Center for Fundamental Rights: Pro-War EPP, Including Peter Magyar's Party, Backed Ursula von der Leyen's Re-Election

The coalition of the European People's Party, the left and the liberals is breaking all the regulations and customary rules in order to silence the pro-peace voices represented by the Patriots for Europe group. Peter Magyar's party was quick to rally behind re-elected Ursula von der Leyen condemning the Hungarian prime minister's peace mission.

Ursula von der Leyen, former and new president of the European Commission nominated by the European People's Party, celebrates after her re-election at the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on July 18, 2024 (MTI/EPA/Ronald Wittek)

The pro-peace Patriots for Europe group, which has the support of nearly 20 million voters, has been excluded from top posts by the EPP in collaboration with the left wing, although the rules prescribe a proportional share. Moreover, the EP's rules of procedure prohibit any discrimination against MEPs on political grounds.

Despite this, the pro-war forces will do anything, using even administrative instruments, to silence those who advocate peace. At the plenary sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, MEPs voted on the EP's top jobs. The lawmakers overwhelmingly re-elected pro-war Roberta Metsola as president of the European Parliament for another two and a half years. Metsola has repeatedly made pro-war statements and it would be rather difficult to call her a person of integrity. It was during her presidency that one of the EP's biggest scandals, Eva Kaili's corruption case, came to light, and in response Metsola declared 142 high-value gifts that she had previously 'forgotten'.

Although the Patriots for Europe group, due to its size, could have claimed two vice-presidential posts, the larger EP groups went against the regulations and customary rules and employed a 'cordon sanitaire'. In the end, the Patriots group did not gain important positions. As the third largest group in the EP, the Patriots expected to give two vice-presidents, but based on the votes, the nominees were not supported, and neither was the group's Hungarian nominee for the post of quaestor.

The next crunch vote was on Thursday with the EP voting on whether to affirm Ursula von der Leyen as commission president. After lengthy positioning and making deals, Ursula von der Leyen managed to gather enough votes and can continue ruining the EU for another five years.

Photo: Igor Y Eros

The commission president was re-elected, with her key supporters including Peter Magyar and his fellow MEPs. Re-electing the former president anew was against the will of the Hungarian people, according to a survey by Nezopont Institute, revealing that 51 percent of the Hungarian voters did not support Ursula von der Leyen's re-election.

This is largely due to the fact that the commission she headed mishandled every crisis, be it the pandemic or the war, and consistently served the political will of the globalist network instead of Europe's interests. And corruption also appears to emerge here, as the exchange of text messages with Pfizer has not been clarified and only assumptions exist ever since the scandal erupted.

We can't expect much good from Ursula von der Leyen in the future either: in her speech as a presidential candidate, she called the Hungarian prime minister's peace mission pointless and pledged continued support for Ukraine as long as needed. Breaking with tradition, the commission will not visit Budapest on the occasion of Hungary's taking over the rotating presidency and will boycott informal meetings organized during Hungary's presidency. Outgoing Spanish socialist Josep Borrell is working to sabotage a foreign ministers' meeting organized under the Hungarian presidency in August. The reason is the same: the mainstream in Brussels cannot digest Viktor Orban's peace mission.

The events at the plenary session showed that the unprincipled pro-war coalition sees the Patriots as enemies, because the Patriots want a real change in European policies: peace, stricter border protection, a competitive and strong Europe built on a national basis. While Viktor Orban was denied the opportunity to deliver the customary address as the prime minister of the country holding the EU presidency in the European Parliament citing 'a busy schedule', there was time to promote the war and encourage further support. The European Parliament passed a resolution reaffirming the commitment to maintain support for Ukraine and condemning the Hungarian prime minister's peace mission. Hungarian Klara Dobrev and Csaba Molnar, MEPs of the left-wing Democratic Coalition, of course voted in favor of the resolution. In addition, on July 15, 63 MEPs called for Hungary's voting rights in the Council of the European Union to be suspended because of its efforts to end the conflict.

As yet another telling event of the week, the leftist-liberal majority in the European Parliament rejected the initiative by the Patriots for Europe group to condemn political violence after the attempted assassination on US presidential candidate Donald Trump. It is becoming increasingly clear that pro-war globalist forces are capable of anything to silence voices opposed to the mainstream: they politically isolate factions they dislike, blackmail political opponents or discredit them in their media. The latter is such an effective weapon that two pro-peace politicians, Robert Fico and Donald Trump, became targets of an assassination attempt just a few months apart.  

Cover photo: Ursula von der Leyen, former and new president of the European Commission nominated by the European People's Party, celebrates after her re-election at the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on July 18, 2024 (MTI/EPA/Ronald Wittek)