Couple of days ago, members of the Green group showed their support for protesters against fracking in Lancashire.
As known, Cuadrilla, a shale gas company has applied to drill wells in two locations in Lancashire, which besides causing a massive increase in noise and leading to higher traffic would also mean a potential threat to public health by causing air and water pollution. While the British government shows full support for the drilling project, protests against it have also ensued and now might result in some success: the county’s council officers also raised their concerns about the increase in noise and traffic, which might lead to the refusal of the project.
In order for green ideas on energy to resonate in the mainstream, questions need to be answered about how the transition will be financed, and how it will benefit those are already marginalised and struggling economically. A positive initiative targeting the Roma minority in Hungary shows one way in which this can be achieved.
(Source of the picture: fortytwotimes.com)
Energy poverty: a pervasive problem
Europe’s energy policy has seen profound changes in the last decades, but it is currently facing a new situation with multiple challenges. Although choices around energy in different Member States may vary, we have three common and distinct policy objectives: limiting the climatic and environmental impact of energy production, transport and use; ensuring a reliable and uninterrupted supply of energy; and making energy affordable for every citizen while fighting against energy poverty.
The first two aspects have been widely discussed, thus in this article I put emphasis on energy affordability and in general the social aspects of the energy agenda, which has clear linkages with climate and energy security issues. Before examining the social aspects in detail, I would like us to remind ourselves that:
We need substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions to avoid climate or ecological tipping points. Moving towards a low carbon economy would also result in substantial savings in terms of fuel costs in the EU, namely € 175-320 billion annually over the next 40 years according to the European Commission estimates.
We need to reverse the current trends and reduce energy dependency in the EU. EU dependency increased from less than 40% of gross energy consumption in the 1980s to reach 53.4 % by 2012. To reverse the trend, an ambitious and coherent energy framework with interlinked targets is crucial.
These two challenges are accompanied by the pervasive problem of energy poverty in many regions of the EU (mainly in Eastern-Central Europe and the Mediterranean member states). Hence, making energy affordable for each and every member of European society and making sustainable technologies available for all are of utmost importance. This is also valid at global scale – according to the International Energy Agency estimates provided in the World Energy Outlook, 1.8 billion people lack access to electricity and in some regions, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and developing Asia, energy poverty either stagnated or worsened as population growth outpaced energy access efforts.
In Europe itself, it is estimated that 50-125 million EU citizens are affected by energy (or fuel) poverty meaning that these households are unable to heat their home, afford to use energy services at an adequate level, and are forced to spend an extremely high proportion of their incomes for maintenance. Many households are unable to escape energy poverty and are basically excluded from existing energy modernisation programmes (e.g. insulation and improving heating efficiency of homes) due to their unfavourable financial situation.
In my view, at the European level, efforts should be concentrated on providing programs for low-income households to reach energy savings and to help them to get access to renewable energy investments. The latter would allow them to diversify their own energy sources and to build energy autonomy at a household level.
We need programmes that do not require an own contribution from disadvantaged households, as savings that they will be able to achieve via energy modernisation will cover their loan instalments. We also need low-cost micro projects targeted at the most vulnerable groups.
Hungary: a positive initiative against a difficult background
To give you examples from my home country, according to a recent study, 75-85% of households in Hungary do not have any savings; 80% of those households planning energy related investments would not receive a bank loan to cover the investment costs. As recent Eurostat reports show, in 2013 33.5% of the residents in Hungary were living at risk of poverty or social exclusion and the number of those living under the poverty line is 1.363 million. More importantly in Hungary – in many cases as a result of misusing EU funds – the gap between the richest and the poorest is bigger than ever: as the Bertelsmann Foundation states in its report “Social Justice in the EU – A Cross-national Comparison” Hungary is the 25th out of 28 EU countries in the field of social cohesion and non-discrimination.
Nevertheless, I can also showcase a best practice example based on a participatory approach. The “Fényhozók” (“Light bringers”) project aims to provide simple, DIY energy solutions using solar energy for vulnerable Roma households in Hungary.
Within this programme, the students and alumni of the Romaversitas Foundation provide help to the most vulnerable families living in ghettos in establishing Self-Financing Communities. The goals are tangible: to equip the poorest houses with solar panels, LED lightning and accumulators; to find the most efficient and sustainable techniques for heating as well as to disseminate the necessary knowledge among the people with lowest education. Besides these very concrete goals the program focuses on the empowerment of communities’ through decreasing the families’ dependency from service providers.
Having some insight into the use of EU funds in Hungary and the current priorities of the Hungarian Environmental and Energy Efficiency Operational Programme in particular, I can remark that alleviating fuel poverty is not an integral part of the Programme, and there is a high risk of EU-co-funded developments actually resulting in growing disparities. As many good European examples show us, EU funds could and also should be diverted towards energy efficiency programs planned, implemented and run by (poor) local communities. It is essential to pay special attention to the question by EU bodies, decision makers and even experts working in any of the related fields.
Widening access to energy
There is a threefold challenge that Europe’s energy policy needs to tackle, and here I argued for a need to intelligently reframe the energy agenda by combining green energy efforts with the alleviation of energy poverty.
We should build on the momentum of the energy security efforts, and we definitely need an ambitious policy framework that provides proper incentives, brings about behaviour change and at the same time, provides benefits for the wider public. While mainstreaming sustainable technologies, new solutions should follow with a view to reducing disparities in the EU.
Energy savings, efficiency and sustainable sources have to be fundamental elements of a renewed, common European energy policy. I also argue for a decentralised energy system which is based on the ‘prosumer’ (consumer and provider at the same time) concept which requires clearly distinctive developments, investments and infrastructural priorities in comparison to a traditional energy network.
In addition to this, we should look far beyond progress in terms of infrastructure, systems, and technologies, and also aim for providing better services and above all, improving accessibility to these in the widest sense.
The “Fényhozók” (“Light bringers”) project of the Romaversitas Foundation provides a good example for all the above aspects.
To our knowledge, the European Commission initiated at least two procedures in connection with the expansion of the Paks power plants: one concerns forbidden of state aid; the other that I initiated, concerning the absence of public procurement procedure. These procedures can end with the Commission’s demand towards Hungary to amend the agreement for the new nuclear power plant. Before the EC has pronounced its verdict in the on-going procedures, it is irresponsible to sign the three implementation agreements. A hurried signing procedure only suggests that what is important to the government has nothing to do with energy safety, but all the more with the “friendly” exploitation of 4000 billion Forints’ worth of public money. We do not see guarantees on how these implementation agreements can be repealed if requested from the Commission.
At the same time, even after the signing, there is no answer to the fundamental questions related to the expansion. We do not know how much the entire project will cost together with the relating investments, we do not know what electricity price could balance out the investment, it is not clear whether the cost of capital will be included in the investment or not, we do not know what will happen to the waste generated in the new blocks and we do not know how great of a financial risk the Hungarian government took with the early signing of the agreements.
