Members of the Hungarian National Assembly met on Monday for the last day of the regular spring session of the legislature. One of the most important items on the agenda is the vote on the draft constitutional amendment, which would limit the term of office of the Hungarian prime minister to eight years. Referring to the portfolio.hu server, the TASR correspondent in Budapest reports on this.
In short:
- The Hungarian parliament is negotiating a constitutional amendment limiting the prime minister’s mandate to eight years
- The proposal prohibits electing a person who has served a total of eight years as prime minister
- Fidesz accuses Magyar’s Tisza party of following Brussels’ orders and supporting migrants
The Prime Minister is elected by the National Assembly on the proposal of the President of the Republic. A person who has held the position of Prime Minister for eight years, including interruptions, cannot be elected Prime Minister. When calculating this eight-year period, the term of office of the Prime Minister from May 2, 1990 is taken into account, the proposal says.
The dispute over the migration camp
Prime Minister Péter Magyar, in a speech before the agenda of the meeting, reproached the members of the former government of Viktor Orbán for agreeing to Orbán’s proposal in early autumn 2024 to build a migration camp near the border with Austria near the village of Vitnyéd. According to Magyar, citizens were lied to that they were building a summer camp there, which no one believed because the area was surrounded by a three-meter fence and guarded by the police.
Magyar recalled that while Fidesz leaders have publicly stated many times that they do not plan to build a refugee camp anywhere, in the summer of 2024 a relevant government decision was made and a budget of five billion forints (14,300,000 euros) has already been allocated for the construction of this facility.
Against the government’s claims
Fidesz MPs called the evidence presented by Magyar a lie and declared that his Tisza party was only following orders from Brussels and trying to let migrants into the country. They refused to comment on the substance of the published secret documents.
“With the intention of being able to negotiate with the European Union on the cancellation of the fine imposed on Hungary by the Court of Justice of the European Union, a government resolution was created, which also included the camp in Vitnyéd, but the government never really wanted to implement it,” declared the chairman of the Fidesz parliamentary faction, Gergely Gulyás.
Magyar described the actions of the former government as a complete moral failure and a conviction of the Fidesz party of knowingly deceiving its own voters.
Clarifying the position on the migration pact
Gulyás called on the prime minister to clearly declare his government’s position on the implementation of the migration pact. Indeed, Fidesz repeatedly claims that the new Magyar government wants to secretly accept a migration pact in exchange for the release of frozen European funds.
