Three Hungarian MEPs have been elected Vice-presidents of the committees of the European Parliament and another three are running for positions in other committees whose leaders will be elected in a later vote.
Kinga Gál (Fidesz) has been elected second Vice-president of the security and defense committee (SEDE), Tamás Deutsch (Fidesz) as fourth Vice-president of the budget controlling committee (CONT) and István Újhelyi (Socialist Party) as third Vice-president of the transport and tourism (TRANS) committee.
The European Parliament has 22 permanent commissions, whose leadership is elected based on voting lists, with the highest number of votes electing the president and the subsequent four the vice-presidents. In a case of an equal number of votes, the order of vice-presidents is by seniority.
After the vote, Hungary’s ruling Fidesz said in a press release that Hungarian opposition MEPs have shown “shameful” behavior by voting against Fidesz candidates, betraying the principles of democracy.
Out of Hungary’s 21 MEP seats the governing conservative Fidesz has 13 and the opposition eight.
Photo credit: europarl.europa.eu