In the last couple of weeks it became clear that Russia does not have the financial background to finance projects that are important to the country (e.g. the South Stream), that Putin is an unreliable business partner and that the West sees all Russia-related energy investment projects as an obvious safety risk.
What all this information underlines is that it was a severe mistake to sign premature agreements; meanwhile, with the proposal of the new Paks law, the government aims at limiting the publicity of information in connection with the Paks expansions even beyond the already restricted possibilities. Only those who have something to hide behave in such manner.
In order to unveil the secret, as of today, I submitted a request for the signed agreements before the government, with its legal authority, could make it impossible for us to know what it actually committed itself to in connection with the Paks investment.
Benedek Javor is hosting an event on the occasion of the international Anti-Corruption Day.
Here you can read his opening speech:
Ladies and Gentleman,
Let me greet you with the warmest welcome, and with great respect for your interest in defending the public interest against corruption, and for the work you do for it in your respective fields, as scholars, activists, lawmakers or otherwise. This day, December the ninth, has been international anti-corruption day for more than a decade, since the United Nations Convention against Corruption has been passed in 2003. The Convention is the first legal instrument that is global, adopts a fairly comprehensive approach to corruption, and is binding to its parties at least in some of its provisions. Sadly, the protection of whistleblowers, the brave people who risk their jobs, careers, often the peaceful and normal operation of their personal lives, and sometimes their safety and possibly even their lives, to uncover corrupt deeds, usually of powerful people, is not among the Convention’s binding provisions. The Convention only suggests to its parties that they consider adopting provisions to protect whistleblowers in their respective national legal systems. Similar is the situation at the European level. There are EU policies, including binding legislation, on several aspects of corruption, but not on whistleblower protection. In October 2013, the last Parliament clearly expressed its intention to change this, in its resolution in which it adopted the final report of the CRIM Committee, and called on the Commission to draft a directive on the subject. The last Commission, however, declined. This is part of the reason we are here now.
Democracy is in crisis, at least in some of the EU member states. I, for one, come from country which is currently taking an authoritarian turn, partly because the decay has reached the moral foundations of democracy. Corruption contributed greatly to this situation. At the core of the democratic ideal there are ideas about equality, fairness, the accountability of power, and the rule of law. Corruption is not just a criminal activity causing material loss to the economy and to public revenues. Corruption, especially if it is widespread in the power-structure, hollows out these core ideals and undermines the credibility of democracy.
Corrupt dealings are done in secrecy. So corruption is not just a matter for law-enforcement, because in many cases it is invisible to law-enforcement authorities until somebody decides to break the secrecy. The secrecy is maintained by the powerful people involved in corruption in great part by the potential threat they might mean to those who, in possession of inside information, would uncover their secrets. The ability of powerful people to crush the lives of those who might want to uncover their wrongdoings is at the heart of corruption. So whistleblower-protection is not just a policy area among many others related to corruption, it is a tool without which effective anti-corruption policy is impossible.
Yet, the legal provisions for whistleblower-protection are surprisingly scarce in many EU countries. Very few EU countries have a comprehensive legislation providing for safe and accessible procedures available for whistleblowers, and effective guaranties that would safeguard them against the retaliation and vengeance of those whose corrupt deeds they reported. About half of the member states have some partial legislation on the subject providing legal protection to employees who come forward to report wrongdoings they witnessed. In some EU countries the legal protection of whistleblowers is next to none.
Whistleblowers speak out, because they feel it is their moral obligation. They do so at great personal cost. As it is reflected in a collection of really heart-breaking stories of the lives of whistleblowers who followed their moral instincts published in Guardian just about two weeks ago, even in countries like the UK, which is among the few EU countries where the legal framework for whistleblower protection can be regarded as well-developed, whistleblowing might have devastating consequences on both the professional careers and personal lives of those who undertake it. Whistleblowers are seldom given credit for what they have done for the public good. By blowing the whistle they usually unleash an enemy that is powerful and has every resources to use the law against them. They do so, because they care for what is right and what is wrong. It should be clear that the law and the society stands by their side.
If there was a progress in some member states in this respect, it was, to a large extent, because of the activism and endurance of NGOs that are active in this field. I am proud that I can be a partner in your work, and I hand over the floor to experts and representatives in the hope of a fruitful cooperation towards our shared objectives.
Hungarian MEP Benedek Javor has decided to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg over the refusal of house speaker Laszlo Kover to let him speak about the Paks expansion in the Hungarian assembly.
Source: infovilag.hu
Kover did not allow Javor, a member of the E-PM opposition alliance, to address the chamber on the ground that he is a representative in the European Parliament and should only speak about matters concerning European affairs.
Javor told a news conference in Budapest that he had made the request to speak during the debate on the nuclear power station’s expansion a week before the debate had been due to take place on Sept 26, since, he insisted, the issue also concerns the European Union.
Since the house rules committee had not come to a consensus regarding Javor’s request, Kover rejected it, arguing he topic did not concern EU affairs.
Javor said Kover’s decision contravened his right to freedom of expression.
The European Union (EU) should leave behind its economic growth obsession and focus instead on more transparent and sustainable policies, according to hundreds of people gathered at the flagship European Citizens summit event in Brussels.
A recurring question surrounding the Parliament elections in May was whether and how the EU will be able to regain the public’s lost trust in the European project. Today, hundreds of European citizens and people living in Europe voiced their hopes, expectations and demands as they reminded EU leaders that, if Brussels is not to fall into irrelevance for millions of its citizens, it should become more inclusive, fair and transparent not only on paper but in its proposals and policies too (like the Europe 2020 strategy).“Economic growth cannot be the sole driver of the new Europe that we were promised in the European elections. The hardship endured by many over the last years has prompted the need to discuss an alternative vision of Europe; a new approach that puts people’s interests and well-being first, and not as an afterthought of financial markets. We deserve a fairer Europe accountable to the people who make it, not to the CEOs and bankers who want to rule it,” said Emma Woodford, spokesperson for the EU Civil Society Contact Group.
While a recent Eurobarometer survey showed that 95% of EU citizens want Europe to do more to protect the environment, Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission’s President-elect, has hardly left an occasion unused to dismantle European policies on climate change and the environment. The ten environmental umbrella organisations in Europe are alarmed by the mission statements issued by the climate and environment commissioners-designated (here and here) as they commit next to nothing to keep the environment’s degradation to the lowest level possible. The 2nd Citizens Summit channelled Europeans’ voices and concerns into concrete, urgent demands to EU leaders and policy-makers. Participants discussed on how to deal with the many xenophobes, macho’s & anti-democrats coming to the new European Parliament. They agreed that Climate Change is the biggest market failure ever and that the narritve surrounding the solution should shift to a human rights discourse. They agreed that the future of the EU should be underpinned by an economic model based on a fair and inclusive distribution of resources, and not on a race for wealth accumulation; in a society driven by human rights and values and not by narrow, short-term economic targets; and in a shift from power concentration and a lack of transparency of political processes, such as the TTIP negotiations.
