As part of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s self-proclaimed “spring clean,” the European Parliament will hold an urgent debate on Hungary’s proposed new transparency law during Wednesday’s plenary session in Brussels, MEP Tineke Strik (Netherlands/Greens), the Parliament’s rapporteur for Hungary, told Euronews.
To worldwide indignation, the ruling party Fidesz presented the draft bill to the Hungarian Parliament last week. When the legislation is passed, foreign-funded media outlets and non-governmental organisations will be identified and subject to fines in cases where there is suspected foreign meddling.
“I am certain that we will have a majority, so we will likely have a debate tomorrow at the end of the afternoon,” Strik told Euronews. “I will request a plenary debate at the beginning of the agenda (of the plenary session).”
Adding that enough parties support the initiative for the debate, the Dutch Green party MEP cited organisations that travelled to Budapest a month ago, “because we are all very, very concerned about the current, the continuous backsliding of rule of law, and this new bill is very much adding to that.
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