Eastern European Politics

@amitakartok: I think on the death penalty issue, Orban might be able to get some support from the rest of the rising European far right, which has a shocking amount of influence in the European Parliament.

Unfortunately for him, "some support" does not change the fact that the current consensus among the European elite is that the death penalty is a violation of human rights, regardless of the opinion of the voting public.

edited 10th May '15 9:10:49 PM by Ramidel

That maybe because European Parliament Elections are seen as less important than national elections, and a place for a Protest Vote — if people vote at all.

Not just that, it's also a simple reflection of the fact that the EU has much more support among the political class than among the European people, and far-right parties are the only ones that represent eurosceptics' position on the subject.

Be that as it may, the world is run by people who show up; and be that as it may, the European Parliament is still a fairly weak branch of the EU and doesn't have a say on this issue.

edited 10th May '15 10:31:02 PM by Ramidel

Nonsense.

The far-right in the EU parliament consists of the ECR and the EFD, and a smattering of the non-inscrits. Between them, the ECR/EFD have about 15% of the seats, and the non-inscrits who are mostly far-right have 7% of the seats, but they all hate each other anyway.

Compare that to the left wingers - the PES, GUE/NGL, and the Greens/EFA - who between them hold just under 40% of the seats, and the centre-right in the EPP, who hold just under 30% of the seats. To those two, you can add the liberal centrists of ALDE, who hold 8%.

edited 11th May '15 4:59:06 AM by Achaemenid

I think there is a tendency to confuse "Eurosceptic right-wing groups are on the rise" (or, worse, "Eurosceptic right-wing groups are getting more attention") with "Eurosceptic right-wing groups constitute a majority opinion". Some of them might end up as such but they aren't there yet, even ignoring turnout issues they usually don't approach 50%.

Juncker's opinion on Orbán:

Reactions from the Hungarian audience are mixed. Some say Juncker went too far in humiliating him, others say Juncker is the man for flipping off political correctness.

edited 22nd May '15 5:33:36 PM by amitakartok

Oh, wow.

Diplomacy at its finest.

Well that was...bold. Pulling the tail of the tiger.

Fidesz has started to install anti-immigration billboards across the country. One of them reportedly stood for only two days before someone covered the entire text with paint. Public opinion is clearly not on their side.

Media says Orbán and co. are looking for a legal way to close down the entire southern border in order to stop the influx of refugees, as the EU's laws prescribe that refugees must be taken care of in the country where they enter EU territory; there are rumors that Germany and Austria are about to deport 15,000 refugees who entered via Hungary before reaching the West. To gain the pretense of legitimacy, they initiated a "national consultation" - that is, a publicly distributed questionnaire for getting the people's opinion. Of the 400,000 answers sent back, half of those have been processed and over 90% is in favor of Hungary taking harsh action against immigration. The socialists call this result "inhuman hatemongering that humiliates every honest and good-willing Hungarian" due to only 5% of those eligible actually answering, thus claiming it's not at all representative of the public opinion. They also criticize throwing away 1.3 billion for this sham while the immigration office in charge of actually handling this only gets a 50 million increase to their budget for this fiscal year.

edited 6th Jun '15 5:13:34 PM by amitakartok

How big of an issue is immigration in Eastern Europe, anyway? My impression is that they're net exporters of emigrants.

Normally yes, we're net exporters. However, the shitstorm in the Middle East is causing a major influx. The current record is 394 illegal border crossings within one day (May 23); of that bunch, the largest group were 104 people strong, of which 102 were Afghans.

The concern is that these people are not transiting through Hungary for another country; they are coming here to settle down. It's not just a matter of nationalism: those who emigrate to the West are mostly the high-education elite, whose talents won't pay off here. The untrained, low-education workforce in Hungary has no deficit - in fact, multiple multinational companies closed their Hungarian factories in the past months, leaving hundreds unemployed. So the immigrants cannot even pitch in to earn their keep. There is literally no practical reason for us to take them in - and don't expect Orbán's gang to do so out of altruism.

Add in the fact that the western countries have already started turning back those who already passed through us. See the dilemma? We can't help them, but if we don't help them, we'll be blamed for whatever happens to those poor folks. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. It's lose-lose, no matter what Fidesz does or says.

edited 6th Jun '15 6:19:40 PM by amitakartok

Fidesz is posting cops to guard the propaganda billboards against further vandalising, after the text of another billboard (next to a motorway) was tweaked to spell "If you come to Hungary, you cannot take away Orbán Viktor!"

edited 7th Jun '15 6:04:41 AM by amitakartok

Numerous reports of the propaganda billboards being vandalized are coming in. There's even a Google Maps database about their locations, as well as whether each particular one has been vandalized yet.

There's also fundraising going on for a counter-campaign, organized by the Two-tailed Dog Party (a joke party parodying all the others); over 2.3 million has been raised within five hours, with the party stating their goal as raising awareness of the lack of social solidarity for refugees, as well as the government seemingly spending billions on making the people hate each other even more.

And apparently, a few of the folks who defaced the billboards were arrested.

That too. They belong to one of the opposition parties; their boss, when asked by the media about it, basically said "I didn't order them to do it but civil disobedience is a valid way to express opinion, so Bring It".

edited 8th Jun '15 11:51:56 AM by amitakartok

In today's parliament session, Jobbik representative Előd Novák kept interrupting the undersecretary's speech about the sentencing of Béla Biszku. Eventually, the Speaker of the House had enough and warned Novák that he'll be barred from participation in today's session if he doesn't stop disrupting.