The Summit’s participants agreed that a leadership fit for the XXI century must understand that resources and services such as water, education, health, information, environment, culture and public spaces are common goods, not the privilege of a few. The EU is also a responsible global actor bound to spread its underpinning values beyond its borders: social justice, respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights. To make that happen, and among other proposals, the Summit discussed the Degrowth movement. As Vincent Liegey, spokesperson of the French Degrowth movement, stressed: “in reminding us that an infinite growth in a finite world is an absurd concept, Degrowth demonstrates the physical and also the cultural limits to growth. Through its radical critics and also through alternatives, initiatives and reflexions, it opens and experiments paths to a democratic transition to new sustainable and desirable models of society.”
Susan George, social activist and chairperson of the Transnational Institute, commented: “in a final, anti-democratic action, the outgoing Commission has rejected a European Citizens Initiative on the TTIP —the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. If ratified, this scandalous, secretive treaty will lower standards for health, food, work, environment and hand over our most important decisions to transnational corporations. This Citizens Summit is an arena both of resistance and of renewed commitment to build a different Europe—inclusive, fair, green and democratic.”
MEPs Bart Staes and Philippe Lamberts. Source: ejolt.org
A dozen MEPs came to the Summit to have a direct conversation with citizens. Bart Staes from the Greens encouraged civil society by saying that every success so far has come when good proposals in the parliament were backed up by strong public pressure – citing the example of a ban on pesticides that kill the bees. Philippe Lamberts, also from the Greens, said he had read Piketty and realized fully that Europe is beyond saving if we don’t reverse the trend on inequality. Benedek Javor, another green MEP, warned that the brutal silencing of Hungarian civil society needs a much stronger reaction. He mentioned an example of a German MEP from the EPP using the same reasoning as Victor Orban to get rid of funding to civil society. A slightly different vision was presented by Hans-Olaf Henkel – MEP for the conservatives and reformists. His vision was one of a decentralised Europe where responsibilities were handed down closer to the people themselves. Here was one industry representative talking about subsidiarity, seemingly acknowledging – when questionned about it – the need for local currencies.
The EU is at a critical juncture. The economic crisis has turned the lives of millions of people living in Europe upside down. It cannot happen again. It is high time for our leaders to start listening to Europe’s citizens – the very people they are supposed to work for – and put people’s needs at the heart of their policy agendas. The 2nd Citizens’ Summit has sent a clear, bold message: if it is to survive, the EU should leave behind its growth obsession and replace it with a model based on rights, justice and democracy. A statement with which very few would disagree.
More info:
The European Citizens Summit has been organised by the EU Civil Society Contact Group and DEEEP, a project of CONCORD. DEEEP is co-funded by the European Union.The EU Civil Society Contact Group (CSCG) brings together eight large rights and value based NGO sectors – culture, environment, education, development, human rights, public health, social and women.
Hungary has increasingly courted and won favour with Russia, while rejecting the core values of the European Union.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban says he wants to turn Hungary into an ‘illiberal’ state, using Russia as a model. Source: aljazeera.com
Budapest, Hungary – As the West holds its breath waiting to see if Russia will intervene in Ukraine, there is one country looking to Moscow for inspiration: Hungary.
In a speech in late July, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he wanted to turn Hungary into an “illiberal state” and used Russia as a model example.
“We want to build a workfare society … which is willing to bear the odium to declare that it is not liberal in character,” said Orban, adding the 2008 financial crisis proved liberal democracies cannot be competitive.
The speech proved highly controversial, grabbing international headlines and calls by Hungary’s opposition groups for the European Union, of which Hungary is a member, to monitor the country’s reforms.
“Hungary has gone so far as to actually reject explicitly by the prime minister the very values that guide the European Union and NATO. This has never happened before, this is a unique event,” said Charles Gati, a professor of European and Eurasian studies at John Hopkins University.
Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said the prime minister was only talking about the limits of liberal democracy and how to deal with those restraints. Kovacs said the reference to looking towards Russia, as well as other countries Orban mentioned including China, Turkey and India, were regarding economic models.
“He was not referring to democratic institutions and the decision-making process,” Kovacs told Al Jazeera.
However, director of the Hungarian-based Political Capital Institute Peter Kreko said Russia’s influence over Hungary goes far beyond economics.
“Putin serves as a role model for him in the sense that Putin is … the frontman of the ideological fights against Western Europe and Western interests.”
Warm relations
Hungary’s move towards Russia has been in the works for years – and it seems Russia has taken note. Last year, Vladimir Putin sent a letter congratulating Orban on his birthday and thanking the prime minister for greatly strengthening relations with Russia, according to Hungary’s state news agency MTI.
In January, Russia agreed on a controversial deal to loan Hungary up to $13.5bn to build two reactors at a nuclear power plant in the country’s south. It will be the largest construction project in Hungary since the end of communism more than 20 years ago.
In early July, Orban said Hungary would go ahead with the South Stream pipeline project that would import natural gas from Russia through a route that would bypass Ukraine.
To link Hungary’s economy stronger and stronger to Russia which is in a trade war with… the European Union and in a diplomatic conflict with the European Union, I think it’s highly dangerous and highly risky.
– Benedek Javor, European Parliament member
Andre Goodfriend, who is currently in charge of the US embassy in Hungary while it awaits a new ambassador, told Al Jazeera that Hungary needs to diversify its energy imports from other countries.
“We’ve been encouraging Hungary and many other countries to diversify their sources of gas [and] find other ways … to share gas between different countries … without having it necessarily come from Russia,” he said.
Kovacs, the government spokesman, argued that there was a long, thorough process before the deal was made.
“It’s been competitive in the form that the previous government as well as this one has looked around and tried to measure all possible alternatives and possibilities,” he said.
Concerns exist, however, that the nuclear deal will increase dependency on Russia, which is already Hungary’s main supplier of natural gas and oil.
European Parliament member Benedek Javor, who is part of a small leftist opposition group in Hungary, asked the EU to investigate the deal over whether it broke the law.
He said the Ukrainian crisis, sparked by then-president Viktor Yanukovich sacrificing an EU trade deal for closer ties to Russia, showed the risk of allowing Moscow greater influence over Hungary.
“To link Hungary’s economy stronger and stronger to Russia which is in a trade war with … the European Union and in a diplomatic conflict with the European Union, I think it’s highly dangerous and highly risky,”Javor told Al Jazeera.
What’s in it for Russia?
But what does Russia get out of a relationship with a relatively small country such as Hungary?
“The main reason for Russia’s interest … is to weaken the European Union,” John Hopkins University professor Gati said. “It is doing so … primarily by several countries dependence on Russian energy and, therefore, these countries’ willingness to close their eyes to some aspects of Russian behaviour.”
Putin feels that the European Union is in a very weak position.
