Well I don’t know if Kyiv is going to fall tomorrow, but it is obvious there is a lack of…
Another Bad Day for Orbán in the European Parliament
Yesterday Orbán had another bad day in the European Parliament (EP). His FIDESZ was still part of the European Peoples Party (EPP) when the last elections took place and Orbán dreamt about a united far right block. We all know that the forecasts of the far right taking over the EP just didn’t happen. These were and still are divided in 2 different parties. Largest party became and still is the conservative EPP and they even would be if the far right would be united. FIDESZ left EPP and did neither find a new home in a united far right block, which didn’t establish, nor became member of one of the 2 existing far right parties ID or ECR.
The EP elects presidencies, committees and so on for half of the 5-year term. The last elections were in 2019, right now we are at midterm. The president should be member of the 2 largest parties EPP and as 2nd the social democratic S&D, sharing this function with a change of the watch at midterm. In 2019 David Sassoli (S&D, Italy) was elected EP president, he died on January 11th, 2022, just days before the end of his term.
The candidates for president were Roberta Metsola (EPP, Malta,) Alice Bah Kuhnke (Greens/EFA, Sweden,) and Sira Abed Rego (The Left GUE/NGL, Spain.) S&D as agreed with EPP in 2019, and liberal Renew sustained Metsola, the far right did not have an own candidate after Kosma Złotowski (ECR, Poland) withdrew. Metsola got in the 1st round 458 votes, Bah Kunke got 101, and Rego 57 votes. Of the 690 votes were 616 valid. With 74 % Metsola won in a landslide, 149 votes more than needed and also more than the parties sustaining her together have.
Her message was exactly what Orbán hates: “Dear Europeans, in the next few years people will look to our institution for inspiration, while others will continue to test the limits of our values and European principles.” Metsola encouraged fighting against “anti-EU sentiment which takes hold so quickly and so easily.” For autocrats and despots, Metsola said, the EU is a threat “simply for existing.” To those who seek to destroy Europe, know that this house stands against you, she proclaimed ►EN. Besides she is said to be a supporter of the rights of sexual minorities.
And it didn’t become better for Orbán when the 14 vice presidents were elected. With Klára Dobrev (S&D / DK) and Lívia Járóka (independent / FIDESZ) Hungary had 2 vice presidents until now. Dobrev did not run again, because of her commitment for the united opposition in Hungary ►HU. The vice president elections appointed 9 politicians in the 1st round with the needed majority of votes, with 680 valid votes this were 341. Járóka only got 169 votes, the worst result of all candidates. Following to this she withdrew her candidacy yesterday evening ►EN.
The regime press declared that she did so in favour of Roberts Zīle (ECR, Latvia), to get a “democratic right” candidate elected ►HU. This is absolute nonsense, a blunt lie for Orbán’s bad informed voters to avoid admitting this complete defeat. The vice presidents are elected on a single ballot by unlimited number of votes. There was no limitation to vote for both Járóka and Zīle – and every other candidate a MEP wanted as vice president! In case that more than 14 vice president candidates get a majority in 1st or 2nd round those with the highest numbers of votes only are elected. If there are more candidates sharing the same number of votes for the last available seat(s) the age determines the winner. Zīle, who did not get the needed 50 % of the valid votes in the 1st round, got nearly twice the number of votes Járóka got. In the 2nd round Zīle was elected, the 3 candidates with the highest number of votes below majority in the 1st round got enough votes that time. The last 2 seats were determined in a 3rd round, where only most votes are needed (and in case of a tie the age) to determine the winner ►EN. Candidates withdraw when they understood that they make no chance, to withdraw in favour of another candidate just doesn’t work under these rules.
Instead of a take-over of the EP Orbán has no political home any more, got a EP president who is obviously not a friend of his policies, and one of his party members has lost the influential vice presidency.
Voila, the “Council of Judges” (OBT) has already submitted to Orban's "reorganization" by the afternoon. https://obt-jud.hu/sites/default/files/ulesek/Osszefoglalo_2024.11.20.pdf
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Thanks for the post. Interesting way of choosing vice presidents, I didn´t know that.
Me thinks the EU election system is overcomplicated and in connection with the need for unanimous votes of all member countries very slow – but things are changing albeit very slowly.
In the end the fascist Balkan countries have two options:
Accept that the developed part of the EU doesn’t really need you and doesn’t want your crazy ideas – or just leave!
A third option would be of course to vote against O1G and the PISsers and the other loonies who call themselves leaders and get new, democratic governments which can cooperate with the others in the West.
End of rant!!!
PS and rather OT but typical for the situation:
The new German coalition will abolish the (in)famous § 219b which forbids “advertising for services on abortions” which includes just mentioning that a doc does offer this.
