Parties fail to agree on House positions

The ruling Fidesz and Christian Democrat (KDNP) parties maintain their proposal that the opposition should appoint one-third of committee leadership and membership places, and half of notaries’ positions, “despite the fact that the number of opposition lawmakers has declined since four years ago,” Kocsis told a press conference. He said the proposal was “fair and proportionate to parliamentary mandates”.

“The leftist parties never wanted an agreement,” he said, adding that five of six opposition group leaders had stayed away from the meeting.

The opposition also requested an amendment to the proposal, “even though they accepted a very similar one four years ago,” he said.

Kocsis accused the opposition of planning to “blame House Speaker Laszlo Kover for their not getting enough positions, even though they will receive them”. “Fidesz calls on the opposition to fill in all the positions they are entitled to, fulfil their voters’ will and represent them rather than staying away from work in parliament,” he said.

After the meeting, Mi Hazank (Our Homeland) leader Laszlo Toroczkai said the opposition leaders’ absence was a “circus put on especially for the media”, as the opposition leaders have said they would send their proposals to the government.

Mi Hazank is nominating party deputy leader Dora Duro for deputy House speaker, and is vying to lead the committees on national security and investment development, Toroczkai said.

Following the talks, opposition DK, Jobbik, LMP, Momentum, Parbeszed and the Socialists said in a joint statement that Fidesz had made it clear that it continues to refuse the method of distributing committee leadership and membership places on the basis of the 30-year tradition and reflecting the size of the parliamentary groups.

The opposition parties consider it unacceptable that Fidesz “wants to rewrite voters’ wish by brute force and award the extremist Mi Hazank with parliamentary positions far exceeding its parliamentary presence, to the detriment of democratic oppostion parties”, the statement said. “This is the intolerable neglect of 1.9 million voters who supported the united opposition,” it added.

Mi Hazank sets up parliamentary group

The opposition Mi Hazank (Our Homeland) party set up its parliamentary group on Wednesday. The six-strong body elected party chair Laszlo Toroczkai group leader.

At a press conference, Toroczkai said Istvan Apati and Elod Novak had been elected deputy group leaders.

Answering a question, Toroczkai said the party had not passed a decision concerning committee memberships, but suggested that Novak could be delegated to the national security committee and Apati to the committee overseeing business development.