Von der Leyen rebukes Orban for his position on Ukraine: “Peace is not synonymous with surrender” international

The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, had to face his great European enemy this Wednesday. He appeared before the European Parliament to present the priorities of his presidency of the Council of the EU, but it was the President of the Community Executive, Ursula von der Leyen, who was the first to rebuke him for his favorable position towards Russia. Was a person. Invasion of Ukraine: “We don’t have any European language, but peace is not synonymous with surrender in any European language,” he said in response to the man who punctuated his visit to Moscow, Beijing and Mar-a-Lago. The rotating presidency was introduced. , in Florida (United States), where he lives, the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, is also close to Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin on a self-proclaimed “peace mission”.

The session was opened by ultra-conservative Orbán, a leading actor of the Old Continent’s thriving extreme right, with a low-profile speech touching on the usual bouquet of topics with which he usually confronts “Brussels bureaucrats.” Let’s attack. , There was one major flaw in his speech, Ukraine, which, as he admitted in the answers, he did deliberately to avoid inconsistency. On the other hand, he has returned to his recurring attacks on environmental policies promoted by the European Commission to decarbonize the economy, because “it leads to (jobs) being lost.” And he has also defended dependence on Russian gas: “Doing without it is putting the EU at risk.” A message that conflicts directly with the message emanating from many of the twenty-seven capitals.

The head of the Hungarian government has also referred to the “migration crisis” in Strasbourg, and has not hesitated to blame migrants for increasing “anti-Semitism, violence against women and homosexuality”. Billions of euros are blocked by the European Commission to promote homophobic policies in your country. Indeed, in response, Orbán himself highlighted that his country’s constitution makes it clear that in families “the father is the man and the mother is the woman”, leaving the rest of the family outside the law.

The debate has intensified in response. In Von der Leyen’s match, it was noted that the Germans wanted to go into hand-to-hand combat. “There are still people who blame this war not on the aggressor, but on the attacked.” The critical context of Orbán – and his political group (Patriots for Europe) – and his closeness to Putin was clear and does not stop there. “I want to ask you: Would you ever blame the Hungarians for the Soviet invasion of 1956? Or the Czechs and Slovaks for the Soviet repression of 1968? Or the Lithuanians for the Soviet repression of 1991?”, asked Hungarians in their own country. “The people of Ukraine are freedom fighters, just like the heroes who liberated Central and Eastern Europe from Soviet rule.”

She has also been very harsh with Orbán when talking about competitiveness and the Draghi report, rebuking him that the way forward is to integrate the single market, however, “a government is going in the opposite direction.” He then reminded them of the file recently opened by Brussels against Budapest for discriminating in taxes against companies dedicated to retail trade from the rest of the EU compared to Hungarian companies. Finally, von der Leyen has sought to downplay the link between migration and insecurity, which the ultra-conservatives have highlighted by rebuking her government for letting human smugglers go free last year and granting visas to Russian and Belarusian citizens. Is kept.

The belligerence that Orbán has faced – the interventions of the leaders of the European People’s Party, Manfred Weber, or the Social Democrat, Iratex García Pérez have also been very forceful – have led him to raise the tone in his response. However, in von der Leyen’s case, she has hidden more behind legal arguments than political ones. “I did not hear the chairman of the commission say what he said today. The presidency is considered an independent body, its function is to distance itself from political debate.

‘Bella Ciao’, La Izquierda’s response

There was hope in the chamber. His positions have infuriated the European Parliament more than once, and his repeated attacks on the rule of law and his leniency against corruption – absent in this Wednesday’s speech – have both led him to promote sanctions against the Hungarian state. Have inspired. But this European Parliament, which emerged from elections last June, is different from the one promoting rhetoric that has come to describe Hungary as “an electoral autocracy.”

The recent Ultra boom has led the group to become the third largest party in parliament, joining Orbán’s party (Patriots for Europe). And this was seen when, at the end of the Magyar leader’s speech, left-wing MEPs started singing bella ciaoThe historical anthem of the anti-fascist resistance in Italy, accompanied by the applause of its supporters.