Debate contributions by Daniel FREUND

Colleague, your candidate for Prime Minister is currently touring the country and is accusing Brussels of warmongering. He is saying that he's the only one keeping Hungary safe, and then he is the first one in line when it comes to applying for EU funds for defence. How does that make any sense? I mean, the only explanations I can find is that he basically, as always when it comes to EU funds, he wants to put it in his own pockets, in the pockets of the oligarchs. And this whole talk about defence, about freedom, this is all just to distract from the stealing. And Hungary, don't you agree?

Madam President, madam Commissioner, dear colleagues, Hungary is the most corrupt country in the European Union. EUR 18 billion are frozen because of this corruption and the attacks on the rule of law. And at the same time, Hungary is the country where Orbán constantly travels to meet Putin. He blocks everything that has to do with European defence and security. And in this situation, the Commission thinks that it's a good idea, what is basically the biggest security threat within the European Union to all of us, to give this country the third largest envelope of SAFE. How is this possible? Madam, I don't doubt your personal convictions on defending us from the Russians. But this proposal is crazy. We cannot approve the Hungarian plan. You cannot approve this Hungarian plan. Because actually every euro that you give to Viktor Orbán, we might as well give to Vladimir Putin directly. How does that increase European security? Let's stop this mayhem!

So the proceedings are ongoing, and until a case is closed, I continue to assume that there is substantiated evidence. If house searches take place, then this is not just the case, but you have to present a judge with proper evidence. Particularly with MEPs, the hurdle is particularly high. Evidence must also be provided in the case of the waiver of immunity. In this respect, there is already a very hardened suspicion here. Now we wait to see what the judiciary decides, and we hope that there will be a conviction in the meantime.

Madam President, Dear colleagues! It seems to me that we need James Bond in the European Parliament to do something about the espionage, the propagandists of Russia who are here. It seems to be particularly members of the far-right who shine here today with absence. Until 2020, Nathan Gill was a Member of Parliament for Nigel Farage's anti-European UKIP party. They have always said they would defend or stand up for Britain's interests. Instead, he sold himself to Russia for 46,000 euros and spread the propaganda here. Now he's in jail for ten years. He himself pleaded guilty. So Gill is now behind bars, but others are still sitting here in this Parliament. Against the deputy Bystron of the AfD, for example, the German public prosecutor's office is investigating for bribery. He is said to have received tens of thousands of euros in cash from Russian channels. And members of the AfD in Germany seem to behave the same way. They ask the federal government about critical infrastructure, carry out pro-Russian propaganda, constantly go to Russia, apparently to pick up new orders. And that we don't have a single one of those here in this debate on Russian espionage is really a disgrace. I have to say – to the Presidency of the Council: The Member States really have a great responsibility to protect us from this espionage. We cannot do this alone as a Parliament, but it really needs the interest of the Member States to get us through Counter-espionage, through which intelligence to protect as well.

You just talked about double standards and a lot of corruption. You did not mention the biggest corruption scandal we have had here in Parliament in recent years – that your ID group embezzled and stole at least 4.3 million in the last legislature, including individual members of the AfD. When do German and European taxpayers actually get their money back from the AfD, which was misused and stolen?

Madam President, Commissioner, 15 years of Viktor Orbán have turned Hungary into a mafia state: all checks and balances basically dismantled and Orbán has made his friends and family the richest people in the country, meanwhile their desolate hospitals, schools, roads, infrastructure, all of this is going down the drain. So then, three years ago – finally – the Commission said, 'We're going to freeze some funding'. And at the time you agreed on 17 reforms with the Hungarian Government. They agreed as well. To this day, not a single of these reforms has been delivered. But at the same time, the Commission has basically unfrozen quite a bit of that money that was frozen three years ago. So, the pressure is getting lower and lower. My colleague Tineke Strik has just written a report – 26 pages of ways in which it's getting worse and worse. Yet EUR 10 billion have basically paid out to Hungary since the money was first frozen. It keeps making Orbán's family richer. It pays for Seychelles vacations and yachts, and I don't know what. And I don't understand how, in this situation, anyone can think it's a good idea that we now make Hungary the third largest beneficiary of SAFE funding, that we give him EUR 2 billion just weeks before the election. How is this possible? How can we, in this situation, keep throwing money into this corrupt system of Viktor Orbán? We need to stop this mayhem and finally freeze the funding!

