On Tuesday, Viktor Orbán sharply attacked the European Commission and the EU’s trade agreement with Mercosur. In a video on social media, he declared that his government would never ratify the document and accused EC President Ursula von der Leyen of defrauding farmers and circumventing the powers of national parliaments.
As long as there is a national government in Hungary, it will never approve the Mercosur agreement, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Tuesday in a video posted on Facebook. According to the 24.hu server, the chairman of the non-parliamentary opposition party TISZA, Péter Magyar, declared that even TISZA does not agree with the Mercosur agreement. However, he added that the ruling Fidesz party first supported the agreement and now changed its mind, reports the TASR correspondent in Budapest.
- Orbán: Hungary will never approve an agreement with Mercosur.
- The opposition party TISZA also disagrees with the agreement.
- Orbán claims that the farmers were cheated.
- MEPs will vote on referring the agreement to the Court of Justice of the EU.
According to Orbán, the farmers were deceived
Orbán told farmers who are protesting the European Union’s trade deal with the Mercosur group and putting pressure on members of the European Parliament sitting in Strasbourg to keep protesting and that they have been deceived.
The Prime Minister pointed out that according to the applicable rules, the international trade agreement must also be approved by the national parliaments. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Commission bypassed the national parliaments by creating an auxiliary rule, stating that the agreement can be applied temporarily.
Orbán: Decisions are being made that are harmful to farmers
“Farmers are angry, so it’s not just the economic problems of Mercosur, not only the future of agriculture, but also that they have been cheated. National parliaments are being bypassed and decisions are being made that are harmful to farmers,” Orbán said, adding that this is why they are now demonstrating in Strasbourg and demanding the resignation of Ursula Von der Leyen. “And they are right,” concluded the Prime Minister’s post.
MEPs will vote on the ratification of the agreement with Mercosur in the coming months. On Wednesday, they are due to vote on whether to refer the trade deal to the Court of Justice of the EU to review its compatibility with the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. If the matter goes to court and the opinion of the court is negative, the commercial agreement can become valid only if it is amended.