This paragraph was introduced a long time ago by the Nazis – and the clerical fascists of the CDU, CSU and AfD want to keep it!
Now why does that remind me of the situation in Hungary where you can’t even tell young people that there are other options besides a heterosexual marriage?
And books on homosexuality etc are burned – sorry shreddered …
PS:
Just found this – Orbanistan and PISs country are against a minimum corporation tax of 15% – of course they don’t want people like Lörincz and Mészáros to pay taxes because that would mean no more money for the corrupt ***expletive deleted***.
https://kafkadesk.org/2022/01/19/poland-and-hungary-stifle-eus-minimum-corporate-tax-push/
Hopefully another nail in the coffin …
This will be a complex post because its a complex issue. Roberta Metsola is really very interesting given the fact that she is from Malta the home of off shore banking and a place where I suspect Orban could very well have money stashed as well as might some of his oligarchs. Metsola came up politically in Malta in the Nazzjonalista, PN which historically was once a fascist party modeled in part on the ‘Partito Nazionale Fascista’ of Benito Mussolini. This would lead to the party openly siding with General Franco’s fascist army in the Spanish Civil War. This is still seen by the historical iconography that stayed on in this party, including the proto-Fascist imagery of the party logo is a shield set against a black background (black being the heraldic colour chosen by Mussolini, as evidenced by his ‘Blackshirts)’, the PN’s official anthem, which is still sung during mass meetings, being a rehash of the official anthem of Mussolini’s Fascist party, ‘La Giovinezza’, and also the name of the party itself, which in itself includes the term ‘nazionale’ for the first time, which was inspired by Italian nationalism.
The PN to this day has this important similarity to Orban’s Fidesz it has bought up some of the media on the island, the television station NET Television, the online news portal netnews.com.mt, Net FM radio station, and the In-Nazzjon and Il-Mument newspapers through its holding company Media.link Communications. The PN has moderated in its appearance over the years and even dropped it open hostility to LBGT rights.
Roberta Metsola is politically controlled by Bernard Grech who is also member of the European Parliament and elected leader of PN but also has formally opposed both abortion rights and the right to divorce based on Catholic doctrine, doctrines opposed by many if not most Catholics here in the USA. But he is also tied to the off shore banking sector and publicly opposed the Paris-based inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force putting Malta on the so called “grey list” of untrustworthy jurisdictions meaning that Malta faces increased monitoring. For what, among the crimes were the sale of national passports, as well as a lack of legal action against government officials who were mentioned in the Panama Papers as having set up secret offshore companies.
Bernard Grech has been attacked by opponents of the off shore operations on Malta for being a total opportunist and not even effectively supporting the investigations into the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia who was exposing Malta’s ties to criminal networks and money laundering (see https://www.daphne.foundation/en/about/daphne/). In general the argument goes that Grech has practically undermined the fight against corruption on Malta for years even white formally being in opposition to the ruling government. (see this scathing opinion piece https://manueldelia.com/2021/05/guest-post-bernard-grech-is-not-what-he-seems/#disqus_thread )
Now am I arguing that Roberta Metsola is guilty by association with Bernard Grech and PN? Yes indeed I am. In fact Metsola was promoted by the EPP and Bernard Grech to EP’s Committee of Inquiry into Money Laundering, Tax Avoidance and Tax Evasion (PANA) that investigated the Panama Papers revelations and tax avoidance schemes more broadly in 2016-2017. It produced this report https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-8-2017-0357_EN.html that did name Malta with harboring these criminal activities along with other EU nations. But the report does nothing to correct the situation at the level of the EU even after admitting to many crimes by unnamed officials from EU states. Here is the action section of the report in part drafted by Roberta Metsola:
“Concludes that on the basis of the PANA Committee’s findings, several cases of maladministration with respect to EU legislation can be identified, namely regarding:
(1) failure of Member States’ authorities to communicate spontaneously tax information to another Member State in case of grounds for supposing that there may be a loss of tax revenue in other Member States (Article 9(1) DAC), and failure of the Commission to ensure effective implementation of DAC;
(2)failure of Member States’ authorities to act upon the evidence of serious and persistent failure to identify beneficial owners in the context of customer due diligence or to require that the verification of the identity of the customer and the beneficial owner takes place before the establishment of a business relationship or the carrying-out of the transaction (Article 8(1)(b) and Article9(1) of AMLD III), and failure of the Commission to ensure effective implementation of AMLD III;
(3)failure of Member States’ authorities to ensure that AML obliged entities can be held liable for infringements of the national provisions, including reporting of beneficial ownership information to competent authorities (Article 39(1) of AMLDIII), and failure of the Commission to ensure effective implementation of AMLD III;
(4)failure of the Commission to provide a list of third countries with strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering regimes;
failure of Member States’ authorities to apply administrative penalties and other administrative measures to institutions found liable regarding serious breach of the national provisions adopted pursuant to AMLD III, as required by Article 67(1)(o) and Article 67(2) of Directive 2013/36/EU (CRD IV), and failure of the Commission to ensure effective implementation of CRD IV;
(5)failure of Member States to cooperate sincerely in the framework of the Code of Conduct Group on Business Taxation and failure to abide by the principle of sincere cooperation, as required by Article IV of the TFEU; failure of the Commission to act as guardian of the treaties;
207. Regrets the lack of cooperation of certain EU institutions with the PANA Committee; states that this constitutes a breach of the principle of sincere cooperation;”
Basically there was no recommendation for any actions to be taken against any of the member states for their crimes, just admissions that they took place. The Hungarian Mafia State doe not need to fear Roberta Metsola as they did not need to fear JC Juncker either. Their money for now is safe. The interests of the corrupt Mafia State in Hungary will in terms of hidden money be cleverly protected by Malta’s Roberta Metsola.