Mr President, dear colleagues, since Viktor Orban came to power in 2010, the European Union has given EUR 80 billion to Hungary – eighty billion euros! This was money meant to modernise schools, to update hospitals, to bring fast internet to every corner of Hungary – to do all those things that we do with EU money. But if you travel through Hungary and if you visit the neighbouring countries, you can actually see corruption in the cityscapes of Hungary. You can see that this EUR 80 billion has actually not reached ordinary Hungarians, because the state of hospitals, the state of schools, the state of roads in Hungary, compared to its neighbours, is pretty bad. In terms of Hungary's economic performance – Romania has overtaken Hungary, Poland has overtaken Hungary, Slovakia has overtaken Hungary. Pretty much all its neighbours have overtaken Hungary during the reign of Viktor Orban. That's because they're stealing money on an industrial scale. If you look at the personal wealth of people like Mészáros, his son-in-law Tiborcz – they are becoming multi-millionaires, billionaires. Tiborcz has doubled his assets in the last year alone. This is what's happening with EU taxpayer money in Hungary. It's a disgrace and, quite honestly, Commissioner, it's been almost three years now that we have frozen some of the funding that is going to Hungary, because we know it's being stolen. It's being used for private jet vacations in the Maldives, it's being used for yachts instead of for ordinary Hungarians. And we're still sending billions. We have sent over EUR 9 billion since the first money was frozen; we're still making these people richer. That is why in this report with Tineke, we're asking that all the money be frozen. That is why we're submitting that amendment, that all the money needs to be frozen because all of the money is being stolen! This is what this Parliament needs to do: we need to stop funding the destruction of democracy and the rule of law in Hungary. This needs to stop – we need to act, Commissioner. Please look at this, please table the necessary proposals. It's been three years; you say there has been no progress, not a single milestone has been fulfilled. We can no longer just look at the attacks on the rule of law and democracy. We need to act, it's time.

Madam President, dear colleagues, this is an historic moment. It is a step forward towards the modernisation of this European Parliament. Members of this Parliament should be able to transfer their vote during and around pregnancy and after giving birth. That we do this for mothers now is a good step, but I think it should have been done for all parents. I myself had to make the choice twice for the birth of two of my children – whether I come here and vote on close and important legislation, or whether I'm there for the birth of my children. And Members of Parliament, in 2025, should not have to make that call! It should be possible. And I want to say that particularly to those who always pretend to speak for family values. Family means that father and mother can be there for the birth of their child and not forfeit their vote!

Madam President, dear colleagues, Viktor Orbán is afraid. He is afraid of anyone that criticises him, anyone that exposes the rampant corruption of his friends and family, the billions being stolen. So, he uses all the tools that he has to fight everyone that could criticise, that could investigate his corruption. He goes after journalists, after civil society, he goes after academics, and it seems he is also afraid of the EU institutions. He is spying, apparently, on Members of the European Parliament. I myself was attacked with spyware. It seems that he has been running a spy network out of the EU embassy of Hungary for years, trying to spy on other Member States, on the EU institutions. This is not something you do among allies, among friends, among members of the European Union. When we found out that the Americans were spying on us, this Parliament launched an investigation. And we need to launch an investigation on this as well, because it's an EU Member State spying on us. Commissioner, you need to look into this. I think just saying 'I had no idea what was happening in my embassy that I was running' is not a good excuse. Either he's lying or he's incompetent. We need to find out.

