Published: 8.10.2022
This is not the first time I have caught the Fidesz government lying and, knowing them, presumably not the last, either. The current case proves once again how infinitely cynical the Orbán regime is and how it is capable of lying to the public without flinching at any time.
The Fidesz government sent a last-minute letter of response to the European Commission at the end of August regarding the so-called budgetary conditionality mechanism for EU funds owed to Hungary, in which, according to the government, it made substantive commitments regarding the EU’s objections. It is true that some of these commitments have since been reflected in the bills submitted to Parliament, but the government is still to this day in arrears in providing Hungarian voters with details of the negotiations, the European Commission’s specific expectations and meaningful information on the government’s actual commitments. Just to be clear: the Hungarian government (which, by the way, claims to consult the Hungarian people on everything – most recently even on ‘sex-changing kindergarteners’) has negotiated with the European Commission on the fate of the thousands of billions of forints due to Hungary but currently frozen without disclosing a single detail. It is quite unprecedented that the Fidesz government has made commitments to the EU that in principle also affect the lives of Hungarian people, but has not given anyone any information about them, has not asked anyone about them, and has kept the letter it sent secret in an outrageous manner.
Related to this, Minister Gergely Gulyás said earlier at the Government Info session that it was not up to the Hungarian government to make the letter public, as the European Commission, as the „addressee”, should decide on this. However, I actually applied to the Hungarian government at the beginning of September with a request for information of public interest, but the Ministry of Justice, responsible for the matter, after a month of deliberation, gave me a completely different reason for hiding the document. In a reply sent to me a few days ago, the Ministry headed by Judit Varga denied my legitimate request for access to the document on the grounds that it was a „preparatory document for a decision” and, as such, was not covered by the Act on the disclosure of data of public interest.
A government that constantly lies and even embarrassingly contradicts itself most of the time is simply discredited. Voters, allies, EU partners or even international markets and investors will not believe them. If the government is looking for reasons for the weakening of the forint, it is best to simply look in the mirror.
István Ujhelyi MEP
Founder of Chance Community
Budapest/Brussels – 2022.10.08.