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Justice Minister: EP trying to hinder Hungary's EU presidency in 2024

Member states’ rights to the rotating presidency of the European Council are decided in a unanimous vote. The EP has no say in the matter, Minister Varga said.

Justice Minister Judit Varga said the European Parliament is preparing to vote on a resolution concerning Hungary next week.

Minister Varga said on Facebook that the document served to hinder Hungary in taking over the rotating presidency in 2024. “We shall not allow an opportunity like that to be taken from Hungary!” she said. Member states’ rights to the rotating presidency of the European Council are decided in a unanimous vote. The EP has no say in the matter, Minister Varga said. “Those with real weight on the matter have never even contemplated the idea that Hungary should not be allowed to fulfil its role. We are in daily contact with the Council, and preparing for the task,” she said. The presidency will be an excellent opportunity for Hungary to spread its views in other member states, and also to shape Europe’s future, Minister Varga said. Hungary’s focus will be the future of demographic challenges, competitiveness and cohesion policy, she said.

On another note, Minister Varga on Thursday said she would work to help “the increasingly strong continental right-wing” believe that it can win a majority in next year’s EP elections and protect traditional values. Addressing an event marking the tenth anniversary of the establishment of Hungary’s National Election Office (NVI) and National Election Committee (NVB), Minister Varga vowed to help the European right believe that it can take control of European Union institutions after the 2024 elections and protect European Christian values for future generations. Varga said she was “certain that the European progressive left and its media” would do everything it could to discredit Hungarians’ democratic expression of their will “in the event that our voters may not dance to the tune called from abroad”. She said that under the Treaty on European Union, the free democratic will of the Hungarian people was a value to be defended even if the political mandate given by them “doesn’t necessarily align with the ideological mainstream in Brussels”. Minister Varga said she was certain that the NVI and the NVB would ensure that Hungarians can make a free and democratic decision without any outside interference in the 2024 EP and Hungarian local elections.