It is unacceptable for the European Union institutions to have the opportunity to interfere, censor, or ban the election campaigns of any member state, said Tamás Deutsch, Fidesz's representative in the European Parliament (EP) in Brussels, speaking to Hungarian journalists on Thursday.
The European Parliament will vote on the European Commission's proposal on the transparency of political advertising at its plenary session in Brussels on Thursday. The MEPs want to tighten the proposal and make it easier to get information on, for example, who is the sponsor of the ad and how much they paid for the ad, what is the process of determining the target audience, and which elections the ad is linked to. The relevant EU legislation would also establish additional rules for the periods immediately preceding elections and referendums.
Regarding the proposal on the transparency of political advertising, Tamás Deutsch said: while corruption in Brussels is slowly affecting all EU institutions, instead of revealing the details of the case and drawing the necessary conclusions, the Brussels bureaucrats want to impose a law that would prohibit during election campaigns the one can talk about corruption in Brussels.
According to his words, Brussels could censor who and what they can talk about during political advertising in every member state, during every election campaign. Tamás Deutsch called it unacceptable for EU institutions to have a say in who can participate in a member state's election campaign, what and how they can talk about during the campaign. All this is the responsibility of the Member States, he pointed out.
"We reject the EU commission's proposal that restricts freedoms and the enforcement of democracy, the EP .... the European Parliament group of Fidesz will vote no," added the MEP representative.
Source: MTI
(Cover image: Magyar Hírlap )
