Jobbik MP Márton Gyöngyösi: By launching the wage union initiative, we leave the disastrous policy of the past 27 years behind

By launching the wage union initiative, we leave the disastrous policy of the past 27 years behind. We want to create a comprehensive programme to raise Hungarian living standards and Hungarian wages, said Márton Gyöngyösi in his interview for Alfahír. According to Jobbik press release, the Jobbik MP and representative of the Citizens’ Committee emphasized that the wage union was a long-term goal and they were quite aware how complex the process was, and that its implementation took time and a national strategy as well.

– The collection of statements of support for the wage union initiative has just begun in Hungary. What were the key stations so far to get you to this point?

– Jobbik’s president announced the launch of the citizens’ initiative on December 18 last year, as part of his Vona18 campaign. Then we began to seek out international partners since we had to invite citizens of seven other EU member states to form the Citizens’ Committee.

– How long did it take?

– We found the partners in two months, then we laid out the concept and objectives of the citizens’ initiative in a resolution on March 14 this year. Then we submitted the document to the European Commission. Two months later, on May 22, the Commission registered our initiative. The next milestone is August 20, when we begin the online and paper-based collection of statements of support. In the past month, we have been working on preparing for this great task in terms of data privacy and other legal issues. The campaign and the collection of signatures will begin in September in the other member states.

Attackers of the Wage Union concept: Fidesz, MSZP

– How many signatures do you need to collect?

– We need to collect the statements of support from one million eligible EU voters. We can collect signatures from the entire EU territory but there is another condition as well: there must be a certain number of statements from at least seven member states. The particular figures are calculated by multiplying the number of MEPs of the given country by 750.

–Hungary’s current governing party Fidesz-KDNP and the political left have both been attacking the wage union initiative. How do you explain that?

– I consider Viktor Orbán’s, László Kövér’s, Tamás Deutsch’ or István Újhelyi’s statements, just to mention a few of the latest ones, to be driven by a petty partisan attitude. As far as the contents of these statements are concerned, they all try to play down the problem and pretend as if the proposition raised by the citizens’ initiative was not justified. In a certain way, it does make sense for the political forces who have been governing Hungary for the past 27 years to try and avoid being confronted with the tragic outcome of their political activities.

The fact that Hungary is in this current state and our economy still considers cheap labour as the token of integration even nearly three decades after the collapse of Communism, or the fact that huge numbers of Hungarian citizens emigrate to the west in the hope of better living standards, are all criticisms of the period we left behind. Fidesz and Socialist politicians, who are responsible for all this, should apologize to the people of Hungary and be busy laying out a new vision for our country, too. However, they apparently find that quite difficult.

The West is also interested in our success

– What will Europe have to face if the huge wage gap between the EU’s central and the peripheral countries persists?

– The current trends show that Eastern Central Europe will become empty. The intellectual power of the region, the educated professionals of the best working age have left or are going to leave their countries en masse. If the young and talented layer of our society emigrates, it will lead to a social disaster as well as the collapse of our social security system in the mid and long run. The education and healthcare system will become unsustainable. The large state supply systems will be at risk if the active group ensuring their operation seeks and finds prosperity abroad.