Mr President, dear colleagues, hidden behind the diplomatic language of the 557 pages of this report, I think there are some very serious problems identified by the Court of Auditors, particularly regarding the EUR 650 billion post-COVID recovery fund. Actually, the report says it's not clear what citizens actually get for their money. I was very much in favour of this fund, but I – and we all, here in Parliament – we wanted to see who is actually getting this money, and we wrote it into the regulation that we want to see the 100 largest beneficiaries, but we don't get to see them. Member States tell us that the biggest beneficiaries of this fund were all kinds of government agencies, ministries, in all Member States. It's the same, pretty much across the spectrum. So either we just plugged some budget holes in some ministries, which I don't think was the objective, but I also don't think it's what happened. It's that Member States blatantly ignore the legislation, and that is something, Commissioner, that you need to fix. That needs to be addressed, particularly if you want to convince this House that we spend 53.7 % of the next budget under the same functioning. We need to see where this money went.

Madam President, dear colleagues, when the key witness in a case admits that he has been coerced to testify – and not by some criminal gang, but by the authorities – then you know that something is severely wrong. And this is a case in Bulgaria. The country had been making progress in the last few years: joining Schengen this January, the euro area in January next year. But now we see that some of the hard-won reforms, particularly for democracy and the rule of law, are being dismantled by the current government. Blagomir Kotsev, the Mayor of Varna, was arrested in July. To this day, the charges against him remain legally unsubstantiated. What the authorities seem to be holding against him is that he is a pro-European opposition politician in Bulgaria, and that he is a member of a party that wants to fight corruption. So, when the coerced witness withdrew his statement, that should have been the end of the case, but apparently it is still not – it keeps on going. How is this possible? The Commission needs to seriously investigate what's going on with the rule of law, and we need to look into whether the conditions for paying EU funds are still fulfilled.

Mr President, dear colleagues, right in the capital of Malta, there is a monument where every year flowers are laid down to commemorate the work and life of Daphne Caruana Galizia and, of course, her brutal assassination eight years ago. How petty do you have to be to throw those flowers into the bin? But more importantly, let's look at what political consequences have been drawn by the government after the assassination. Well, the alleged mastermind has been released on bail – there is still no trial date set as of today. The reforms colleagues have spoken about are going slow – GRECO has found only 4 out of the 32 recommendations on anti-corruption being followed. The rule of law report speaks of no progress, also no progress on the protection of journalists and on the corruption that Daphne actually investigated. There is not a single prosecution, not a single conviction, and the magistrates suggesting prosecution are framed by the Prime Minister as political terrorists. I do not think this is the way to go. If we want to honour Daphne, we need to implement the necessary reforms, make the rule of law work in Malta.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. European integration, the European Union, is an incredible success story. And I believe that it is based above all on two principles: an ever closer union – of further integration – but also of enlargement – that countries that have recently lived under dictatorship, under Soviet rule are now, as strong democracies, part of this European Parliament, the European institutions. We want to continue on this path, because it makes us stronger, it makes us richer, it makes us all more democratic together. The fact that we are resolving conflicts here and in Brussels today in negotiations and no longer in the trenches - what a success! And if I look at what the CDU, what the Conservatives said a few years ago: We don't just want to hold on to European unification, we want to move forward on the path to becoming a European federal state. And now Friedrich Merz says: I have never been one of those who wanted the word of the United States of Europe, and I myself have helped to remove it from the CDU's agenda. How should we continue to make Europe strong? That's the wrong way. We must fight in the democratic, pro-European middle for treaty changes, for a closer Europe.

Madam President, dear colleagues, what a picture: the dictators of the world together in China. You have Putin, you have Xi Jinping, you have Kim Jong Un, and you have Robert Fico hanging out with them, and I think it tells you something about where he wants to go with Slovakia. And indeed, we have seen the attacks on media freedom, on the rule of law, the corruption. I was part of both missions that went to Slovakia in June. We learned that the anti-corruption prosecutor abolished the national crime agency – abolished. We heard on the ground what this does. Hundreds of people that have been convicted for corruption have been let out of prison, dozens of investigations have been interrupted or stopped. We have seen that since the new criminal code entered into force, the number of indictments for corruption cases has dropped by 95%. So, Commissioner, I fail to understand how we are not using the conditionality. EU funds are clearly at risk. There are dozens upon dozens of examples of villas for Fico's friends and allies. Why are we not doing something before it becomes too late, before we see a second Hungary? Let's not make the same mistakes. Let's act on this now.

