Hungarian opposition leader MEP Péter Magyar claims new law targets him
A draft law presented on Friday evening by MPs from Hungary's ruling coalition Fidesz-KDNP party would beef up transparency rules for MEPs and threatens to target opposition leader Péter Magyar, according to Magyar himself and a political commentator.
If approved, the new law would require all Hungarian MEPs to disclose their financial assets in a similar manner to their counterparts in the Hungarian Parliament.
But the new law as drafted also stipulates that MEPs failing to comply with the new transparency disclosures could see their mandates revoked by the National Elections Office (NEO). In such cases the president of the NEO would write to the president of the European Parliament notifying her of the termination of the MEP's mandate .
Péter Magyar claims the measures are targeted at him
The process appears to be designed with Péter Magyar - who founded the opposition Tisza Party a year ago – in mind, according to Magyar. In a Facebook post over the weekend addressed at Orbán, he wrote: "I hear you're getting more and more nervous and you've given it to your jesters to find a miracle weapon that could really get me out of the way."
Recent polls suggest Tisza's and Magyar's popularity is rising ahead of the contest with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at a general election scheduled to take place next year. According to a poll conducted by Median published in March Tisza is leading Fidesz by 9%.
Political analyst Szabolcs Dull said in a weekly newsletter that the timing and content of the draft law indicate that it is targeted at Péter Magyar.
Dull pointed to the fact that the draft new law provides the revocation mechanism only in respect of MEPs not for national lawmakers. He said that the fact that proceedings for insider trading have already been advanced against Magyar indicates he is the likely target of the law.
Dull told Euronews that he thought the aim of the new law was not to actually revoke the mandate of Magyar or block him from running in next year's election, but to harm his public image.
'They want to keep on the agenda that there is some mess around Péter Magyar and there is a scandal surrounding how he became rich, his wealth. Fidesz measures the Prime Minister's suitability scores every week, and they want to build up the narrative that the challenger to the experienced Prime Minister is embroiled in scandal,' according to Dull. Euronews has reached out to the Fidesz party for comment.
Accusations of insider trading
In February, The Central Investigative Prosecutor's Office started an investigation over an alleged stock market transaction by Péter Magyar in 2013. At the time Magyar was a close ally of Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party. Hungarian media has reported that Magyar profited to the tune of several million Hungarian Forints through sale of a stake in Opus, a company related to Hungary's richest man, Lőrinc Mészáros, just hours before Mészáros announced a share buyback campaign, pushing up prices significantly. Magyar has categorically denied the allegations, describing them as totally fake, and telling Hungarian daily HVG that he generally lost money on stock market transactions, and has banking data showing the transaction dates do not match with the allegations.
Legal questions about the new provisions
An MEP has never had his or her mandate revoked by a member state in the history of the European Parliament, according to EU law expert Tamás Lattmann. As a general rule, he said, national law cannot trump EU law, and MEP mandates could not ordinarily be permitted to be terminated in this way.
'Even if the national authority, the NEO decides to withdraw a mandate of an MEP, the European Parliament can just ignore this, as the mandate is not based on the decision of the electoral office,' Lattmann said. He added any such a decision could be challenged by any MEP subject to it, likely resulting a long legal battle culminating in Hungary's Curia, or eventually at the European Court of Justice.
A European Parliament spokesperson declined to comment on national legislative proposals that remain at the draft stage.
Magyar responds with challenge to Orban
Magyar reacted to the plans over the weekend with a Facebook post addressed to Orban, in which he signalled his intention to comply with the requirements, and challenged the incumbent to follow suit.
'Not only will I declare my own assets publicly, but I'll also declare those of my relatives. You can follow me! Let's pull our pants down together, Prime Minister! Is that a deal?' read the post.
