In a moral as well as in a political sense the most evident rules of life have been broken in the European Union, Zsolt Semjén, Deputy Prime Minister and President of KDNP believes.
Mr Semjén said at the Budapest presentation of the book Voyage to the Heart of Europe by Pascal Fontaine by quoting the poet János Pilinszky: the European Union is in a state that in a moral as well as in a political sense the most evident rules of life have been broken because in the form of the economic crisis and migration Europe found itself faced with challenges which it was not prepared for.
At the presentation of the extended Hungarian edition of the book about the history of the Christian Democratic group and the European People’s Party in the European Parliament between 1953 and 2009, which was held at the Sapientia Monastic College of Theology, the President of KDNP contrasted the eternal values represented by Christian democracy and common sense with the moral relativism and doctrinarianism of the „68 bunch” which in his view dominates the bureaucracy of the European Union.
According to Mr Semjén’s evaluation, this „68 line” rules the parliament of the EU and the EU bureaucracy, sometimes calling itself left-wing, while at other times labelling itself as liberal or green, and relativises everything in a moral sense. At the same time, it insists upon its own ideology in a doctrinarian fashion even if it is completely at odds with reality. He referred to the Swedish liberals as an example of the relativisation of values who wanted to legalise necrophilia and sexual relations between direct-line relatives.
In the context of the issue of migration, he pointed out: it will have catastrophic consequences if the cause of refugees, the importation of labour and demographic issues are mixed up. In his view, doctrinarian ideology which is detached from the real world does just that. He stressed that the individual countries themselves must resolve their demographic issues, and therefore believed that it is evident that we must support the birth of Hungarian children in Hungary. In his view, it will have unforeseeable consequences if we let in masses from outside the European civilisation in a cultural and ethnic sense with reference to demographic considerations.
„You can only spoil this once (…), and not only we shall have to live together with them, but our children and grandchildren, too”, he said. Mr Semjén believes it is natural that, based on human rights and in the spirit of Christian humanity, we must take in and help those who are fleeing for their lives, but in his view we should only do so as long as the lives of refugees are actually in danger. „Once that danger is over, they should go home”, he said. The Deputy Prime Minister stressed that the refugee issue has nothing to do with the shortage of labour. „If there is a shortage of labour in Germany, why do they not take over workers from Spain, from a country taking its roots from the European civilisation, who are additionally not illiterate people, speak a European language and do not look upon German civilisation as an enemy?”, he asked the question.
The President of KDNP takes the view that, in contrast to the „68-ers”, Christian democracy stands for eternal values, the Ten Commandments and common sense. He stressed: today KDNP is the only historical, ideological and Christian-social party in Hungary.
Rocco Buttiglione, President of the Christian-democratic party Unione di Centro Italia pointed out, inter alia, that the evident rules of life indeed appear to be losing the battle even in relations between men and women. He stressed: this is why they say no to same-sex marriage, and above all, to the right of same-sex couples to adopt. In his view, the whole of Europe is seeking its identity today, people’s parties and Christian democracy, too, are in a state of crisis, and populist movements are coming to the fore.
György Hölvényi, Christian democrat MEP stressed the importance of core values, and highlighted that people of faith, be those Christian, Muslim or Jewish, understand one another because these core values are present in every religion.
According to the press material distributed at the event, at the initiative of Vice-President Gábor Szényei, the Board of Trustees of the Barankovics István Foundation decided to publish Pascal Fontaine’s work in 2013. In the line of European translations, the Hungarian edition is unique inasmuch as the original text has been enlarged with an introduction of the parallel history of Christian democracy in Hungary.
The author of the book, political scientist Pascal Fontaine worked as the assistant of Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the EU between 1974 and 1979, and later assisted the work of Pierre Pflimlin, one of the Presidents of the European Union, first as administrator and later as his head of cabinet. Between 1995 and 2008 he was the Deputy Secretary General of the European People’s Party EP Group. The monograph was based on the transcripts of group meetings and debates in the European Parliament, supplemented with memoranda intended for internal use, memoires and interviews with key politicians.
The some 150-page-long Hungarian supplement was prepared by the Christian democracy knowledge base research group of the Barankovics István Foundation, museologist Róbert Szabó, historian Éva Petrás and historian and political scientist Mária Rita Kiss.
(MTI, Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister)
