The European Union has not just wasted the last five years, but has actively failed to tackle the existential problems facing the bloc in the modern day, a Hungarian MEP told left-wing lawmakers in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
“Five wasted years are behind us, the European Union has failed in crisis management, it is weak and divided, and we need a change in Brussels in June,” said Enikő Győri, an MEP for Viktor Orbán’s governing Fidesz party, during the final plenary of the current European Parliament.
Speaking to Hungarian journalists during a break in the session, Győri accused European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen of “living in an alternative reality” after she claimed the bloc was in a better state now than it was five years ago.
“The statement is a bold and politically blind statement, completely out of touch with reality, and shows the attitude of the European Commission towards what people experience in their daily lives,” Győri told media.
The Fidesz politician stressed that Europe’s neighborhood is at war, energy prices and inflation have gone through the roof, and the whole of Europe has been poisoned by the effects of misguided sanctions for two years now. “The European Commission has taken economic policy measures on ideological grounds and is unable to adapt green policy and the digital switchover to the changed realities and make them more sensible. The EU’s competitiveness is in crisis,” she said.
The six-month Hungarian presidency of the Council of the European Union, which will start on July 1, will address the issue of competitiveness as a top priority, with an emphasis on reducing internal market barriers and creating a level playing field, Győri added.
She noted that only 36 percent of the EU’s post-Covid recovery funding has been disbursed to member states, and by not disbursing any funds to Hungary, the EU has created an imbalance across the bloc, harming European competitiveness.
