Hungarian Conservative

Two elections this week at the Council of Europe will determine the institution’s future orientation. On Tuesday, 25 June the new Secretary General of the Council of Europe will be elected for a five-year term. On Wednesday, 26 June three new judges for the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will be elected for a nine-year term. Senior Research Fellow at the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) Nicolas Bauer points out the risk of a leftist takeover.

Before the decision, Karsai had a conversation with Gergely Gulyás, the Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office, who argued that, as a religious person, he could not support the taking of a human life.

The Lithuanian presidency began with Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė outlining the goals of the upcoming term. Firstly, she mentioned the importance of supporting Ukraine in defending itself against Russian aggression, which should be achieved by strengthening democratic institutions in Ukraine and providing further significant support for reconstruction. Secondly, she stressed that a higher level of accountability would be required in connection with international crimes. In this process, the CoE’s expertise should be utilized, for example, to establish a Special International Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the decree expanding the country’s martial law on 23 April, which, in practice, means the derogation from certain obligations undertaken by the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The new decree also includes limitations on the consular services that Ukrainians can access abroad if their military registration documents are not updated.

Barna Pál Zsigmond emphasized during his press conference in Kossuth Square held on the occasion of European Languages Day that more than 700 million European citizens in forty-six countries mark the day each year, drawing attention to one of the continent’s defining values: linguistic diversity.

Ukrainian representative Yuriy Kamelchuk demanded an explanation as to why Hungary had blocked the payment of the next instalment of military aid from the European Peace Facility (EPF) to Ukraine. In his reply, the Hungarian minister reminded that Ukraine has put the biggest Hungarian bank on their list of international sponsors of terrorism, suggesting that the Hungarian bank enables the Russian war machine. As soon as OTP is removed from that list, the minister declared, Hungary will reconsider its veto.

Nowadays there are renewed efforts to reinvigorate and preserve the ancient identity of the Csángós. One of the most notable examples is the Council of Europe’s ‘Csango minority culture in Romania’ report, which, beside being a great overview of Csángó culture, also serves as a call to action to save this unique identity.

According to Fidesz deputy group leader in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Zsolt Németh the future of conservatism in Europe is bright, as right-wingers on the continent are ‘coming closer together’; and that therefore the slogan of the Budapest seminar could rightly be ‘Conservatives of Europe, unite!’

At the Reykjavik summit on Wednesday the Hungarian President emphasised that the heads of state and government of the Council of Europe have an ‘extraordinary responsibility in promoting and ensuring peace for their citizens.’

The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe welcomed the positive changes in Hungary since ECRI’s latest report adopted in 2015. However, ECRI also expressed concern about legislative changes that in their view ‘seriously undermine the human rights of LGBTI communities’ and about measures taken during the emergency period declared during the coronavirus pandemic.

Hungarian presidency will provide an opportunity to represent European values that are also important to Hungarians.