He didn't, so the assembly voted 94-31 in favor of barring him. That is, he could still be present but he couldn't actively participate in any discussion for the rest of the session. It's like everybody collectively told him "look, if you can't say anything useful, then SHUT THE FUCK UP".

I'm not exactly anti-Jobbik, but that's just

Afterwards, another Jobbik representative called the anti-immigration billboards's vandalism "primitive", the billboards themselves "a neoprimitive category". He said that the proper response to this issue should be setting up a proper border guard (which, since Hungary's joining of Schengen, has been marginalized and merged into the police) and tightening the security of refugee camps.

edited 8th Jun '15 1:52:42 PM by amitakartok

Sabre's Edge, I just found an answer to your earlier question, taken directly from the ECRI's recently released report. The number of asylum seekers in Hungary has increased 776% between 2012 and 2013, yet the camps themselves saw no infrastructural upgrade to handle this workload. Hygienic and medical conditions suffered as a result.

There's also the issue of immigrants frequently becoming homeless from lacking the funds to settle down. Many of them are asking for their government subsidy to be paid in full, all at once, so that they can solve this, yet the government claims that in most cases, either they spend the money on something else or they just grab it and run abroad.

edited 9th Jun '15 2:58:16 AM by amitakartok

Current party support poll, top 3:

• Fidesz 28% (up 4% since March)
• Jobbik 16% (highest ever)
• Socialists 8% (down 3% since March)

35% are undecided (down 8% since March). 65% says Fidesz is doing a bad job, including 15% of Fidesz' own voters. 63% says things are not going well for the country.

Those who absolutely refuse to vote for Jobbik are currently at 43%, a five-year minimum record.

A separate poll was done among university students. 20% of them support Jobbik, counting for 38% of Jobbik's voters. Mostly men from the countryside. 40% of them would accept a dictatorship, although many are skeptical about politics in general: when asked for a synonym for politics, "corruption" is at first place, "lies" at second. 40% shun all forms of political and social activity. Less would go to protests than before, but more would raise funds and sign petitions.

Most consider themselves more liberal than conservative, a bit to the right but mostly aligned at the center.

63% plan to work abroad in the short term, 50% in the long term, 37% would settle down abroad for good.

Speaking of fundraising, the counter-campaign for the govt's anti-immigration propaganda raised 18 million in two days, far surpassing the organizers' expectations. And now the UN are launching their own counter-campaign as well.

edited 10th Jun '15 7:18:54 AM by amitakartok

On the third day, the fundraising is at 25.8 million.

The EPP Group - of which Fidesz is a member - told Orbán in no uncertain terms to drop all discussion on the death penalty issue, or else. He's forbidden not just from reintroducing it, from even discussing it either. The group's spokesman said that what Fidesz has been doing repeatedly goes against the group's agenda and this was the point where they draw the line.

Orbán agreed to drop the issue for good. We'll see if he holds true to that promise...

What's with Jobbik and interrupting that speech? I thought they were the sort of extreme right-wing kooks who hate anything remotely related to communism.

Also, our government pretty much shit itself and died in the aftermath of Waitergate. I even bothered to listen halfway into the recorded conversation of Commissioner Bienkowska and the chief of counterintelligence, Wojtunik. There's a darkly humorous bit early in: Bienkowska says she feels like she's been locked in a gilded cage, and slightly later on mentions how she could have wound up in a fabricated scandal, because she ordered a couple of takeaway pizzas for a ladies' night and if any paparazzo caught her with them, the media would spin it into a reprise of the local Secret Service officers delivering pizza to the former Speaker Sikorski's estate. Even if this time pizzas were a private expense.

Law and Justice's victory is being credited with the previous government being to close to Russia Not sure how true this is.

edited 16th Jun '15 7:53:45 PM by JackOLantern1337

It is happening: Orbán signed a governmental decree for temporarily walling off the 175 km border with Serbia with a four meters tall barbed wire fence. Unofficial sources claim that it was inspired by Bulgaria doing the same at the Turkish border.

Several eyewitnesses report that the Serbian authorities expected this and have been actively helping refugees cross the border to get rid of as many as possible while they still can. Croatia is concerned that this will cause the refugees to target them instead. The Serbian PM is Godwinning.

The decision may have been prompted by a last Thursday incident in Calais, where a Hungarian truck driver's vehicle was mobbed by several dozen illegal immigrants trying to get through the border.

Party reactions:

• Socialists: "we're sick of the government's hate campaign"
• Fidesz: "good choice, considering that, if nothing is done, the number of illegal immigrants in the country will surpass 60000 by the end of this month and the country cannot sustain that many"
• Liberals: "inhuman and pointless"
• Jobbik: "necessary, but not enough"

Eh, there have been talks here in Greece to do exactly the same thing in Evros.

Even before our new government wussed out, it still wasn't considered enough. You had illegal immigrants coming in by the tens of thousands per month.

Desperate times, desperate measures.

What is both of your opinions on the immigrants?

I don't really have an opinion. We have no practical/pragmatic reason to accept them - but I do recognize the fact that these poor folks really have nowhere to go.

It's not them I have no empathy for. It's towards everyone in general, born from a general disillusionment in the world in general (which is a general trait in Hungary nowadays; the Dwarf Fortress trait "doesn't really care about anything anymore" comes to mind). So I'm not exactly the right person to ask for opinions in humanitarian matters.

edited 17th Jun '15 2:21:15 PM by amitakartok