I've heard a bit of suggestion out of the question at one point or another. The impression cannot be denied that certain MEPs, because they had no chance in national law for at least many years to be elected anywhere, then went to the European Parliament ... – well, you have to say that neither the UKIP people nor the people of Le Pen had a chance anywhere else for decades to be elected and then came here and here the money ....

Well, then disclose your expenses. So I want to see now that the ID faction in the last period, and that in this legislature the PfE and ESN successor faction, where the deputies from the former ID now sit in, that they now disclose. What do you do with your four hundred dollars? What do you do with your office fee? Is it independently audited? My things are independently checked by accountants to see if this is done in accordance with the rules here in the house. I am not aware that even a single member of the AfD conducts an independent examination of his flat-rate office costs. I am curious when we will see these documents and when we can see that the funds are being spent reasonably.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. It seems to me that a criminal organisation has been set up in the European Parliament. The AfD, the FPÖ, the representatives of Le Pen and other right-wing extremists have joined forces and not to create a few euros here and there on the side, but to systematically abuse all the funds available to them, to make fraud, to enrich themselves and friends, party colleagues. Marine Le Pen has already been convicted of 4.6 million euros in France after a very long trial, for abuse with the personnel and other funds. And now there's the next charge in the room: 4.3 million euros, which the AfD, the FPÖ and the people of Le Pen have probably stolen. And that's just the beginning, because it was just a sample. And if now all the money we have to look at... all the expenses of the ID have to be on the table now, so we can see what's going on. And you're inciting against NGOs here. And the only illegal funding of NGOs I've ever heard of with EU funds to this day is the allegations that you illegally funded NGOs with your funds. This needs to be clarified!

Madam President, dear colleagues, 250 000 people in the streets of Budapest – it was a historic moment. I'm glad that I was there. You could smell the wind of change in the air. I think the end of Viktor Orbán is coming. This was good. But despite all this, we cannot forget that the freedom of assembly is still restricted in Hungary. Commissioner, when in March, the Hungarian Government put this legislation in place, you said you stand ready, but you didn't do anything. Then the first Pride requests were filed with the police, and you said you stood ready, but nothing happened. The Hungarian police prohibited it. The highest court that is stuffed with Orbán's allies ruled that this is illegal. You said you stand ready, but you didn't do anything. It was down to the Green Mayor of Budapest that this could take place. But how about these other cities in Hungary? How about the civil society being able to organise protests? We need to act and not just stand ready when the fundamental freedoms are curtailed like this in the middle of the European Union. Please act.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. Between Trumps America First and Putin’s attacks on civilians in Ukraine – it shows: We need a stronger Europe. On all the major issues of our time, whether in the fight against climate change, to ensure that even the largest corporations pay their fair share of taxes, and unfortunately again on the question for which the European Union was once founded – the question of stability, peace, freedom, democracy on this continent – we can do little to nothing on all these issues without a strong European Union. Small business is a security risk. Only together are we strong. We can also double the defence budget of Estonia or Lithuania, we can triple it – it will not deter Putin. What will deter Putin is if we work more together in Europe, including on defence issues. And, above all, when we finally tackle a few fundamental design flaws of the European Union. To abolish unanimity is the greatest gift to Putin: He only has to bribe, blackmail, somehow pull a single one of the 27 heads of state and government to his side. We must finally make progress on democracy. Because if democracy is attacked from the outside and from the inside, then we in the European Union must react by making the EU more democratic, that we finally get a right of initiative for this European Parliament, that we finally get real European elections, that we can finally see what the governments in the Council actually do, where they agree, where they reject. And in the end, all these issues require Treaty changes, and that is what citizens want; the approval levels for the European Union are as high as we have never seen them in the history of the European Union. Let's take advantage of this moment! The European Parliament has already made proposals. We want to change the treaties. And if, in the end, we are serious about our promise to Ukraine, to the Balkans, to the countries that want to join the European Union, if we are serious about that promise, then we must change the Treaties. And it is the Council that blocks, which does not even appear here today for this debate, makes Sunday speeches, but in the end does not deliver what the citizens want. That's what we have to do.

