EP political group leaders adopted a statement condemning the openly racist declarations by PM Viktor Orbán and underlined that these declarations are in breach of EU values.

Statement of the Conference of Presidents:

“We, the leaders of the Political Groups of the European Parliament, strongly condemn the recent openly racist declaration by Prime Minister Orbán about not wanting to become “peoples of mixed race”. Such unacceptable statements, which clearly constitute a breach of our values, also enshrined in the EU Treaties, have no place in our societies. We, as well, deeply regret the persistence in defending these inexcusable statements by Prime Minister Orbán on further occasions. Racism and discrimination, in all forms, must be unequivocally condemned and effectively tackled at all levels.

We call on the Commission and the Council to condemn urgently this statement in the strongest terms. We also reiterate European Parliament calls on the Council to finally issue its recommendations to Hungary in the framework of the procedure in Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), also addressing new developments affecting the rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights and to determine that there is a clear risk of a serious breach by Hungary of the values referred to in Article 2. We remind the Council that Member States have the obligation to act together and put an end to all the attacks on the values enshrined in Article 2 of TEU and request that the issue is added to the next European Council leaders’ meeting agenda.

We urge the Commission to treat with priority the ongoing infringement procedures against Hungary’s violation of EU rules prohibiting racism and discrimination and make full use of the tools available to address breaches of values enshrined in Article 2. We also welcome the Commission’s decision to trigger the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation against Hungary and expect next steps in that regard following the second letter of 20 July. We reiterate our call on the Commission to refrain from the approval of the Hungarian national plan under the Recovery and Resilience Facility until the fulfilment of all relevant criteria.

We take the opportunity to reiterate that there is no place for racism, discrimination and hate speech in our societies. We call for further actions by EU Governments and at EU level, including against the increasing normalisation of racism and xenophobia, and underline the need for a monitoring and accountability mechanism to ensure the effective application of EU anti-racism legislation and policy.”