Wow, thanks for the comprehensive post! I knew about the murder of the Maltese journalist but didn’t really understand the reasons behind it and the lack of support for the investigation until now…
Well, the political involvement in the murder proven so far is much more on the side of politics in the Labour camp. But really interested seemed to be no politician, regardless of party affiliation. I think we still know way less than we should.
Istvan, thanks for this illuminating analysis!
We all know that the EU is not perfect and there still are (too …) many conservatives in the EP – you can’t manage without them.
Interesting (I didn’t know much about her):
She’s a Catholic like the late David Sassoli whom she follows in the job.
I’m already wondering what the elections in the EU will bring this year (like in France)..Not all the EU countries are seeing that clear turn to the left, the liberal and the Green politics.
We sure are living in interesting times
This is a complex view back into history just to turn it into a consequence that just unproven. The history of a party is not too important, one cannot say that Hungarian MSZP would follow a communist agenda, or even that Orbán would still be a liberal. You would need to get to the facts of today and here I can’t see your claim fulfilled. This road leads to a dead end.
The tax heaven of Malta is even more complex. The EU has agreed on an exchange of data and Malta has to obey these. Definitely this can be enforced against Malta through the European Court of Justice. In opposite to Poland and unsuccessful attempts by Orbán, Malta has never sought to undermine the rulings of the ECJ. Yes, equal to Cyprus Malta has an offshore culture. Just as in most jurisdictions these have to become more and more transparent. Even the ever-secret Swiss banks have to follow these rules, introduced not at least through the pressure of the USA outside of the EU and Germany inside. Not too long ago I sold a Swiss obligation, which originally was traded on EU markets, where I bought it online as I usually do with my transactions, but EU trade ceased. I needed to deal with a Swiss bank and the number of papers to produce was ridiculous. Including going to a Hungarian notary. All this was about a transaction just below 5 000 CHF and way less profit, after all costs for the transaction hardly any. All this happens within the EU behind the screens, without we even notice. Malta not excluded! It becomes a very different thing when we are talking about a) taxing of foreign earned money in Malta and b) transparency concerning the ownership of companies. The 1st is not really conform EU rules as long as the money has been earned within the EU, although still in use and the latter is pretty complicated. In both cases I would advise to use a combination of other European countries, if you want to reach this aim, but forgive me if I don’t you explain here and now where the taxes for foreign earned money is zero and where ownership of not traded companies is not checked at all. And these 2 countries are not even mentioned in the media, hardly any tax officer in Hungary would be aware. Besides: The regime doesn’t hide the possessions, only the real ownership at least for a part. The father of Orbán officially owns Hatvanpuszta, the son can inherit this one day without paying taxes over it. His oldest daughter and her husband already own a fortune completely officially, the second one just started her “own” business. Not to forget how much is parked with Pénztáros Lőrinc. Orbán doesn’t need Malta for hiding his wealth. Szijjártó has an imagined mortgage from his parents. And so on.
Juncker never was president of the EP, so comparing with him is pretty useless. However, Juncker had the same problem as v/d Leyen has now: Poland. The only coincidence is that both Metsola and Juncker are from countries that offered offshore constructions. Both at least at their times legal. Later changes of EU law do not retroactively invalidate earlier national laws. And still it is politically wanted that within the EU competition with different tax systems takes place. The roots of the EU are an economic union, this is still visible in the main concern of the EU. It will take time that other questions will become equally important.
It is a bit funny that you come with the catholic view on abortion. Yes, Metsola is against. But without belonging to the catholic church or comparable organisation I am as well. I see it as responsibility for human life. Just that I think that it is not the state to determine what a woman has to do. BTW a question Orbán is very silent about. Abortion is legal in Hungary and FIDESZ hasn’t started any campaign against. And Metsola clearly stated that she respects the view of the EP in this question. Concerning LGBT+ she doesn’t share Orbán’s hate, regardless the positions other party members have.
