Bulgaria still stand up for the dreams of the founding fathers and the core values of the EU, and we will do everything not to let the idea of a free Europe be lost. That’s why we also remain an active player in the joint discussions on the future of Europe: Hungary has been the first in the EU to launch an exchange of views on the future of the club, we were the first to formulate our specific proposals while we are the top Future of Europe event organizer Member State as well. Last but not least, I was also invited for a panel discussion for this year’s European Forum Alpbach. These are all the proof of our dedication to reform the continent of tomorrow. The work goes on to put Europe back on track.