ADVERTISEMENT
In the post Magyar also trolled Orbán for alleged luxury possessions such as a private zoo including zebras and landscaping worth 30 million HUF (€75,000 euros) at Orbán's estate in Hatvanpuszta. A government spokesperson said of the allegations that they were 'beneath humour'.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
AFP
4 hours ago
- AFP
Old military exercise photo misrepresented as Thailand-Cambodia clashes
"Thailand launches AIR STRIKES on Cambodian military targets," reads a post shared July 25, 2025 on X that features the photo. Image Screenshot of the false post captured July 28, 2025, with a red 'X' added by AFP Similar posts also ricocheted on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube as the bloodiest military clashes in more than a decade erupted between Thailand and Cambodia (archived link). At least 35 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced since the dramatic escalation in hostilities between the neighbouring countries over their jungle-clad frontier, which is home to a smattering of contested ancient temples. Both sides began discussing a ceasefire on July 28 at the residence of Malaysian leader Anwar Ibrahim, serving chair of the ASEAN bloc of which Thailand and Cambodia are members. However, a reverse image search of keyframes on Google traced the picture to a Facebook post from the Thai Royal Air Force on June 16, 2025, weeks before fighting started (archived link). "Images of the collaboration between the strong air forces of Thailand and Indonesia through the mixed drills," reads part of the caption, adding that the exercise took place from June 9 to 19. "Both countries' air forces took to the skies above southern Esan," it goes on to say, referring to the northwestern region of Thailand. Image Screenshot of the Royal Thai Air Force post taken July 28, 2025, with the picture highlighted by AFP The Royal Thai Air Force also published a press release on its official website about the conclusion of the joint air drills with Indonesia on June 20, 2025 (archived link). Matching visuals -- including the aircraft images and the logo -- can also be seen in a June 19 article about the joint Thai-Indonesian air drill on a dedicated blog (archived link). AFP has debunked more misinformation on the Thailand-Cambodia dispute here, here and here.
Euronews
9 hours ago
- Euronews
On defence, France and Germany are inching closer but remain far apart
Germany is becoming more French - and vice versa - when it comes to defence but big differences in the state of their public finances and strategic thinking mean the so-called Franco-German engine is unlikely to be able to power a big shift in the way the EU as a whole does defence. "From a longer historical point of view, the degree of convergence (between the two countries) is arguably higher than it has been for, I would say, decades," Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank, told Euronews. Both capitals see Russia as their biggest long-term threat, and both have pledged to pour hundreds of billions of euros into their military and defence industrial base. In Berlin, this has been dubbed a "Zeitenwende" (or historical turning point) while Paris said its latest military programmation law is "the ultimate strategic move". This convergence was driven by Russia's ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which brought back conventional war to European soil, Donald Trump's return to the White House, which has put in doubt continued long-term US commitment to Europe's security, and a change of leadership in Germany. The new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, "basically took what I can only describe as a Gaullist stance", Kirkegaard said, by saying that "Europe needs to prepare for a future without a US security guarantee". 'France is converging with Germany' Yet one example of how this rapprochement in defence remains a laborious process came last week when France's Emmanuel Macron and Merz sought to diffuse tensions over a joint €100 billion project to develop a sixth-generation fighter jet. At the core of the dispute is the demand by France to secure 80% of the workshare for the new Future Combat Air System (FCAS), negating previous agreements that it would be split equally between the two countries and Spain, which is also part of the project. The French demand, however, "should not be as surprising as it seems", Rafael Loss, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), told Euronews, given that one of the major differences between France and Germany is how differently they view their military and the purpose they serve. The armed forces in France are part of the national foreign policy - as recent deployments in the Sahel attest - with the country's overseas territories and its possession of the nuclear weapon adding to its global perspective. "That's why the French military is much more comfortable with acting unilaterally or outside of EU, NATO contexts (than Germany's), and this then extends to the kinds of capabilities that the French armed forces prefer acquiring," Loss said. "Everything that relates to the French nuclear deterrent has to work when France is alone. And that means that FCAS, which is supposed to replace the Rafale fighter bombers going forward in carrying French nuclear weapons, French military and political leadership will not accept a situation where they're dependent to produce this capability because the nuclear deterrent depends on that capability." "French industry will need to be able to produce this aircraft by themselves if push comes to shove. They're willing to cooperate when strategic orientations align, but ultimately they have to produce everything independently of others. And again, that's something that many in Germany and across Europe haven't quite realised," he added. Still, Loss continued, "France is converging with Germany" with the "realisation that for the sake of European security, it needs to show that it invests in its partnerships and relationships with Europeans, especially those on the eastern flank". 