Mr President, this is actually part of the police evidence to ban a Pride protest in Hungary. I don't know about you guys, but I don't think about what other people do in the bedroom all day. But you guys seem very concerned about that. Maybe it has to do with the fact that Viktor Orbán basically doesn't really meet women all day. There are 18 men in his cabinet – all-male cabinet. All his advisors in his Prime Minister's Office are all male. Apparently that environment leads you to such sexual insecurity that you need to ban Pride. But obviously you guys are trying to launch some sort of culture war to hide the corruption and to hide that you're taking everyone's rights – not only of some, but of everyone. The Commission needs to step up – not just stand ready, but act on this.

Mr President, dear colleagues, Mr Commissioner, particularly for all the men here on the extreme right, I'm now going to make you all gay. Look! Two men holding hands. (The speaker held up a picture)

Madam President, dear colleagues, Mr Commissioner, soon you are going to launch the sixth report on the rule of law in the European Union. What we're seeing is that the rule of law is under attack. Actually, some of the countries in the world where the rule of law, democracy and press freedom are declining the fastest in international rankings are EU Member States. But just publishing a chronicle every year of this decline cannot be enough. We need to act when the rule of law is under attack. We just went to Slovakia, for example, with the rule of law monitoring group of this Parliament. What we see is they abolished the special prosecutor on corruption, they abolished the National Crime Agency, they changed the laws so that the friends and political allies of the Prime Minister can walk free and so that the investigations are stopped. The amount of indictments on corruption has gone down 95 % since the abolishment of the special prosecutor. When are you going to act? I negotiated the rule of law conditionality so that we have a pre-emptive tool so that we don't have to wait until democracy is destroyed, like in Hungary. We need to act on these cases if we're serious about defending the rule of law.

Well, I had a couple of meetings talking with USAID and other officials of the then US administration about the situation in your country: that you, your party, your political allies, the family of Viktor Orbán, are stealing billions. And where is this money going? You're taking private jets to the Maldives, you're buying luxury yachts, you're turning old kings' palaces into golf courses. You're stealing billions of euro from Hungarian citizens that have no functioning hospitals, that have schools that are falling apart. Where is all the stolen money? That's what we were talking about in Washington.

Mr President, dear colleagues, Commissioner McGrath, I think this is a decisive moment for the rule of law. What Trump is doing in the US, unfortunately, is emboldening dictators around the world, including Orbán. Your Commission froze funding for Hungary two and a half years ago. You had negotiated 27 reforms that are necessary – not a single one has been delivered in these two and a half years. Zero. Zero reforms. Instead we see further attacks almost weekly by now. The Integrity Authority is being bullied, there are further attacks on the judiciary, the last reform was implemented under the loud protest of the judges' association, there are restrictions on the freedom of assembly, and now this attack – further attack – on civil society. I don't really understand what we're waiting for. Are we waiting for Orbán – also imitating Putin – that opposition politicians start falling out of windows? Because that, I fear, is not far away. He is imitating everything that Putin is doing, so who knows? I cannot explain to citizens why we're still sending billions to this country. We wrote you a letter this morning – cross-party – it's time to freeze all this money until the corruption stops and the attacks on fundamental freedoms stop.

Dear colleague, I mean, two arguments that have been made by you and also your party colleagues. First one, that the Commission somehow authorised the scheme, but the Commission went to court against Malta over the scheme. So I don't understand – it's illegal, as the court said. And the second question I have is there seems to be a confusion between a passport and a residency scheme. I mean, I have also criticised the residency. I think that should stop as well. And the other Member States that have that should stop it. But there is clearly a difference, right?