Justice Minister Judit Varga gave advice in the EP for nine years, and since 2018 she has been handing out well-targeted slaps in Brussels to the enemies of Hungary and the EU. Written by Mátyás Kohán.
People often just wink when they hear Brussels. You think it will be about political blackmail, a cunning new migrant resettlement plan or hundreds of euros dipped in cocaine. So it may sound strange, but it's true: Brussels is ours too, and it's not hopeless at all. At least last week clearly proved that. During that special week of grace, the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and Hungarian EU politics simultaneously moved closer towards something beautiful, good and meaningful.
Let's start with the European Parliament, which is still the most incredible. This institution, deserving of a better fate, was exceptionally not born, but rather a dream of green fever. And to make the fairy tale even more breathtaking: he got rid of it because the European People's Party found a small piece of his former masculinity in a dark corner of the Louise Weiss building. The European People's Party, the European Conservatives and Reformers, and Identity and Democracy voted as a closed unit against the so-called nature restoration law.
Despite all their respect for the European greening plans, the populist Belgians, Dutch and Swedes did not want to turn agricultural and urban areas into primeval forests in the middle of the food inflation and housing crisis, especially without impact studies and coverage. The bill failed in the environmental protection committee of the EP thanks to the unity of the right-wing factions and the decisive vote of Edina Tóth from Fidesz.
Meanwhile, even at the summit meeting of the Council of the European Union, common sense seems to have taken a cake. The heads of state and government decided in favor of boosting European ammunition production and military technology, making significant investments in the military industry, rejecting the idea of economic separation from China, and moving towards balanced economic competition.
They wished Ursula von der Leyen the best of luck in her tour of North Africa, forging agreements similar to the 2016 Merkel-Erdoğan Pact, which significantly reduced migration in the Balkans. And the reassembled Hungarian-Polish axis made it clear to the prime ministers that as long as they are trying to introduce the migrant quota by slyly deceiving unanimous decision-making, they should not even dare to dream of a joint EU immigration policy position.
Meanwhile, in Budapest, the leader of the Fidesz EP list has been appointed for next year's election, who, reading the signs of the recent past, can also become EU commissioner in the second half of next year. Justice Minister Judit Varga gave advice in the EP for nine years, and since 2018 she has been handing out well-targeted slaps in Brussels to the enemies of Hungary and the EU.
His nomination is symbolic in many ways: the party's list leaders and commissioner candidates, from Pál Schmitt to Tibor Navracsics, were also people in Hungarian public life outside the EU, while Varga has already become a mature politician in the European Parliament.
In his person, he also embodies the adult Hungarian EU membership and the hope that, like the French, Italians, Germans and Benelux, who have been moving among themselves for more than seventy years, sooner or later we too will finally integrate into EU politics. That we will finally be able to rely not only on our sense of justice and our two beautiful eyes in EU debates, but also on the necessary experience, vocabulary and phone book.
Last week's unusually many beautiful EU stories show that the way to a better and more Hungarian Brussels is not through discouragement, but through hard work. Any super milestone that doesn't weigh you down strengthens you, so it's worth fulfilling everything you've undertaken with great care and unflinchingly. Because it is particularly true in EU affairs: those who don't hesitate to unfurl their sails, the wind can turn with luck. For that and only that.
