Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-01-19-Speech-3-053-000"
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"en.20110119.5.3-053-000"2
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"Mr President, first of all, allow me to say one thing so that there can be no ambiguity.
The Group of the Greens, and I personally, love Hungary. I cried in 1954 when Hungary lost the World Cup. My first demonstration, holding on to my brother’s hand, was in 1956 against the Soviet invasion of Budapest. As Mr Verhofstadt said, many intellectuals, many Hungarian writers have supported us politically and intellectually for years.
I sided with Prime Minister Orbán when he fought the Communists at the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s. I sided with Prime Minister Orbán when he asked liberal Europeans to expel Jörg Haider from the European liberal party. There was a Viktor Orbán who, for me, was a politician who ought to be respected. Today, Prime Minister Orbán, you are on the way to becoming a European Chavez, a national populist who does not exactly understand the essence and structure of democracy.
I am going to tell you a very simple fact, Prime Minister Orbán: there is no such thing as balanced information. Do you think that Mr Nixon found the Watergate information balanced? Obviously not! Do you think that Mr Bush found the information about Abu Ghraib balanced? Of course not! Are you familiar with one of the great political issues – the Dreyfus affair in France – in which the government found that the information was balanced? With regard to research, for example, on the life and politics of Mr Berlusconi, do you think he finds that information balanced? Of course not! Information should upset politics. It upsets us, too, and sometimes that hurts.
That is why, Prime Minister Orbán, your law today is not a law that reflects the values of the European Union. You say that you want a strong Europe, Prime Minister Orbán. A strong Europe, Prime Minister Orbán, must be a credible Europe. If we agree to this kind of law in Europe, how are we going to have discussions with Mr Lukashenko? How are we going to have discussions with China? They all want balanced information.
Prime Minister Orbán, are you aware that Europe came into being against totalitarianisms? And that the basis of democracy, the basis of freedom, is precisely freedom of expression? A democracy never died from having too many freedoms. Democracies died when people started restricting freedoms, Prime Minister Orbán. You knew that twenty years ago. Think back to that time when it was so – and, what is more, it makes sense. You see, then, that what I am telling you is right.
I want to finish on one thing, Prime Minister Orbán. If you want to fight for the world’s Christians, we are with you, but I would have imagined, and I did imagine, that you would have welcomed the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, which is the same revolution you went through, Prime Minister Orbán: freeing yourself from a dictatorship. You did not have a word for the Tunisians, and it is for that reason that I reproach you.
We are with you for the world’s Christians. I trust that you will be with us when it comes to fighting the world’s dictatorships, whether they be in Belarus or whether they be in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, China or Russia – wherever they be. These are the common values of Europe that we must all defend together."@en1
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