– Peter Kreko, Political Capital Instiute
Peter Kreko, director for the political consultancy firm Political Capital Institute, said focusing on Hungary is one of the best ways to undermine the EU because Orban has taken an antagonistic approach to the supranational government.
He added, however, that previous leaders have also tried to get closer to Russia. “Putin feels that the European Union is in a very weak position,” Kreko told Al Jazeera.
Hungary is not the only EU member-state to have maintained ties to Russia during the Ukrainian crisis. Austria also said it will go along with the South Stream gas pipeline project, while Germany, where exports to Russia in 2013 equated to almost $50bn, avoided placing tough sanctions on Moscow before the Malaysian Airlines M-17 downing in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, France said it plans to go through with the delivery of a mistral warship to Russia in a deal worth $1.6bn.
But so far, only Hungary has been accused of a democratic backslide. Last year, the European Parliamentadopted a non-binding resolution stating that Hungary was undermining the independence of its own judiciary and was rushing through legislation.
Goodfriend echoed similar concerns about the check on power in Hungary.
“A number of those checks and balances don’t exist here and with a government that has a two-thirds majority [in parliament], it’s especially important that they use that majority to ensure that they carry out legislation responsibly.”
Uptick in nationalism
Kreko said there are also signs that Orban is mimicking Putin’s strategies, such as removing his limits on power and increasing nationalist rhetoric.
In Orban’s July speech, he discussed how “paid political activists” working for NGOs with foreign funding were preventing reforms in the country; a month earlier, Hungarian authorities raided the offices of NGOs receiving grants from Norway over accusations thay they are politically biased.
Kreko said this is similar to when Putin took aim at NGOs by introducing a law that requires organisations using funding from abroad to register as “foreign agents”.
In May, Orban called for autonomy of ethnic Hungarians in western Ukraine, while in the east rebels allegedly backed by Russia were also demanding autonomy from Kiev.
It led to the Hungarian ambassador being summoned by the Ukrainian government, but government spokesman Kovacs said Hungary was simply asking for autonomy for minorities set out in international agreements.
According to MP Javor, other EU member states with fragile democracies could follow Hungary’s footsteps if the EU does not act.
“This combination limiting democracy and stronger dependency on Russia makes the Hungarian situation extremely [worrying] for Europe as a whole.”
Together-Dialogue for Hungary MEP Benedek Jávor has asked the European Commission (EC) to investigate the ‘Paks II’ nuclear power plant expansion deal that the government and Russian contractor Rosatom signed without a public procurement process in January.
Source: budapestbeacon.com
Jávor questions the existence of a government impact study on the construction of the two blocks at Paks, for which Russia will reportedly offer a credit line of up to EUR 10 billion. The agreement may also break European competition law, the MEP adds.
“Primarily I am suing over the impact assessment studies regarding the project, which the government has so far been reluctant to disclose, raising the suspicion that the project is completely ungrounded and prior assessment studies do not even exist. We have exhausted all of the options in Hungary, within and outside the Parliament, without any success,” Jávor told the Budapest Beacon.
According to Jávor, National Development Minister Miklós Seszták maintains that the impact study exists, “yet has so far failed to produce studies with concrete facts and numbers. All that has been handed out by the ministry is general information with no direct relevance to the project”.
Jávor’s case will also question the safety, transparency, legality and financial prudence of the agreement. “The EC can review the tendering failure, illegal state aid, the incident in 2003 when fuel cells were damaged at Paks and other issues. We think the planned investment today is not feasible within the European regulatory environment, as it obviously distorts the internal energy market.”
Jávor noted that “the Hungarian government is not planning to incorporate investment costs into energy prices. The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union also requires member states to stabilize their finances and to reduce government deficits during economically advantageous periods. Committing to a EUR 10 billion state loan clearly endangers this commitment.”
The government special commissioner for Paks, Attila Aszódi, paints a far more glowing picture of the nuclear power plant extension, however. “Everyone is really content and happy around the plant,” he told ATV. With the government line seemingly that transparency can be retroactive too, Aszódi explained that “Hungary is drafting three agreements in preparation for discussions with Rosatom executives: on the planning, construction and launch of the new blocks, the delivery and disposal of nuclear fuel, and the operation and upkeep of the blocks.”
Whatever the ultimate motivation for the Paks deal, whether to plug a budget hole, as former economy minister Lajos Bokros claims, or to secure Hungary’s energy future, the deal has been shrouded in secrecy from the get-go. MP of the centrist, green party LMP Bernadett Szél said: “The purpose of [Prime Minister]Viktor Orban’s January trip to Moscow was concealed and lied about until the contracts with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin were already signed. What we know about the enlargement project we learnt from the Russian press.”
Szél told the Budapest Beacon that the government plan represents exemplary, short-sighted Fidesz cronyism. “This is a highly lucrative project through which the government will be able to pump funds to a network of politically loyal contractors, which in turn will help them to strengthen their grip on power in Hungary, in economic and political terms. This is not the first instance of Orbán-led governments resorting to major cash injections to help them either balance their books or finance loyal entrepreneurs: the seizure of Hungary’s private pension funds is a prime example for the former, while most state-funded projects can be mentioned as instances for the latter.”
Szél has less faith in EU legal institutions than her former LMP colleague Jávor, however. “Although I support every action aimed at reversing the decision to increase Hungary’s nuclear capacity, I believe we should all focus our efforts on acting on domestic fronts rather than call for international help, the efficacy of which remains highly questionable,” she said. “The government is making every effort not to leave any loose ends with either Brussels or Moscow, with high-ranking officials frequently traveling to both destinations for talks. Sadly, it is the Hungarian people who they do not deem necessary to keep in the loop.”
Jávor maintains that Europe now represents the best avenue for the opposition, and dismisses Aszódi’s claims that there have been “intense communication”, “public hearings” and “plentiful information” regarding Paks. The MEP says “to my knowledge there was one public hearing regarding the plant enlargement but the crucial questions remained unanswered. (Other hearings) were only held for potential sub-contractors about the prospective jobs concerning the enlargement project, not to inform the public about Paks II itself: let alone to allow them to have their say on whether or not they want new nuclear capacities.
“In the spring I personally went to a hearing on the licensing process for the site: the power plant representatives and authority officials did not respond to a single substantive issue, the most common response was ‘that is not relevant at this stage’ or ‘the requested information is not public’. For example, they refused to respond to how the placement of new units will take into account the fact that in summer there is already insufficient water from the Danube for the existing four units for shortages in cooling water. In their view, this issue is not related to the licensing of the site.”
Szél also rejected Aszódi’s recent assertion that “there (have been) public hearings, accessible to all, where we provide all the necessary information”. These claims are “quite simply preposterous”, according to her. “ I had to go to court to demand that the Hungarian authorities and the project management company release the information about Paks II, information that the public has every right to know,” she recalled.
