A week later, the emotion has not subsided. And Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, in Brussels on Saturday, was forced to react in turn against the racist statements of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. On Friday evening, in fact, the presidents of the main political groups in the European Parliament had in a joint declaration, “strongly condemned openly racist statements” of the Hungarian Prime Minister. They had called “the Commission and the Council – representing the Member States – to urgently condemn these statements in the strongest terms”.
Hungary: a racist speech by Viktor Orban leads to the resignation of a close adviser
Call received therefore, since the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen stressed on Saturday that the ” racial discrimination “ was contrary to EU values, in response to a question about Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s remarks against “the mixture of races”.
Non-negotiable securities
Although she did not explicitly condemn the statements of the Hungarian nationalist leader, Ms von der Leyen recalled that “all EU Member States, including Hungary, have subscribed to common values” universal which are not “not negotiable”in an interview with the Slovak news site aktuality.sk. “To discriminate on the basis of race is to trample these values” enshrined in European and international treaties, continued Mrs von der Leyen. “The European Union is founded on equality, tolerance, fairness and justice”she added.
The head of the Commission, guardian of respect for the EU treaties, had so far not reacted publicly to the statements of Viktor Orban. A spokesperson interviewed on Tuesday said that the European executive “never commented on comments made by European politicians”. The comments of the Hungarian leader had caused the resignation of one of his advisers, who denounced a “pur text nazi”the reprobation of the Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer and a condemnation of the international committee of Auschwitz, “horrified”.
Multi ethnic society
In a virulent speech on July 23, Viktor Orban rejected the vision of a society “multi-ethnic”. “We don’t want to be a mixed race”which would mix with “non-Europeans”said the nationalist and ultra-conservative leader, whose anti-migrant policy has been condemned several times by European justice.
Viktor Orban’s Hungary has been in the crosshairs of Brussels for several years for shortcomings in the rule of law (attacks on judicial independence and media pluralism, insufficient fight against corruption, etc.). These problems linked to corruption and the conditions for awarding public contracts have notably led Brussels to block the approval of Budapest’s post-Covid recovery plan (5.8 billion euros in subsidies) so far.