Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban drew the ire of the European Union Parliament yesterday over new domestic media curbs, clouding the country’s maiden bloc presidency.
A heated appearance at the Strasbourg-based assembly descended into angry exchanges, instead of debate on Hungary’s priorities for the next six months as the EU battles to overcome its deepest crisis in decades over euro debts.
European Parliament members slapped gags on their mouths and brandished blank pages at Mr Orban claiming media censorship under a new law, but the right-wing leader decried their criticism as an “insult.”
Hitting back mainly at the German leader of the parliament’s socialist grouping, Martin Schulz, Mr Orban said at a press conference: “an MEP said Hungary was becoming a totalitarian dictatorship: Wow! That coming from a German!”
“Withdraw the law!” Mr Schulz had said. “In a democracy, the media scrutinise power – what you’re doing is scrutinising the media, that’s not right.”
Mr Orban was greeted by scores of Greens’ MEPs in the 736-member chamber wearing surgical masks and waving mock newspapers reading “Censored.”
He said he was ready, if asked by Europe, to amend a law seen as gagging the freedom of the press – although later told reporters “we believe in the power of our arguments.”
“The Hungarian presidency will very likely be the most difficult half-year for the European Union of the last 20 years,” he said after vivid clashes with Mr Schulz, firebrand Greens chief Daniel Cohn-Bendit, and others.
Mr Orban claimed his EU programme was ignored and domestic policies attacked because of his right-wing Fidesz party’s two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliament, which he said “some people see as a threat.”
“I had expected half of the MEPs to leave the chamber, I expected the left to walk out,” he said, adding: “I couldn’t stop the people – the Hungarian electorate – from voting for me.”
During the debate, lawmaker after lawmaker across the political spectrum lashed out on the subject.
“Mr Orban, you’re on the road to becoming a European Chavez, a national-populist who doesn’t understand the essence of democracy,” said Mr Cohn-Bendit, referring to controversial Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.
“Information can never be balanced,” Mr Cohn-Bendit said in reference to the law’s much-maligned demand for “balanced reporting.”
“News should antagonise politics, that’s why your law doesn’t meet European values,” he added, recalling late US president Richard Nixon’s bid to quash the Watergate revelations, and citing Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi’s current brush with the media over sex claims.
Mr Cohn-Bendit, who first came to prominence as a Paris student revolutionary in 1968, criticised Mr Orban for not making any reference to Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution – though Hungarians battled Stalinist domination in 1956.
Even the new head of France’s far-right National Front, MEP Marine Le Pen, said: “This law has raised great concerns... the press must remain free.”