Jávor said “neither the government, parliament or the authorities are willing to do anything to provide a clear view on these issues and to ensure the wider public that this is a well-founded investment that is advantageous to the Hungarian people. When the Kúria declared a referendum on Paks unconstitutional, we turned to the EC,” he added.
“We still do not know, for instance, the consequences of the 2003 Paks nuclear incident, and how much the incident cost. This information was not revealed either during an EP delegation visit last fall to Paks. We do not know whether Hungary needs the electricity from the new blocks in Paks. We do not know on what basis Rosatom has been selected, and the political commitments that were made by the Hungarian government to Putin for this investment. We know nothing except for the fact that there has been no economic calculation prior to the commitment of the Hungarian government.”
Aszódi is laconic on the costs of the Paks expansion: “Expense is relative. This deal will be cheaper than any viable alternative. It is not about reforming the whole system, just maintaining capacity. By 2032 Paks will be over 50 years old, so by then the new reactors will have been replaced. Technology moves fast,” he said, adding by way of example, “if I buy a tablet today, in two weeks it will be out of date.”
Many would argue that the rapid technological changes of our age are an argument for keeping our energy options open, rather than for signing long-term energy deals with foreign firms. “The cost estimates of the electricity produced by the new Paks unit have not been published, and according to the calculations of Aszódi will be around three times the open market price of today during the loan repayment period,” said Jávor.
According to Aszódi, “atomic energy means a one-off payment but after that it is cheaper. It will be cheaper than previous atomic energy and cheaper than renewable energy. I don’t like this opposition to nuclear power. (Energy sources) should be complementary,” he claimed.
Jávor questioned the sincerity and neutrality of Aszódi’s call for energy diversity, saying he is paid to promote the nuclear agenda and discredit alternative energy. Responding to his claims that there has been “intense communication” on Paks, Jávor said “Aszódi knows all about ‘intense communication’, since he presides over the Budapest Technical University’s Nuclear Technology Institute, which has had a number of contracts with Paks. These include, as far as we know, an advisory role on how to publicly discredit the arguments of anti-nuclear environmentalists.
“The media pours unilateral nuclear pro-arguments, while public broadcasters completely neglect the other side. For example state radio recorded an interview in which a professor discussed nuclear-free alternatives on its environmental show but was suppressed immediately before going to air. Information is really abundant but solely focuses on the perceived benefits of nuclear energy.” Meanwhile, Jávor said, “the state-owned energy firm MVM (which runs Paks), spends billions of forint on pro-nuclear PR and tours Hungary’s summer festivals and youth camps with its ‘nuclear trucks’.”
As for the country those youths will inherit, Szél said “Paks will serve as a major and definitive hindrance to all non-nuclear energy prospects in Hungarian energy policy for a century to come.”
European Union recently issued a ground-breaking proposal that calls for consumers to recycle 70 percent of their municipal waste by 2030, with the overall goal to reduce waste in landfills, Reuters reported. The new developments push the recycling rate even higher after the EU passed a proposal to curb recycling by 50 percent by 2020. In addition to urban waste, the proposal urges Europeans to meet a recycling rate of 80 percent for packaging waste by the same year.
Janez Potocnik, environment commissioner for the EU, said for the EU to compete in growing economies and global markets, it has to find ways to reuse its existing resources rather than send them into landfills. Resource efficiency may help companies save money as the EU said it hopes to shift toward a circular economy. Since it is costly for companies to extract raw materials, recycling may spur economic growth by saving on materials costs and investing in the recycling industry. Throwing away valuable resources is also a problem the EU hopes the rule will curb. To achieve its goal of lowering the amount of waste thrown into landfills, the EU said it will enact a ban prohibiting recyclables from being discarded in 2025.
“More recycling alone does not mean that Europe’s overconsumption of resources is actually reduced,” said Benedek Javor, spokesman for the Greens in the European Parliament, according to Reuters. “The top priority should be a greater focus on prevention of waste, with ambitious reduction targets.”
Some EU member states struggling to keep up with recycling targets
With these new rates, the challenge for the EU is trying to keep up with them. The existing recycling rates for member states of the EU vary significantly. The EU had a total recycling rate of 27 percent for municipal waste in 2012, Reuters reported, citing data from the EU’s statistics agency Eurostat. While Germany led member states with a recycling rate of 47 percent – close to the previously established recycling rate target of 50 percent by 2020 – Romania reportedly buried 99 percent of its waste.
EU competitiveness hinges on recycling opportunities
The EU hopes the new policies spark action in the recycling movement. Working with industrial players could help to curb waste even more by encouraging more innovation in the recycling industry and new sustainable business models that stress zero waste. The EU touted the economic benefits of increasing recycling opportunities as the new recycling targets have the potential to add 580,000 jobs to the economy.
“Moving to a circular economy is not only possible, it is profitable, but that does not mean it will happen without the right policies,” Potocnik said in a statement. “The 2030 targets that we propose are about taking action today to accelerate the transition to a circular economy and exploiting the business and job opportunities it offers.”
With the need to expand recycling infrastructure to achieve these rates, recycling companies may want to purchase more material handlingequipment to effectively process a greater number of recyclables and help keep on track to meet these recycling targets in the future.
The current proposal is expected to move forward to the Council and the European Parliament.
Hungary has a rich tradition of environmental activism, from the anti-dam campaigns of the 1980s to the nature conservation efforts of the post-Communist period. It has also seen the rise and fall of a number of Green parties, including the most recent, Politics Can Be Different (LMP).
In the run-up to the most recent parliamentary elections, LMP split. One part entered an electoral alliance with the Socialist Party to fight against the ruling party Fidesz. This group called itself Dialogue for Hungary. The other half kept the name LMP and vowed to maintain its independence. The electoral alliance anchored by the Socialist Party managed only a little more than 25 percent in the election, which Fidesz won in a landslide, and Dialogue for Hungary secured only one parliamentary seat. LMP squeaked into parliament by breaking the 5 percent barrier and saw its representation drop to five seats.
Javor Benedek has been at the center of all three of these stages in the development of Hungarian environmental politics. He was part of the rebirth of the environmental NGO movement with the creation of Vedegylet in 2000. He was one of the founders of LMP. And he led the breakaway faction Dialogue for Hungary.
Although LMP’s initial success was exhilarating for Benedek, he found the experience in parliament quite frustrating.
“When we arrived in parliament, we thought we needed to end the cold war in Hungarian politics in which the political parties fight against each other with any tools they can,” he told me in an interview in May 2013 at the Hungarian parliament. “We were going to concentrate on professional questions. If the government supported something we wanted, even if we were in the opposition we would support it as well. We started our activity like that. But after a short time, we realized that it didn’t work like that. Politics in Hungary had irreversibly changed with Fidesz coming to power. No one was interested in our great proposals and amendments. Parliament is theater. There are no real debates on the content of the legislation. The parliament simply decides it’s not interested in our proposals. The majority pushes through their own legislation, and they don’t ask anyone, not the opposition or the trade unions or anyone. Also, they modified the parliamentary rules so right now they can introduce a bill on Sunday afternoon and pass it on Monday evening. So, you can imagine what kind of debates we have in parliament!”
