LMP opposes constitutional amendment

Budapest, June 6 (MTI) – The green LMP party continues to oppose the proposed terrorism-related amendments to the constitution, the party’s former co-leader András Schiffer said on Monday.

Parliament is scheduled to vote on the proposal to amend the constitution for a sixth time to create the conditions to handle terrorist threats on Tuesday.

Under the amendment, the constitution would include a “state of terrorist threat” among instances that mandate the domestic deployment of the armed forces.

According to LMP, however, the amendment would serve purposes other than deploying the armed forces within Hungary, Schiffer said.

LMP instead proposed that the armed forces should be made deployable by amending their constitutional status but its motion was turned down by the governing parties, he said.

Schiffer said that LMP supports the interior ministry’s proposal on counter-terrorism measures.

He also reaffirmed LMP’s support for the government’s draft resolution on rejecting the European Union’s mandatory migrant quotas.

The deputy leader of the leftist Democratic Coalition said on Monday that the interior ministry’s counter-terrorism proposal and planned changes to the constitution would not help prevent a terrorist attack. These would only serve to build “Orbán’s terror”, Ágnes Vadai said, referring to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Vadai argued that no evidence had come to light of a terrorist threat and the government was seeking powers that “should not be granted to a democratic government, let alone the Orban administration”.