According to Fidesz deputy group leader in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Zsolt Németh the future of conservatism in Europe is bright, as right-wingers on the continent are ‘coming closer together’; and that therefore the slogan of the Budapest seminar could rightly be ‘Conservatives of Europe, unite!’
The fate of a sum of 13.2 billion EUR is at stake in the political and legal debate between the European Commission and the government of Hungary. Parts of the regular EU cohesion and post-COVID recovery funds are being withheld, as the Commission has issues with the state of the rule of law in Hungary. The new law, to enter into force on 1 July, aims to resolve the deadlock.
In her remarks, Minister Varga paraphrased the words of Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of the European Union, who said that Europe will either be Christian or not be at all.
The event featured, among others, former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, Croatian MP Stephen Bartulica, and Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga. Minister Varga called Hungary ‘an island where freedom still lives’; while referring to the Brussels bureaucracy and mainstream media as ‘an octopus with 100 tentacles that we have to fight’.
The second annual CPAC Hungary is taking place on 4–5 May at the Bálna shopping and cultural centre in Budapest. The featured speakers include Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Minister of Justice Judit Varga, former Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, cable news anchor Tucker Carlson, former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, and former Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša.
The Justice Minister announced on social media that the government will submit further, child protection-related legislative proposals to the National Assembly in the autumn. ’Hungary will have the strictest child protection regulations in Europe because there is no compromise in child protection,’ she wrote. She also pointed out that more and more evidence is emerging that the Hungarian opposition had accepted 4 billion forints in ‘mysterious’ foreign donations to represent foreign interests and policies in Hungary.
Monday’s negotiations were a very important milestone in building trust between the EU and Hungary, Judit Varga said, who added that she does not expect any new conditions from the European Commission regarding the Hungarian justice package.
The two major European countries are the 14th and 15th to officially get behind the EU Court proceedings against Hungary for its 2021 law restricting the teaching of gender theory in schools.
‘While, as we can see, more and more Western governments support the over-sexualisation of children with LGTBQ programmes, Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga filed a counterclaim with the Court of Justice of the European Union in favour of the Hungarian Child Protection Act. She also highlighted in her Facebook post that Hungary will continue to “stand by its conviction and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union that education is a national competence and that parents have the right to decide on the upbringing of their children.”‘
To make the process of reducing inflation as strong and significant as possible, all possible tools must be used, they added. For this reason, in collaboration with the government, the Hungarian Competition Authority is establishing an online price monitoring system based on international examples, which contributes to increasing market competition and preventing overpricing.
‘Today I filed a counterclaim to the Court of Justice of the European Union over the infringement procedure on Hungary’s Child Protection Act. We continue to stand by our conviction and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union that education is a national competence and that parents have the right to decide on the upbringing of their children,’ Justice Minister Varga announced on Facebook.
Hungary has come up with an effective program dubbed Hungary Helps as an answer to the migration crisis, which has already helped 200 Syrian refugee families return to their homes.
Hungarian presidency will provide an opportunity to represent European values that are also important to Hungarians.
Hungarian Conservative is a bimonthly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.