'A big wasted opportunity' But the other major hurdle for the two to advance a common defence agenda at the EU level is the stark difference in their respective fiscal space. Germany's debt-to-Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio stood at 62.3% in the first quarter of the year. France's was at 114.1%, well above what the bloc's rules mandate (60%). This structural divergence means that as European countries aim to significantly ramp up their defence spending and military capabilities to deter a possible Russian attack towards the turn of the decade, Germany can afford to invest heavily in defence, while France cannot. For instance, Germany has asked to make use of a proposal by Brussels to loosen fiscal rules for defence spending, something France, which is targeted by an excessive deficit procedure, cannot do. France, which has consistently invested in defence over the last few decades, has less ground to cover, so to speak, but the sums advanced by the German government (including a €500 billion fund to boost the military and the country's infrastructure) should mean it catches up quickly. But their public finances also "fundamentally place them on different sides of negotiating tables" at the EU level, Kirkegaard said. The European Commission has put forward a plan to rearm Europe that it hopes will prompt member states to invest up to €800 billion before 2030. But most of that money is expected to come from member states' coffers, which in the case of France, are quite depleted. Given the scale of the task ahead, the Commission has been asked to come up with "innovative" financing options for defence. Macron has called for one of those options to be joint EU borrowing, something Germany has flat-out rejected. For Kirkegaard, this means that the crisis ushered in by Russia's war on Ukraine, is "a big wasted opportunity" for the bloc. "This crisis, the war in Ukraine, will not lead to materially more EU institutional or fiscal integration. It will lead to an expansion of the EU with Ukraine and maybe other countries but that's a different type of change to the EU and that's also very different than the last many big crises we've had," he said.
LeMonde
2 days ago
- LeMonde
'In Eastern Europe, it is often mainstream media that spreads false information and promotes illiberal ideas'
In light of growing evidence of democratic backsliding and rising authoritarianism worldwide, digital media are increasingly seen as central drivers of these trends – both for their well-documented role in amplifying illiberal and radical right-wing politics, and for their known susceptibility to foreign manipulation. This perception is arguably reinforced by media coverage of some of the recent elections, from France to the United States to Romania, highlighting the importance of video platforms, influencers and podcasters for electoral mobilization, as well as raising alarms about Russian interference. However, if we step back from the narrow focus on electoral campaigns in countries with relatively pluralistic news markets, and take a look at the broader political information environment shaping citizens' opinions, we can often see that it is the mainstream media and domestic actors – rather than social media and hostile foreign powers – who assume the central role in the dissemination of false information, and in the promotion of illiberal attitudes. Our own research on the rise of illiberalism in Eastern Europe highlights many such examples, while at the same time showing that under certain conditions – namely, wherever the majority of the mainstream media market has been captured by illiberal political actors or their business allies – social media can act as channels of resistance against the forces of illiberalism. Major channels of propaganda In Eastern Europe, some of the most potent manifestations of the crucial role of mainstream media in the illiberal public sphere are currently observed in Hungary and Serbia. In Hungary, Viktor Orban's Fidesz party has effectively colonized the vast majority of the media market, and turned major media brands into channels of government propaganda, starting with the public service broadcaster MTVA. In Serbia, the key outlets upholding the illiberal regime of Aleksandar Vucic have been commercial TV stations such as Pink TV, TV Happy, TV Prva and TV92, as well as the main national tabloids such as Informer, Alo, Kurir and Srpski telegraf, all owned by Serbian companies with close ties with the ruling elites.
