European conservatives can make a splash in next year’s European parliamentary elections by supporting those who share Hungary’s vision of a democracy of equal nations, and who reject the current status quo of a European Commission feeding NGOs to which it outsources democracy, Hungary’s Justice Minister Judit Varga has claimed.
Speaking at a conference in Budapest on Thursday, Varga expressed her belief in the cooperative power of democratic, sovereign nations as opposed to the empire-building ambitions of the current European Union.
“We believe in a consensus-based democracy of equal nations, and we would like to continue to see such a Europe, where people are happy for each other’s success, which would be the key to survival, not an empire,” the justice minister said at a round table discussion of the of the Lajos Batthyány Foundation in Budapest. She added that “European conservatives can make a serious difference in the 2024 European Parliament elections if they believe in a Europe of sovereign nations.”
“Brussels wants to impose the opinion of internationally funded NGOs on us, this is now an imperial operation. NGOs put on philanthropic masks but they do politics, they call themselves NGOs but they behave like political parties, with a lot of money,” the minister told attendees.
She said the European Commission was “feeding” NGOs to which it was outsourcing European democracy. “We have a duty to point this out everywhere until the elections,” Varga said.
The Hungarian minister insisted that leaders “need to be in touch with the people, not the elite. We have a direct link between the legislature and the people, and that is why the institution of national consultation is valuable.” On the contrary, she said the important thing for Brussels is whether something is acceptable to the big international NGOs or not. She called the rule of law process a “Brussels bureaucratic quagmire,” adding that “we (Hungary) have to march through it.”
Varga spoke of double standards and the growing number of demands on behalf of the European Union, but pointed out that in such struggles, for example, “we have successfully maintained our anti-immigration position for eight years now. With the utmost legal creativity, we are buying time, we are keeping the border closed even if we are slowly having to pay daily fines for not letting anyone in,” the minister revealed.
“In the meantime, the world is moving forward, and the EU position is now to increase the efficiency of (migrant) returns. We have held out for eight years, and now the world is moving toward us,” Varga added.
