The secretary general of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) finds the latest hearing about Hungary in the European Parliament unnecessary. Harald Vilimsky, who is also the vice-chair of the Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) group told Magyar Hirlap that the countries of the Visegrad Group are right when they want to protect their sovereignty from centralisation.
- The European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) discussed the situation of fundamental rights in Hungary. Do you think it's still necessary?
- The EU has indeed other problems, than to discuss again on the fundamental rights in Hungary. It is, as it was always, the desperate try of EU officials/politicians and NGOs to criticize Hungary in their politics on the refugee crisis. The procedure is with every member state the same. If you have a government in a Member state, that is acting against the common EU-regulations, as crazy and destructible they might be, the Institutions will discuss the fundamental problems in your country or draft some resolutions to criticize the government. Than the established media, especially in western countries, will demonise your country, because your government doesn’t agree on a common asylum system or they want that you open your borders for everybody who claims that he is a refugee from Syria. In my point of view, the EU should concentrate how to prevent further terrorist attacks or how to secure the external borders from the next upcoming migration/refugee wave.
- What do you think about the ALDE initiative to have a mechanism to constantly monitor the rule of law and democracy in member states?
- I would turn the initiative upside down. They should be a monitoring EU-Institutions how they stick to their rules and to democracy. In the summer of 2015 the EU didn’t stick to their rules at all, but the Hungarian government did. And considering democracy: the government of Mr. Orban was democratically elected by the Hungarian people. The legislative measures by Mr. Orban and his government are, so far as I know, coherent with the Hungarian democratic system and within the law. This initiative by the ALDE group is just another way to put pressure on Member states when they are stepping out of line considering common European politics, such as the common asylum system. Furthermore, the member states are the fathers of the EU-treaties and the EU has no right or competence to act like that. It is time, also for the Hungarian government to restrain the EU-institutions to their competencies.
- János Lázár, the Minister Heading the Hungarian Prime Minister's Office recently said that the opinion Visegrád countries represent about self-determination is rather in opposition within the European Union.
- I think the V4 countries are right to do so. If you see the political decisions which are made in Brussels, you have to see, that they are not in the interest of the European people or the national states. The V4 countries had something in their history that most of western European countries never had; communism and the decisions from Moscow behind it. I don’t want to compare the EU with the USSSR, but those countries have a sense when they see that their sovereignty is at stake. A sovereign country can choose their democratic leaders, without being criticized for it. A sovereign country can choose to whom give asylum and to whom not. A sovereign country can decide how to protect itself from terrorist threats. Meanwhile the EU decides, how and where to protect borders and who is a terrorist and who is not. The common idea of the EU to be a peace project and a trading union had change to a bureaucratic centralistic monster, with the slogan “if you are not for more centralisation of power and competences, you are against us”.
- How long do you expect the Austrian coalition to last?
- I think we will see in the next year a peace agreement between the social-democrats and the conservatives. Although Mr. Kern is hyped by the established media in Austria I doubt that he will risk an election. The conservatives are as well in an awkward situation, because they fight an inner struggle between vice-chancellor Mitterlehner and foreign minister Kurz. But it is very interesting to see, how the two parties are copying our programs, especially on matters of refugees and asylum. At the end, the FPÖ will get it all. We had a very good result at the presidential elections, despite the fact that the whole mainstream media, mostly all Austrian parties and the whole European establishment were against our candidate. We think if we continue our work and our efforts to be the only original patriotic party in Austria, we will be the number one in the next elections.
