[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11226-11227]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                HUNGARY

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, a year ago, I shared with my colleagues 
concerns I had about the trajectory of democracy in Hungary. 
Unfortunately, since then Hungary has moved ever farther away from a 
broad range of norms relating to democracy and the rule of law.
  On June 6, David Kramer, the President of Freedom House who served as 
Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor for 
President George W. Bush, summed up the situation. Releasing Freedom 
House's latest edition of Nations in Transit Kramer said: ``Hungarian 
Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, 
under the pretext of so-called reforms, have been systematically 
breaking down critical checks and balances. They appear to be pursuing 
the `Putinization' of their countries.''
  The report further elaborates, ``Hungary's precipitous descent is the 
most glaring example among the newer European Union (EU) members. Its 
deterioration over the past five years has affected institutions that 
form the bedrock of democratically accountable systems, including 
independent courts and media. Hungary's negative trajectory predated 
the current government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, but his drive to 
concentrate power over the past two years has forcefully propelled the 
trend.''
  Perhaps the most authoritative voice regarding this phenomenon is the 
Prime Minister himself. In a February 2010 speech, Viktor Orban 
criticized a system of governance based on pluralism and called instead 
for: ``a large centralized political field of power . . . designed for 
permanently governing.'' In June of last year, he defended his plan to 
cement economic policy in so-called cardinal laws, which require a two-
thirds vote in parliament to change, by saying, ``It is no secret that 
in this respect I am tying the hands of the next government, and not 
only the next one but the following ten.''
  Checks and balances have been eroded and power has been concentrated 
in the hands of officials whose extended terms of office will allow 
them to long outlive this government and the next. These include the 
public prosecutor, head of the state audit office, head of the national 
judicial office, and head of the media board. Those who have expressed 
concerns about these developments have good reason to be alarmed.
  I am particularly concerned about the independence of the judiciary 
which, it was reported this week, will be the subject of infringement 
proceedings launched by the European Commission, and Hungary's new 
media law. Although there have been some cosmetic tweaks to the media 
law, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media has argued that it 
remains highly problematic. Indeed, one expert has predicted that the 
most likely outcome of the new law will be to squeeze out reporting on 
corruption.
  Hungary also adopted a new law on religion last year that had the 
stunning effect of stripping hundreds of religions of their legal 
recognition en masse. Of the 366 faiths which previously had legal 
status in Hungary, only 14 were initially granted recognition under the 
new law. Remarkably, the power to decide what is or is not a religion 
is vested entirely and exclusively in the hands of the legislature, 
making it a singularly politicized and arbitrary process. Of 84 
churches that subsequently attempted to regain legal recognition, 66 
were rejected without any explanation or legal rationale at all. The 
notion that the new framework should be acceptable because the faiths 
of most Hungarian citizens are recognized is poor comfort for the 
minority who find themselves the victims of this discriminatory 
process. This law also stands as a negative example for many countries 
around the world just now beginning tenuous movement towards democracy 
and human rights.
  Finally, a year ago, I warned that ``[i]f one side of the nationalism 
coin is an excessive fixation on Hungarian ethnic identity beyond the 
borders, the other side is intolerance toward minorities at home.'' I 
am especially concerned by an escalation of anti-Semitic acts which I 
believe have grown directly from the government's own role in seeking 
to revise Hungary's past.
  Propaganda against the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which defines the 
current borders of Hungary, has manifested itself in several ways. Most 
concretely, the Hungarian government extended citizenship on the basis 
of ethnic or blood identity--something the government of Viktor Orban 
promised the Council of Europe in 2001 that it would not do and which 
failed to win popular support in a 2004 referendum. Second, the 
government extended voting rights to these new ethnic citizens in 
countries including Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine. This has 
combined with a rhetorical and symbolic fixation on ``lost'' Hungarian 
territories--apparently the rationale for displaying an 1848 map of 
Greater Hungary during Hungary's EU presidency last year. In this way, 
the government is effectively advancing central elements of the agenda 
of the extremist, anti-Semitic, anti-Roma Jobbik party. Moreover, 
implicitly--but unmistakably--it is sending the message that Hungary is 
no longer a civic state where political rights such as voting derive 
from citizenship, but where citizenship derives from one's ethnic 
status or blood identity.
  The most recent manifestation of this revisionism includes efforts to 
rehabilitate convicted war criminal Albert Wass and the bizarre 
spectacle of the Hungarian government's role in a ceremony in 
neighboring Romania--over the objections of that country--honoring 
fascist writer and ideologue Joszef Nyiro. That event effectively saw 
the Speaker of the Hungarian Parliament, Laszlo Kover; the Hungarian 
State Secretary for Culture, Geza Szocs; and Gabor Vona, the leader of 
Hungary's most notoriously extremist party, Jobbik, united in honoring 
Nyrio. Several municipalities have now seen fit to erect statues 
honoring Miklos Horthy, Hungary's wartime leader, and the writings of 
Wass and Nyiro have been elevated onto the national curriculum.
  It is not surprising that this climate of intolerance and revisionism 
has gone hand-in-hand with an outbreak of intolerance, such as the 
antiSemitic verbal assaults on a 90-year old Rabbi and on a journalist, 
an attack on a synagogue menorah in Nagykanizsa, the vandalism of a 
Jewish memorial in Budapest and monuments honoring Raoul Wallenberg, 
the Blood Libel screed by a Jobbik MP just before Passover, and the 
recent revelation that a Jobbik MP requested--and received--a 
certificate from a genetic diagnostic company attesting that the MP did 
not have Jewish or Romani ancestry.
  We are frequently told that Fidesz is the party best positioned in 
Hungary to guard against the extremism of Jobbik. At the moment, there 
seems to be little evidence to support that claim. The campaign to 
rehabilitate fascist ideologues and leaders from World War II is 
dangerous and must stop. Ultimately, democracy and the rights of 
minorities will stand or fall together.
  Hungary is not just on the wrong track, it is heading down a 
dangerous road. The rehabilitation of disgraced World War II figures 
and the exaltation of blood and nation reek of a different era, which 
the community of democracies--especially Europe--had hoped was gone for 
good. Today's Hungary demonstrates that the battle against the worst 
human instincts is never fully won but must be fought in every 
generation.

[[Page 11227]]



                          ____________________