‘It’s a joke,’ Orbán says after MEPs declare Hungary an autocracy

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated on Friday he discovered it “humorous” that the European Parliament had handed a report calling his nation an “electoral autocracy.”

“I discover it humorous,” Orbán stated throughout a go to to Belgrade, Serbia’s capital.

“The one cause we don’t chuckle at it’s as a result of we’re bored of it. It is a boring joke. It’s the third or fourth time they’ve handed a decision condemning Hungary within the European Parliament. At first, we thought it was vital. However now we see it as a joke.”

Orbán’s feedback got here a day after MEPs authorized by a large margin a non-binding however extremely symbolic report through which they declared Hungary to be not a totally functioning democracy.

As an alternative, the nation needs to be labelled as a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy” through which elections are repeatedly held however with out respecting fundamental democratic norms, lawmakers stated.

That is believed to be the primary time an EU establishment formally says a member state will not be a correct democracy, an important prerequisite to hitch the bloc.

The report raises issues a few lengthy listing of basic rights thought of to be underneath menace, together with the electoral system, the independence of judiciary, privateness, freedom of expression, media pluralism, educational freedom, LGBTIQ rights and the safety of minorities and asylum seekers.

MEPs blame the “breakdown” of the rule of regulation on each the federal government of Viktor Orbán, who has been in energy since 2010, and EU establishments, whose “lack of motion” has allowed the democratic backsliding to go unchecked for the final decade.

In Belgrade, Orbán dismissed the accusations and stated Brussels ought to reasonably deal with the worsening power disaster, which he considers to be a direct consequence of EU sanctions in opposition to Russia.

Orbán has been accused of undermining the bloc’s unity within the wake of the Ukraine battle and has managed to water down a number of rafts of sanctions, together with a far-reaching oil embargo. 

“After I have a look at power sanctions, I see that we Europeans, who’re power dwarfs, have taken sanctions in opposition to an power large,” the Hungarian chief stated, referring to Russia, a worldwide provider of fossil fuels.

“This can be a completely uncommon phenomenon in historical past, and I feel that this type of factor will not be often good. We’re very significantly broken by these sanctions. They’re dangerous for us, they’re painful for us, they value some huge cash.”