Hungarian government and opposition MEPs addressed the European Parliament's plenary session in reaction to EC Vice-President for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova's progress report on the rule of law situation in member states in Strasbourg on Wednesday evening.
Zsuzsanna Borvendeg, an MEP of the Our Homeland Movement, said that as a representative of a Hungarian opposition party, she was to criticise the government's actions in many areas, primarily corruption. She however rejected the claim that the rule of law and freedom of speech had not existed in Hungary.
The Hungarian MEP said the European Commission's report was based on information from one-sided sources and organisations that were "ideological opponents to traditional values and the national thought". "These NGOs will never say anything positive about right-wing governments," she said.
Borvendeg said that although the report cited serious state-of-law problems in many member states, a freeze of EU funding had been implemented only against Hungary.
In his response, Andras Laszlo, an MEP of ruling Fidesz, said that the rule of law report "has become a political weapon and its own parody" which served mostly "to show us the [European] Commission's political approach towards individual governments".
"That is what we can see in the case of Hungary. They are talking about the rule of law but in fact they want us to allow sexual content and gender ideology into our schools. They want us to allow illegal migrants to enter Hungary and the Schengen zone. But this is not a matter of the rule of law, it is a matter of political choice," the MEP said.