EU Rushes To Prevent Russia-style Crackdown In Hungary

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Legislators of the European Union prepared for an urgent debate on Hungary’s proposed new transparency law that they fear will lead to a Russia-style crackdown on critics by the “increasingly authoritarian” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

The European Parliament’s plenary session in Brussels on Wednesday comes after Orbán threatened to “spring clean” the “insects,” including independent media and non-governmental organizations.

Parliament’s rapporteur for Hungary, legislator Tineke Strik of the Dutch Greens, confirmed, “At the opening of the agenda (of the plenary session) I will ask for a plenary debate.”

She added that she was “very confident that we will have a majority and so we will probably have a debate [Wednesday] at the end of the afternoon,” Strik told Euronews.

Tens of thousands of people protested over the weekend against Orbán’s so-called “transparency law,” which seeks to restrict foreign-funded media and rights groups.

And on Tuesday, over 80 editors from leading European news outlets signed a petition demanding the scrapping of the legislation

Critics explained that the “transparency law” is part of efforts to stifle criticism of the government and seems based on similar “foreign agent” legislation in Russia.

POPULIST LEADERS

The media petition’s signatories said the survival of a free press was both a domestic Hungarian and a European-wide issue, “especially in a region where an increasing number of populist leaders are adopting Viktor Orban’s methods.”

The petition was signed by 84 leading editors from newspapers, including The Guardian in Britain, Liberation in France, and Gazeta Wyborcza in Poland, to broadcasters ORF in Austria and other Central and Eastern European outlets.

They urged their respective governments and European Union institutions to work to prevent the law’s passage, saying it contradicted both EU treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Hungarian lawmakers planned to debate the bill on Tuesday and vote on it in mid-June.

Approval is likely as Fidesz commands an absolute majority in parliament.

The legislation comes as Orbán, who has been ruling Hungary since 2010, prepares for difficult parliamentary elections next year.

Orbán faces an unprecedented challenge from Péter Magyar, whose Tisza party, named after Hungary’s second-largest river, is leading in opinion polls.

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