Apropos “National Party.” The earliest National Party I found was in Moldavia and Wallachia – before the merger to Romania took place. The National Party in New Zealand dates from 1836, that one in Uruguay was founded the same year. Chile followed in 1857. A National Party was founded in Honduras in 1902, a year before the Maltese Anti-Reform Party was renamed into National Party – the 1st time. In the early 20th century a lot of National Parties were founded, many before Mussolini turned from the extreme left to the extreme right – including the National Party in the USA 1917. Not to forget that Malta was not independent while Italy was under fascist rule. So the word “national” in a party’s name definitely was not influenced by Mussolini, while indeed the National Party in Malta those days searched closeness to Italy instead of the coloniser. This was everything but new, the reforms the Anti-Reform Party opposed were those reforms of the UK against the Maltese catholic dominated culture.
Further: La Giovinezza (written already 1909) was originally a non-ideological melody that has been adopted by the Italian military, where the text has been added, and even later by fascism. Besides that very wikipedia entry, exact copies and translations of it, I didn’t find any other source confirming that it is still in use.
I visited Malta and the old UK base on the island in the 1970s when I was an artillery officer, I observed the Royal Army 8 Commando Light Battery in a live fire exercise. With me at the time were officers from Portugal who had been part of the Carnation Revolution of 1974 against Salazar’s party which stayed in power for a few years after his death. They considered at that time the Maltese Nazzjonalista were supporters of Salazar’s rule in Portugal and supported old fascists in Spain too. I had a great amount in common with those officers because we all had been in combat against an insurgent anti-colonial force and bitterly lost in those conflicts. Portugal in Africa and the US in Vietnam.
So given my own experiences in Malta with officers who had just overthrown fascism in their own country I have real concerns about how hard an elected official of the PN will push Orban and support a democratic Hungary. I see Roberta Metsola as being promoted by the PN as the new face of the party, but still controlled by operatives like Bernard Grech who are connected politically to corrupt banking interests in Malta. If Orban wins in April I suspect Roberta Metsola will show appropriate deference to the elected PM, if Orban loses she will be less important in any case. Hopefully Orban will lose.
It would be interesting what a members of East German NVA would have told you about Hungarian MSZMP in the 1970s and what you would conclude about today’s MSZP. I disagree with MSZP’s politics, but I am also convinced that it is today a democratic party.
Both parties in Malta used to tend to extremism on their side of spectrum, while they are today with all differences definitely pro-European capitalist parties. To reduce the political views of an active 43-years-old politician to a situation before her birth is definitely not appropriate. Mussolini, Franco, Salazar all were dead, Caetano gone, when Metsola was born. Would you consider the Republicans in the US today being the same as in the 1940s or 1970s? I would doubt that very much!
The evolution of the Republican Party in the USA in the direction of becoming what is now the Party of Trump and basically forcing those of us who were were socially more liberal out of the party (commonly called Rockefeller Republicans) out began in earnest under Regan when we were largely marginalized. There were elements of that wing in the Party going back to the anti-communist purges of the 1950s, so yes parties even right wing ones like the PN are composed of factions.
I personally was a delegate to the Republican National Convention two times from Illinois and was essentially an adherent of a faction of the party in Illinois led by Senator Charles Percy who was a leader of the liberal faction in the Party and wrote the position paper titled Decisions for a Better America, which proposed a set of long-range goals for the Republican Party. He belonged to the moderate and liberal wing of the Republican party, as did I even though I was still in the US Army Reserves, which is actually legal over here. By the time of Regan we were under attack in the party, we could never be sufficiently anti-communist for those trying to purge us.
This I found in regard of the question that political debates are not done with subordinate personal: “I was told that it’s you, I should discuss with:”
Is that supposed to be Putin on the right? This is something the opposition parties should use more. After all, Orbán always tries to portray MZP as Gyurcsány’s proxy.
Yes, it is Putin – and Márki-Zay already reacted on Holliks statement (it was a subordinate of the subordinate!) that Orbán would be subordinate to Putin and the Communist Party of China.
A bit OT:
Hungary first!
No, Poland is the first EU member who will see financial consequences after continuing to poison the environment with producing and burning lignite in Turov. Czechia and Germany are not amused.
Also their (in)justice system and not following the decision of the European court might cost them another million € per day. Good news!
We’ll see Hungary’s reaction when the first EU-money is really frozen …
Even more OT:
I still remember my first journey in winter 1989/90 into East Germany after the wall fell. The mixture of the Trabants stink and the lignite used for heating made us turn around and look for a hotel room in the West again.