BUDAPEST – An activist and municipal councilor for a Hungarian opposition party disrupted a news conference in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was laying out his plans for Hungary's six-month presidency of the European Union.
The activist, Márton Gyekiczki, interrupted Orbán as he was speaking about his opposition to immigration, running toward the podium where Orbán sat and throwing a stack of what appeared to be banknotes at the prime minister.
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“How much did you sell out the country for? How much did you sell out the country for, Mr. Prime Minister?” Gyekiczki yelled as the papers scattered. “He sold out to Putin, he sold out to Xi Jinping!” — referring to the leaders of Russia and China.
The disruption came as Orbán was set to address the European Parliament on Wednesday during Hungary's six-month rotating presidency of the bloc. His government has long been at odds with the EU over what it sees as his curtailing of democratic rights, and has increasingly come under fire for his close relations with autocracies like Russia and China.
Gyekiczki, the activist, who was taken to the ground by a security guard and led out of the room, is a member of Hungary’s Democratic Coalition party and a local council member in a Budapest suburb.
The president of that party, former Prime Minister Ference Gyurcsány, later wrote on social media that he was “proud” of Gyekiczki for his actions.
“We will say it everywhere and always: Hungary has a traitorous government!" he wrote.
Orbán is expected to receive a mixed reception in the EU parliament on Wednesday. Many lawmakers have pushed for his government to be deprived of EU funds over what they see as rule-of-law and corruption violations.
Two years ago, the parliament declared that Hungary under Orbán had become “a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy,” taking it out of the community of democracies.
Yet Orbán this year successfully formed the Patriots for Europe group within the parliament, uniting far-right parties from around the continent to form the third-largest group in the EU legislature.
During the news conference on Tuesday, Orbán lamented what he sees as a declining EU economy and lagging competitiveness with the United States and China, saying that he saw that as "the most serious challenge we have to face.”
He also argued against recently adopted EU tariffs on Chinese-produced electric vehicles, and railed against immigration which he said was resulting in the destruction of the EU's visa-free Schengen area as countries like Germany, Austria, Italy and Slovenia have introduced temporary border checks along their frontiers.
“These individual attempts will actually break up the Schengen system,” Orbán said, adding that he proposed a regular “Schengen Summit” for member countries to meet and discuss border policy.
“We need a big, joint decision,” he said.
Responding to the disruption by the activist, Orbán offered “a word of explanation for Hungarian political culture.”
“When a Hungarian politician tells another one that he is a scoundrel, all it means in our culture is that ‘I disagree with you,’” he said.