This experience informed his decision to form the electoral alliance with the Socialist Party and the former Socialist prime minister Gordon Bajnai. For Benedek, it was not a question of supporting the Socialists or opposing Viktor Orban of Fidesz. It was whether LMP should act like a political party or an NGO.
“Of course critics ask whether it is credible Green politics if we cooperate with the former prime minister, and they make a list of all the decisions that Bajnai made when in office,” he told me. “The critics say that we are betraying the original Green mission. These are normal political debates. When the Finnish Green Party joined the six-party government coalition, they had to make a decision whether to accept the new nuclear reactors. They decided to join the coalition even though the government supported the new nuclear blocks. It was an extremely difficult decision for them and, looking back, they think they made a bad decision. But this is politics! The real debate between LMP and us is not over whether to challenge Orban or not — or cooperate with Bajnai or not. It’s whether to behave like a political party or like an NGO. To remain alone and not cooperate with anyone and say that we are not wiling to make any compromises – that’s heroic. But that’s what an NGO does, not a political party. What we are doing is politics, with all its difficult decisions and risks.”
Do you remember when you first heard about the fall of the Berlin Wall and what you thought about it?
I don’t remember the moment when it happened. I guess it was the evening of November 9, 1989. It was a step in a long process that began before that in Hungary. For me, the most remarkable moment of the transition period was the reburial of the former prime minister Imre Nagy on June 16,1989. I participated in the event with my family. I was 17. We went to Heroes’ Square along with 150,000 other people. It was truly impressive. It also proved to me that the changes had not only started but reached a point of no return.
A couple months before, on National Day, which is March 15, there was a big demonstration in Budapest. At that time, I didn’t participate in the event because I was in secondary school. I went to a boarding school in the countryside so I was not in Budapest. But we followed those events on TV. I remember the strange feeling I had that something important and joyful was happening, but it was also kind of stressful: was this true, could it really happen in Hungary? My literature teacher at secondary school participated in the event in Budapest and came back and told everyone what happened. It was something surprising and exciting.
But by the reburial of the former prime minister, this feeling had changed. At that time, as I remember it 24 years later, I had the feeling that this was real and this was happening. It was something final.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was an important event. But also important were the big demonstrations in Prague, which Hungarians followed closely on TV. The big demonstrations in Leipzig were also constantly on our mind, and we followed those events on TV as well. So, the fall of the Berlin Wall was a big event, but it was just part of a long process.
The last final and personal memory was in the summer of 1990. I was in Berlin. It was after the fall of the Wall. But the Wall still existed, more or less entirely. It was like a skeleton. It ran across the city and divided it into two independent cities that were completely open to one another. Checkpoint Charlie was not yet a museum. It was still a real thing.
People have told me that the most memorable part of the reburial of Imre Nagy was the speech by Viktor Orban. Were you affected by that speech at that time?
This is also a general question in Hungary, whether you remember the speech of Orban, what did you think about it then, and what do you think about it now. I remember that it was an impressive speech, and I was sure that it was an important historical speech. At that time, I had quite radical political views (and I hope I still do have some radical views). I agreed with Fidesz, which was a very open-minded liberal party at that time. But Viktor Orban as a personality didn’t impress me at all. I had bad feelings about him. I’m not saying that, looking back, I realized that something was not okay with the guy. But really, I remember the strange feeling that I agreed with the speech and it was a brave speech, but the personality behind it gave the impression of something aggressive. You are more likely to accept aggression if you agree with the goal. But still I had a bad feeling that this guy knows what he wants and he’ll achieve it, regardless of the opinions and views of others.
You said that your views at that time were radical. How would you characterize those views?
I was not an extreme leftist, Marxist revolutionary, Red Brigades activist! I was radical in the sense of the politics of Hungary in the 1990s, which means that I truly believed in democracy and liberal values. I agreed with Fidesz in criticizing the existing socialist structures and politics. But I also opposed the recreation of the interwar traditional conservative feudalistic Hungarian social structure. I deeply believed in a modern political and social community that was liberal and free. I believed that this could be the Hungary of the future.
Did the events of 1989 shift your trajectory in life? Did those changes make a change in your own future plans?
Of course. I don’t think there was an individual citizen in Hungary who didn’t change his or her life after the transition, for better or worse. If there hadn’t been a change in 1989, I wouldn’t be a parliament member right now. Many possibilities I had in life would have been lost. That includes simple things like when I spent several months in Brussels and Paris after my university years. This freedom of travel was something completely unimaginable during the socialist era. Also having contacts with European organizations, political bodies, friends — everything was completely different. I don’t know what would have happened if there had been no transition in 1989. But it happened.
Did you have particularly plans when you were 17?
Yes, of course. From the age of three I was interested in biology and animals. I decided to go to university to study biology. My childhood dreams were about working as a game warden in a national park in Africa. That hasn’t happened yet, but life is long, so I might still have the opportunity. At university, I studied ecology, and I have my PhD in ecology. That’s how I later joined the Green movement in Hungary. I started out in NGOs. I was one of the founders of a Green NGO in 2000, and I worked there until 2008. That’s how finally I found myself in a political party and in the Hungarian parliament.
Which NGO was this?
Vedegylet. In English we translated it as “Protect the Future.” It was a new Green NGO. We intended to create something different from the general Green movement in Hungary. We thought the Green movement at that time was too focused on particularly issues, like energy policy or waste management, or they were small local organizations, all of which is very important. But still we thought there was a need for a new type of Green NGO that represents a wider Green view of world affairs, including critical views on globalization, social issues like education, and international development issues. We wanted to represent these values and these interests in decision-making and through the media.
We campaigned to create a new position for an ombudsman for future generations. After seven years we were successful. By 2007, the Hungarian parliament had accepted our proposal. And four years later the Orban government closed down the institution. That’s a personal reason to fight the Orban government.
Also in 2005, we proposed Laszlo Solyom to be president of Hungary. Mr. Solyom was one of the big figures in the Green movement. He was in the Danube movement in the 1980s, and later he was head of the constitutional court. At that time the constitutional court was very active on environmental issues, and we thought that he could represent the Green values that we believe in. As a Green NGO, we wanted to try hacking into big politics by proposing someone as president. For different reasons involving political party decisions, we succeeded. The parliament elected Mr. Solyom the president of Hungary, and he spent five years in that position. Even though there are some criticisms of his period as president, he was one of the remarkable figures of post-transition Hungarian politics. It was a very important presidency.
I interviewed a number of people in environmental NGOs when I was here in 1990, including the Danube movement. At that time the environmental movement here was on a high. It had success in blocking the Nagymaros dam. It was popular. But then it seemed to go into decline between that time and when you founded Vedegylet in 2000. Why did that happen?
