Máté Kocsis, Fidesz group leader, said the Fidesz and Christian Democrat parliamentary groups are asking the government to launch a “National Consultation” public survey on European Union sanctions against Russia. The survey’s focus would be energy sanctions, giving Hungarians the chance to express their opinion on this matter too. Hungarians, he added, would be the first in Europe to give their opinion on the sanctions. The government will refer to the views of Hungarians in European debates on the matter, he added.
During a break in a meeting of the two governing parliamentary groups, Kocsis said European sanctions will be a central theme in autumn legislative sessions both in Hungary and the rest of Europe. EU sanctions brought in at the start of the summer have not lived up to expectations, he added. “This isn’t what the Brussels elite promised European citizens.” After the first sanctions package, energy prices doubled in a single month and then tripled, he said. Russia became richer and Europe poorer, he added. Kocsis vowed that the ruling parties would work during the autumn session to ensure the abolition of energy sanctions. Meanwhile, he said the ruling parties will launch a national security review of left-wing party campaign financing from abroad. Kocsis insisted that in the past thirty years, it was unprecedented for a left-wing prime minister candidate — as Péter Márki-Zay did — to “carelessly or deliberately” admit that several billion forints in campaign support had come from abroad. “We are facing one of the most outrageous political scandals of the past thirty years,” he said, adding that campaign financing to political parties from abroad was against the law in Hungary.
On the topic of the energy crisis, the Fidesz group leader called on citizens to conserve energy, and he said the government had started doing so, noting that it was 18 C. in the conference room of the hotel where the group meeting was held. Parliament’s chief items on the autumn session’s agenda include proposals for expanded family support to be introduced from January 2023 and decisions necessary for a funding deal with the European Commission, he said. To strike this deal, a deviation from house rules will be requested to pass some of the necessary legislation by the Oct. 4 deadline. The votes of four-fifths of MPs are needed to achieve this, so the support of some opposition politicians is required, he added.
Photo credit: Facebook/Kocsis Máté