JERUSALEM – Hungarian Minister of Justice Prof. László Trócsányi told a forum of the World Jewish Congress on Tuesday evening that "antisemitism exists everywhere, but Central Europe is a good place for Jews”.
Speaking at an event of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, which operates under the auspices of the WJC, Trócsányi said that the Jewish community of Hungary is "very important" to the Hungarian government. He also noted that he had lived in the past in France and Belgium, where the situation for Jews was unfavorable.
"Our identity is very important. Hungary does not support multiculturalism. Hungary seeks a Europe of nations. It wants to avoid a 'United States of Europe,'" the justice minister declared.
He strongly defended the policies of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and decried what he called the double standards that characterized EU attitudes toward Hungary. Unlike many Western European countries, he suggested, Hungary bore no responsibility toward developing countries, as it had never acquired overseas colonies. It had never attempted to export democracy and had not been a destabilizing factor in that part of the world, he maintained.
Addressing the issue of Hungary’s place in the EU and its commitment to democratic norms, which has been called into question, Trócsányi insisted that Hungary was a democracy with free elections, an independent judiciary and freedom of the press. He said that "the press in Hungary is freer than in some West European countries."
When asked by a member of the audience how Hungary could glorify the legacy of wartime dictator Admiral Miklos Horthy, who had been directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jews from Hungary who had been deported to German-occupied Ukraine and killed by Hungarians, the justice minister said that "this was not a golden period in our [Hungary's] history" but insisted that the Hungarian government was not paying tribute to Horthy and that its clear position was to condemn totalitarianism.
The event was chaired by ICFR President Dan Meridor, a former Israeli minister of justice. In his opening remarks, Meridor said, "As everyone knows, Israel and Hungary have a very good relationship," adding that in the shadows, however, lies the tragic history of Hungarian Jewry.
