VVD MP Thom Van Campen: ‘You can hardly call Hungary democratic’

MPs are received abroad as they themselves receive their guests from abroad: friendly, polite, hospitable. In Budapest, at the end of last week, things are completely different. « What the hell are you coming here? » Asks Zolt Németh, the chairman of the abroad committee of the Hungarian Parliament from Member of the House of Representatives Thom van Campen of the VVD.

In The Hague, the House of Representatives has just adopted a motion by Van Campen to put pressure on Hungary: if the rule of law continues to be violated, the government must insist in Brussels that there is less European money to that country. Reason: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán who the Gay Pride made impossible from 28 June in Boedepast.

Zolt Németh also wants to know from Van Campen: « When do you put it on this? » By the motions, he means, by interfering.

Van Campen, who led the working visit of the MPs, talks about it in his office in The Hague. He leans back and laughs. It had been « intense » yes. Almost a fight. « I said: I would like to stop, but that cannot as long as you continue to take laws that harass minorities. And why I am here? You have invited us. »

For Orbán’s party, the Netherlands is perhaps mainly the land of Geert Wilders, who calls himself a friend of Orbán? And then there is such a motion.

« That chairman started about that, yes. He was happy, he said that the largest party in the Netherlands had not supported the motion. I said that I was very happy with the 106 votes before, of the 150. A majority of two thirds. » He had also told that the PVV minister who is about it, Dirk Beljaarts of Economic Affairs, seemed to be fine, he is going to perform it. « I think they don’t understand that in Hungary. »

Did you expect a motion from the Dutch Parliament to make Hungarians so angry?

« Not when I just started as a Member of Parliament, no. It sounds like: » The Netherlands warns a country one more time.  » But now: we were still at Schiphol when we heard that members of the opposition had not been held with us in Budapest.

You also had a conversation with LGBTQI+organizations. What did you see?

« They are intimidated, humiliated. People in particular are struggling. In schools, homosexuality is no longer talking about homosexual teachers are no longer allowed to talk about their partner. They are called ‘bed bugs’. Just like journalists, the opposition. The Fidesz party of Orbán is fighting the liberal world order. »

The Dutch MPs also had a meeting with journalists. “One told that she has to encourage herself every morning to continue. There has been mouth and mouth-disadvantaged (a highly contagious disease for cattle, ed.), And the government gives journalists no information. And then the electoral system: you can already get a two thirds of the constitution in parliament with 42 percent of the voices. What you can have been doing this in parliament. Under the Sahara, but this country belongs to Dutch tax money.

Is Hungary still a democracy in your eyes?

« You can hardly call that country democratic anymore. Democracy is about much more than just how the administration works. It is also about judges that do not depend on politics for their career. The Hungarian government took a law that all judges had to retire from the age of 62. Then a lot of judges came home. Then there were now to Orbáns who were lied to his weathered are being lied to his weathered are being lied to being his again being lied to his his again his his Longster, his his Layed are being lies down to his his again being lies. Seventy years old.

You are homosexual yourself, that makes it different to make such a working visit and to see how LGBTQI+are suppressed?

« You have to be professionally as a member of parliament. But if I look at those action groups, I think: Jeetjemina, if I had been sitting on their side of the table, I can hope that I would be just as brave. That you organize the pride and hope that you will not be knocked down. I had five of those loves to do nothing else to do so do some people in front of them, and that do that for sexuality, and that do that do that do that, and what to do that do that for sexuality, angry? »

The law that prohibits the pride is about ‘the right to freedom of meeting’ that is subordinated to ‘the protection of children’. Van Campen says he had asked the chairman of the European Commission: « What is so harmful to children who walk on the street with rainbow flags? » That chairman took his phone. « He said: do you know how those people are running, do you want to see it? I have thanked it, but I know: the pride in Budapest is very neat. »

The PVV was not with us and did not support your motion. Wilders is a friend of Orbán. What do you think about that?

« That is complicated, but I can’t do much about it. For us this is all about the Fundamentalsprinciples that should not be confirmed. But every party makes its own assessment in that.  »

You can’t do much about it, you say. Your party is in a coalition with the PVV.

« Because we hope to be able to take steps on other themes with this majority. And apparently this is what 37 seats want to Dutch people. Then we deal with that. »

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