On January 1st, Hungary took over the rotating Presidency of the European Council. At the same time, the Fidesz (member of he European People’s Party, EPP) government of the country rejected calls to halt its chilling media control legislation, which has come under fire of journalist groups, civil liberties watchdogs and EU partners alike. Drawing additional criticism, the government recently also introduced a so-called “crisis tax”, which almost solely targets non-Hungarian companies.
The President of the European Liberal Youth (LYMEC), Alexander Plahr comments: “The behaviour of the Fidesz government is in stark contrast to European values and violates the content of the Treaties. Media have to be able to report without fear of being fined by a supervisory body associated with the governing party. Businesses from other parts of the Union have to be able to conduct business without being taxed punitively in comparison with their Hungarian competitors. We therefore call on the European People’s Party and its members to remind Mr Viktor Orbán and his party of our common European values.”
Plahr continues: “What sense make the so-called European political parties if they are not families based on values? The EPP receives enormous amounts of EU taxpayers’ money for its activities. The least it could do would be to remind its members to value our common rules agreed in the Treaties and obvious to any democratic mind. The same goes for their national member parties: Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Silvio Berlusconi, Donald Tusk, Mariano Rajoy and Josef Pröll all have the duty to send a clear message to their fellow party member Viktor Orbán that this way of conducting politics is not going to be accepted.”
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