The Hungarian Government is committed to ensuring that no one in Hungary should sustain any disadvantage on account of their origin, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Public Administration and Justice Tibor Navracsics reiterated in Washington to Senator Ben Cardin, Co-Chairman of the US Helsinki Commission. The Minister gave an account of the meetings he held during his three-day visit to Washington on Wednesday.
Tibor Navracsics offered to Ben Cardin that should the Senator have any questions regarding any of the measures of the Hungarian Government in the future, he may at any time request information whether via the embassy or directly via his ministerial cabinet "in order to ensure that he should not come to unfounded or unfactual conclusions due to a lack of information". The Senator said at the Commission hearing of John Kerry, candidate for the post of US Secretary of State, held on 25 January that there was a decline in the field of human rights in Russia, Hungary and Ukraine.
"The Senator welcomed my offer”, the Minister said in the wake of the meeting which he described as amicable in its atmosphere. At the meeting the Minister informed the Senator, inter alia, of the measures taken and statements made by the Hungarian leadership since the speech made by Jobbik MP Márton Gyöngyösi in Parliament in November. At the time, the MP for Jobbik urged a survey regarding the number of individuals of Jewish origin in Parliament and in the Government.
According to the information provided by the Minister, at this meeting, the parties made no mention of the highly controversial article published by Zsolt Bayer in the daily newspaper Magyar Hírlap on the Roma. Tibor Navracsics also met with the representatives of Jewish organisations in Washington and paid a visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The leaders of the institution stated their wish that the Hungarian Holocaust 2014 Memorial Commission should pay particular attention to teaching the history of the Holocaust and of the Jewish community outside Hungary. The Minister pledged to honour this request.
Navracsics had talks with Philip Gordon, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and informed him that, as part of Hungary’s cooperation with the Council of Europe, Hungary will change its media and justice legislation. „I informed him that, according to our intentions, this year will be a year of consolidation and we shall now implement the laws that we have passed”, the Minister said. Assistant Secretary of State Gordon said that Washington recognises the measures taken by the Hungarian Government in order to disperse concerns. However, some concerns continue to remain.
During his visit to the US capital, Tibor Navracsics also called upon Anthony Kennedy, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, whom he referred to as a friend. He also had a brief meeting with Charles Gati, Professor of Johns Hopkins University with whom he primarily discussed President Barack Obama’s second presidential term. The Minister delivered lectures and took part in round-table discussions at the German Marshall Fund and the Heritage Foundation and at an event jointly organised by the McCain Institute and the Johns Hopkins University, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.
At the Wednesday event of the McCain Institute, attendees paid tribute to Mark Palmer, former US Ambassador to Budapest, who passed away on Monday. In answer to the questions of the audience, Tibor Navracsics defended the Government’s unorthodox economic policy, pointing out that the taxation of banks and certain large corporations is not the product of some „revolutionary spirit” but that of a state of economic emergency, debt and the lack of alternative resources.
As the Minister said, Hungary is simultaneously creating a new, authentic financial policy. He said he is convinced that time will justify this economic policy which creates the conditions for growth in the near future and stability. In response to the statement that half a million people have left Hungary in the last few years in the hope of a better life, Navracsics said that this is the result of the coming into being of a single European labour market and expressed hope that those who have left will return to Hungary one day.
The Minister met with Hungarians living in the vicinity of Washington on Wednesday evening and will travel on to New York on Thursday where he will have talks with the representatives of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an influential Jewish organisation in the US.
(MTI)