We’ve discussed this a lot with our colleagues and friends. What was Green activism before the transition was the Danube movement. There wasn’t really much other than a few other activities. Also, the registered Green activities at that time were not only Green activities. They were a way of expressing the voice of illegal opposition in Hungary in the 1980s. The Danube movement was partly an environmental movement. But partly it was full of people who wouldn’t join a Green movement right now and were members of the Danube movement because it was against the socialist system. That’s why it was able to mobilize so many people and be so important in those transition years.
After the first free elections, a lot of people from the Danube movement went into different political parties and entered parliament. They started playing political games, and environmental issues slowly, step by step, fell on the priority lists of these people and their parties. At the beginning of the 1990s, with the Danube movement behind us and the transition ahead of us, a lot of people thought that Hungary would have a Green future with very strong green NGOs. This belief generated a lot of activities. There was also a lot of effort to found Green parties. By the middle of the decade, some disillusionment set in. People realized that a lot of former Green activists were not Green any more because they’d become party politicians in parliament. Green NGOs couldn’t achieve many things. Green parties were unsuccessful, partly because of personal fights inside the parties, partly because the existing mainstream parties attracted successful Green politicians. There was a low tide by 1995 or 1996, even though by that time, the parliament had passed a number of important laws, including the Environmental Act, the Nature Conservation Act, the Forestry Act, and the Hunting Act. These laws had been passed in a climate in which Hungary and Hungarian intellectuals believed that the environment was important. In the last 10 years, none of the Hungarian parliaments would have accepted any of the environmental acts passed in 1995. They were quite a strong set of laws.
By the millennium, even the mainstream parties had lost all their Green politicians. But also around this time, the Hungarian Green movement had built up relationships with international movements that had come together around events at the international level — Seattle, Prague, Genoa. This critical globalization movement came to Hungary as well and gave some momentum to the Green movement. This was really one of the best periods of the Hungarian Green movement, between 1999 and 2006, and I’m not just saying that because this period coincided with my involvement in NGOs. It happened in parallel with the boom in the international anti-globalization movement and with the rise of Green parties throughout Europe. It was quite a hopeful period of time. After 2005-6, the Hungarian Green movement declined a bit for several years. The government pushed back against Green activity by saying, for instance, that it was a barrier to investment. That happens all over the world. Finally, the new government after 2010 just killed the Green movement.
Were there particular targets when you created the movement in 2010 related to the impact of globalization in Hungary, for instance trade treaties or particular corporations?
Yes, of course, we included in our program most of the goals of the international anti-globalization movement, including critiquing free trade agreements, such as GATS, and organizations such as the GATT and the WTO. This whole free trade question was in the middle of our activity, particularly the privatization of public services, like the water supply and electricity. The whole electricity sector was being privatized at that time. We also followed the events on the international level, like the water privatization in Bolivia with the Cochabamba case, or the privatization in the UK, which produced the first big failures of privatization such as accidents on the UK railroad system.
Another important issue was agriculture and land. At that time, Hungary was still not a member of the EU. After joining the EU, Hungary had seven years not to open the land market to foreign investors. But everybody knew that this would happen at some point and we should prepare ourselves for it. We wanted to save the countryside and preserve equal possibilities for Hungarian citizens. Also there was the GMO question, which goes back to the WTO theme. We were looking at international trade not only from point of view of Hungary but also how the Global South suffers from international investment and free trade. We initiated the fair trade movement in Hungary, creating the first fair trade shops. Of course we had lots of local issues, like nature conservation, forestry, water management, and industrial versus sustainable agriculture.
There was very strong anti-GMO legislation passed here in Hungary. Were you involved in that as well?
In Hungary, there was no GMO regulation at that time and no GMOs. Hungary fought for years to exclude GMOS from Hungary. The EU, partly because of U.S. and WTO pressure, wanted to introduce some GMOs on the European market. For years, Hungary fought intensively to keep the country GMO-free. At that time, the debate centered around MON 810 corn, which was permitted in the EU and which Monsanto wanted to introduce to the Hungarian market. For years we were able to keep this moratorium. Later on, the Amflora potato type joined this issue. Still Hungary was able to keep the country free from GMO. But there was a fear that after a while the EU would reject our moratorium. In 2005 or 2006, they accepted our GMO act, which was not very strong since it allowed the production of GMO crops under certain circumstances. But basically this law was never used because there were no permitted GM organisms under cultivation. Finally, the new parliament after 2010 accepted a new constitution, which declared Hungary GMO-free. There have been some debates over whether it fits the new European regulations. But so far the EU hasn’t criticized this point in the constitution. So, the GMO Act still exists, but as long as the constitution is valid, it’s a senseless regulation.
Describe to me your decision to enter politics.
We started our NGO Vedegylet in 2000 with the intention of creating something new and different from what environmental NGOs were doing at that time. It was more publicly active, not just for the small Green community but for the wider public. We presented the Green agenda as a complex and complete program for restructuring our society. And that’s a political act par excellence, even though it was carried out within the frame of an NGO. At the very beginning, the question emerged whether working in an NGO was the best way to represent the Green program and values. There was a lot of discussion about whether Hungarian society was ready to support a Green party and send it to parliament. There was an existing Green party that was a member of the European Green Party network, but it was completely unsuccessful in any elections. So there were a lot of questions to answer before organizing a Green party. But the whole time it was in our mind.
I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be a politician. But I thought that these Green values needed political representation and I had a responsibility to create this representation. For years, I thought I’d work a lot on these issues but I wouldn’t be a politician. Once our party made it into the parliament, I could step back and stay in the NGO movement. But after a while, we realized it was not like that. There were no other people to become Green politicians. It’s not like we could create the party and someone else would come by to become our politicians. We had to do it ourselves. We had to be the politicians.
We had a joke that we were always starting to create a Green party in every odd year. This started in 2003 when I wrote an article in one of the leading Hungarian magazines about the possibility of a political representation of the Green movement. As a consequence of this article, the Greens sat down at the table to discuss this possibility, but after a couple months it fell apart. Then in 2005, there was a quite intensive initiative to create a Green party, but after a while most of the Green movement, including myself, didn’t participate in creating that party because it wasn’t sufficiently well prepared. The 2006 elections were too close, and it was impossible to organize it by the elections. We were also not sure if it represented the Green values we believed in. It started from Vedegylet, since one of the founding members of our NGO, Andras Lanyi, started that party. In the elections of 2006, it was not successful. It couldn’t field more than four candidates. At that time you had to collect 750 recommendation slips from the citizens for each candidate, and they were not able to collect those. So, it was a complete failure.
After 2006, there was quite an intensive political period with the “lies speech” of Prime Minister Gyurcsany, the aggressive events in autumn 2006, the siege of national television, and the angry confrontation on October 23 between demonstrators and police. It was not the optimal political climate to found a new Green party.
