Hungary: Verhofstadt (MEP), “the silence of the EU institutions, especially that of EU Commission and EU Council, on Orbán’s racist comments is unacceptable”

“The silence of the EU institutions, especially that of EU Commission and EU Council, on Mr Orbán’s racist comments is unacceptable”. This was said by Guy Verhofstadt, MEP, about a speech given a few days ago by the Hungarian Prime Minister in which the latter had made strong statements against “race mixing”. In Verhofstadt’s opinion, this is a “clear breach of the rules and values stated in the European treaties and reminds us of the darkest days in Europe’s history”. According to the MEP, the EU “cannot let such a rhetoric cement” nor let “political leaders with such an openly racist and antidemocratic agenda decide the EU’s policies”. In 2018, the European Parliament had already asked the EU Council to establish whether the European values laid down by Article 7 of the Treaties were being breached in Hungary. Now, Verhofstadt wants “the European Parliament to convene a special meeting (either as a plenary or as a committee)” to ask the EU Council and the EU Commission to “take responsibility for defending democracy in Hungary”. Yesterday, in a totally unrelated tweet, the deputy president of the EU Commission, Frans Timmermans, had written that “racism is a poisonous political invention. There should be no place for this in Europe, where our strength comes from diversity”. A statement published by the EU Embassy to Budapest condemns “all the ideologies, policies and rhetoric that give oxygen to the doctrines of hate and division” and encouraged people to keep in mind that “what began as racist and xenophobic rhetoric by 20th-century leaders escalated, ultimately ending in the genocide of millions”. And it ends like this: “The diversity of our human family is one of its greatest strengths”.
Valentina Bombelli