Tamás Deutsch, the leader of Fidesz’s delegation to the European Parliament, has rejected a letter signed by five party groups, saying the letter was “propagating serious untruths” about Hungarian legislation and called it “reminiscent of Communist show trials”.
The letter signed by leaders of the Greens/EFA Group, the European People’s Party, the Renew Europe group, The Left Group and the Socialists and Democrats earlier this week noted that the amendments allowed reports on “activities going against the Hungarian way of life and the Fundamental Law, including activities violating the constitutionally recognised role of marriage and the family”. “We consider these provisions, once implemented, pose a serious threat to the rights of LGBTIQ people and to freedom of expression,” they said.
In his response sent to all MEPs, Deutsch said that the letter “expressed [the signatories’] political expectation that – citing certain planned legislative changes in Hungary as a pretext – under no circumstances should the European Commission grant Hungary access to the resources of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)”. “The proceedings of the five group leaders remind us, well-meaning Hungarians, of the absurdity of the Communist dictatorship of the 1950s, the so-called show trials organised by the state party and the political police, when the dictatorship’s rulers organised proceedings and criminal trials with spectacular facades … to impose their political will, where the verdict of the accused was decided well in advance,” Deutsch said. “Well-meaning Hungarians reject in the strongest possible terms the method … which aims to exert crude political pressure in a legal guise,” he said.