But finally in 2007, we sat down — 15 of the leading Green thinkers and activists — to decide if ever in our lifetime we would make a Green party in Hungary or not. We were tired of starting this debate again and again. Finally, we decided to try. The political situation in Hungary had changed deeply. We thought that Hungarian society was experiencing a political crisis that helped new political forces to step on the stage. We realized also that the Green movement had changed. Before, the Green NGOs tried to be as far from politics as possible. By 2007, they realized that if they stayed alienated from politics then politics would kill them. So they had to act. They were much more open to creating a Green party that could represent their values in politics than they were two years before.
We started our party Politics Can Be Different (LMP) in 2007 with the understanding — and this was something I wrote in my article in 2003 – that the Hungarian election system made it more or less impossible to create a new party that could step in into parliament. The electoral rules were extremely difficult, and a new party needed a lot of financial support. The problem was that a new Green party didn’t have these resources. But there was one exception, and this was the European parliament elections. For these elections you didn’t need 176 candidates in 176 constituencies each collecting 750 recommendation slips with all the necessary money to achieve this. For the European elections, you needed only a list of 24 candidates at that time, with 20,000 signatures from citizens supporting this list.
We decided that this was the small gate through which we could enter politics. We prepared for the European elections. We successfully collected the 20,000 signatures. In the elections, we got 2.6 percent. This 2.6 percent was not a bad result, taking into consideration that the Liberal Party, which had been in parliament for 20 years, reached only 2.2 percent. It gave our party momentum. It was like when they send a spaceship into the cosmos, they use a Jupiter booster rocket. We regarded the European elections as our booster rocket. It gave us media coverage. A lot of people joined us. We were able to get some funding. It strengthened our belief that we could do this.
We decide to participate in the 2010 elections, even though everyone thought it was impossible. All the analysts wrote down the “golden rule” of Hungarian politics: that there are no new parties in Hungarian politics. And our party, LMP, was regarded as something ridiculous. They were all sure that it would be unsuccessful. Finally, however, we were able to arrive at a turning point just a couple weeks before the elections when we were able to change public opinion. After that point, a lot of people looking for something different decided that LMP could be that, and they believed that we could get into Parliament. We got 7.5 percent of the vote, which is not bad compared to other European Green parties. That gave us a parliamentary group of 16 and allowed us to participate in Hungarian politics for the last three years. But our party ultimately exploded because we could not agree on the real nature of the Fidesz government, the importance of changing the government, and how to do it.
Fidesz has a parliamentary supermajority, so were you able to achieve any of your Green goals?
If I remember well, my last amendment proposal passed in parliament in December 2011. It was an amendment to the state budget, which gave more money to national parks and environmental authorities. It survived for almost one-and-a-half months, because in January 2012 the government changed the budget and cut back on the national parks. Before that I had a proposal to assure the rights of NGOs to participate in creating the management plans for World Heritage sites, and that’s still in place. So, more or less, these are the successes of the last three years.
When we arrived in parliament, we thought we needed to end the cold war in Hungarian politics in which the political parties fight against each other with any tools they can. We were going to concentrate on professional questions. If the government supported something we wanted, even if we were in the opposition we would support it as well. We started our activity like that. But after a short time, we realized that it didn’t work like that. Politics in Hungary had irreversibly changed with Fidesz coming to power. No one was interested in our great proposals and amendments. Parliament is theater. There are no real debates on the content of the legislation. The parliament simply decides it’s not interested in our proposals. The majority pushes through their own legislation, and they don’t ask anyone, not the opposition or the trade unions or anyone. Also, they modified the parliamentary rules so right now they can introduce a bill on Sunday afternoon and pass it on Monday evening. So, you can imagine what kind of debates we have in parliament!
Everyone tells me that the split spells the end of LMP.
I think what LMP represents — and I left the party — is the end of the road. At this point in Hungary, you can’t behave like you don’t have an opinion about changing this government or how it should be done. The citizens are not interested in a few people who say that they are against the Orban government and also critical of the Socialist Party. Of course I am critical of the Socialist Party, but either you want to change this government or you don’t. I plan to cooperate with the Socialist Party to change the current government and then participate in decision-making in order to present what I believe in.
We created a new party, Dialogue for Hungary (PM), which created an electoral alliance with the movement of Together for 2014, led by former prime minister Gordon Bajnai. But keep in mind that we didn’t join Together for 2014. We created an electoral alliance. PM is an individual party, and we plan to have a separate parliamentary group after the elections to represent Green politics. What LMP decided to do is the end of the representation of Green politics in the Hungarian parliament. Even if I don’t see things from the point of view of changing this government but also from the point of view of Green politics, I think what LMP is doing is – in a deeper sense – absolutely unsuccessful.
Of course critics ask whether it is credible Green politics if we cooperate with the former prime minister, and they make a list of all the decisions that Bajnai made when in office. The critics say that we are betraying the original Green mission. These are normal political debates. When the Finnish Green Party joined the six-party government coalition, they had to make a decision whether to accept the new nuclear reactors. They decided to join the coalition even though the government supported the new nuclear blocks. It was an extremely difficult decision for them and, looking back, they think they made a bad decision. But this is politics! The real debate between LMP and us is not over whether to challenge Orban or not — or cooperate with Bajnai or not. It’s whether to behave like a political party or like an NGO. To remain alone and not cooperate with anyone and say that we are not wiling to make any compromises – that’s heroic. But that’s what an NGO does, not a political party. What we are doing is politics, with all its difficult decisions and risks.
Why didn’t you call your new party Green something?
I was pushing us to call it Dialogue for Hungary – Greens, or something like that. There was a debate about whether a party named Green could attract enough voters in Hungary. The word “Green” is heavily connected to small local environmental causes. Most people don’t understand that Green is not just about protecting flowers. It’s a vision of the world. Still, I wanted to call my party a Green party. Perhaps, after the elections at the latest, we will include the word Green in our title if we want to represent environmental issues here in Hungary.
Do you think you have a chance, the coalition as a whole, to win in the elections?
If I didn’t, I would go home and play with my kid instead of spending my time with crazy debates in parliament and having meetings with our political partners. Of course I believe this! If you are interested in a number, I think we have a 40 percent change of winning the election. If you have such a chance, then you have to fight. You can’t give up. You fight for that 40 percent.
The last three questions are quantitative. When you look back to 1989 and everything that has changed or not in Hungary, how would you evaluate that on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being most dissatisfied and 10 most satisfied?
If I look back to my illusions at that time, I would give a 3.
Same period, same scale: your own personal life?
Well, I’m a happy man. I have a family. I have exciting work that of course sometimes pushes me into complete disillusionment and hopeless feelings. But I achieved much more than I ever thought I would. So, 8.
Looking into the near future, the next two or three years, how would you evaluate the prospects for the country on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 most pessimistic and 10 most optimistic?
It depends on the election results. If the Fidesz government stays in power, I think it’s over and this country just lost the 21st century. In this case, I would say 2.5.
