IT’S A FAMILY AFFAIR
A week is a long time in politics, they say. So it must feel for disgraced Hungarian right-wing nationalist MEP József Szájer, who resigned after being found naked – along with several other men - when police raided an apartment above a bar in the gay quarter of the city. Szájer is a long-standing member of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party, which has campaigned for traditional family values and curbing LGBTI rights. His participation in what was described as an ‘all-male orgy’ has caused a furore both here in Brussels and in Hungary. Unsurprisingly, most of the ire received was not for breaking COVID-19 lockdown rules, nor for enjoying gay sex parties, but for his hypocrisy in making the lives of gay people such a misery in his home country. To an extent, I actually feel sorry for Szájer. Sex scandals usually leave a muchmessier trail than financial ones.
However, even with Szájer’s resignation, the fact remains that his (former) boss Viktor Orbán and the Fidesz party are still actively demonising Hungary’s LGBTI community. Greens/EFA MEP Terry Reintke perhaps summed up the depth of feeling around the a air last week, saying “This whole narrative about ‘defending family values’ by the far right does not need any Fidesz sex stories to be exposed as utter bullshit. These people don’t care about families or values. All they care about is their own power - and having control over other people”. Let’s hope the scandal will cause EU leaders to become a bit more forceful in calling out breaches of the rule of law, be they in Hungary or elsewhere in the EU.
Finally, we must pay tribute to former French President Valéry Giscard D’Estaing, who passed away this week at the age of 94, following complications associated with COVID-19. D’Estaing was a proper old-school moderniser who played a major role in shaping the EU we see today, even if the French public ultimately shunned his e orts to deliver the ill-fated EU constitution. A towering (literally) figure of European politics who will be sorely missed by many working in Brussels today.