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European Union Deputies Confront Hungarian Leader Over Law on News Media

21 January 2011 01:08 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Some deputies waved blank newspaper pages emblazoned with the word â€œcensored,â€ while others protested by sticking tape over their mouths as Hungaryâ€™s prime minister, Viktor Orban, clashed with critics over his countryâ€™s controversial news media law in the European Parliament on Wednesday, APA reports quoting The New York Times.
Accused of stifling press freedom, Mr. Orban reiterated recent statements that he would amend the legislation if it were found incompatible with European law, but then took on his critics, accusing them of insulting the Hungarian people.
â€œWe lived under a dictatorship for 40 years,â€ Mr. Orban said at the Parliament, in Strasbourg, France. â€œI will not stand for you contesting the democratic aspirations of Hungarians.â€
For Mr. Orban, the session provided an uneasy start for his and Hungaryâ€™s turn at the rotating six-month European Union presidency.
The media law has become a symbol for wider worries about the drift of politics in Hungary â€” where critics say Mr. Orban has stoked nationalist fervor and consolidated power. It has also crystallized worries that while countries need to meet democratic standards in order to join the bloc, there is little to restrain them once they are full members.
The new law requires news organizations to register with an authority appointed by the Hungarian Parliament, where Mr. Orban has an overwhelming majority. The news outlets are required to respect â€œhuman dignityâ€ and observe balanced reporting and can be fined for a breach of the rules. Critics fear that Mr. Orbanâ€™s allies will use the law to stifle opposition.
Although the rotating presidency is less important than it had been since a reorganization of the European Unionâ€™s leadership structure, the country that holds the presidency can help set the agenda for the bloc and is usually a focus of news media attention.
When Mr. Orban stepped into the spotlight on Wednesday, addressing the Parliament for the first time in his countryâ€™s presidency, he set forth an agenda that included such weighty topics as stabilizing the euro. And he acknowledged that his countryâ€™s news media law might need to change, perhaps hoping to limit debate on the issue.
If that was his intent, it did not work.
He initially dealt with the political theater of the protesters with humor, saying it reminded him of the Hungarian Parliament and made him feel at home. He then tried to establish his bona fides as a European leader, alluding to the role he played in the overthrow of the Communist government.
â€œWe were the first ones to knock a brick out of the wall of Communism,â€ he said.
But leftist, centrist and Green lawmakers refused to let the matter go.
Martin Schulz, leader of the main center-left bloc in the Parliament, called for the news media law to be revoked, condemning it for â€œfalling outside the rule of law as we understand it in Europe.â€
And Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-leader of the Greens and a former student radical, told Mr. Orban he was â€œon the path of becoming a national populist who does not understand the nature of democracy.â€
â€œDemocracy never died through too much freedom,â€ he added.
Some lawmakers offered support to Mr. Orban, including Joseph Daul, the leader of the largest center-right bloc that includes France and Germany, who described Mr. Orban as a â€œvery good European.â€ But the governing center-right parties in France and Germany have both criticized the law, and the defense of Mr. Orban was lost in the din.
The sniping even extended to Hungaryâ€™s decorating taste.
As part of its prerogative as president, Hungary was allowed to install a large floor covering inside the Justus Lipsius building, where ministers meet in Brussels. The work depicts scenes from Hungarian history and includes a map from 1848, when Hungary was part of the Hapsburg Empire. It has been criticized by some as insensitive to Hungaryâ€™s neighbors Slovakia and Romania, some of whose present-day territory is included in the map.
Mr. Schulz questioned the work as backward-looking, asking, â€œWhat kind of symbol is that?â€