MEP Tamás Deutsch’s letter to the President of the EP Committee on Culture and Education and the President of the European Parliament regarding the Committee’s visit to Budapest

MEP Tamás Deutsch, the Head of the Fidesz delegation to the European Parliament, sent the following letter to Sabine Verheyen, the chairperson of the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education, in connection with the committee’s visit to Budapest on November 2-4:

Dear Madam Chair,

Dear Coordinators,

As the Head of the Fidesz delegation to the European Parliament, I am following with particular attention the preparation of the programme for the mission of the Committee on Culture and Education in Budapest on 2-4 November.

As I was informed, the final programme of the visit is painfully one-sided. This has happened despite the fact that my fellow MEP Andrea Bocskor and other right-wing colleagues have brought dozens of institutions and individuals to their attention. It is regrettable and incomprehensible that the Committee has almost completely ignored these recommendations. As a result, an unbalanced programme of visits has been adopted with a glaring bias in favour of opposition, left-wing and liberal political figures, activists, institutions, journalists and NGOs critical of the government.

As a member of several previous fact-finding missions of the European Parliament, I am convinced that the delegation of an EP committee can play its role as a fact-finder if it examines the issues concerning the mission from numerous viewpoints and selects elements of the programme from the widest possible pool. The fact that in addition to the two dozen fiercely anti-government, left-wing and liberal politicians, civil activists, journalists and cultural sector workers, the delegation meets only a few government officials —completely ignoring representatives of Hungarian cultural, media and civil society from right-wing, civic, national, conservative and Christian democratic movements and workshops— cannot give a credible, objective and complete picture of the reality.

Based on the extremely one-sided programme, only a politically and ideologically biased report can be produced. The way in which the programme of the visit has been drawn up confirms the suspicion that the imbalance in the programme is not simply due to a lack of due diligence, but to a deliberate political intention.

It is extremely regrettable that the programme of the Budapest mission of the Committee on Culture and Education, which so often refers to pluralism, ignores the most basic expectations of balance and diversity.

Sincerely,
Tamás Deutsch MEP
Head of the Fidesz delegation to the European Parliament

MEP Tamás Deutsch forwarded the letter addressed to Chair of the CULT Committee with the accompanied letter below, to the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola.

Honourable Madam President,

For your kind information, please find attached the letter I sent today to Mrs. Sabine Verheyen, Chair of the Committee on Culture and Education about the regrettable imbalance and bias of the programme of the CULT Mission to Budapest in 2-4 November. 

I am of the view that impartiality and pluralism are inviolable principles that EP bodies should uphold under all circumstances and that parliamentary missions should not be instrumentalised and appropriated by any political groups. 

Respectfully yours,

Tamás Deutsch MEP

Head of the Fidesz delegation to the European Parliament