Communiqué of Fidesz - Hungarian Civic Union upon the ratification of NATO's second round of enlargement in the Hungarian Parliament

Dátum: 2003-06-04 10:09:00, eredeti URL: http://archiv.fidesz.hu/index.php?Cikk=11235
KCMDB-be feltöltve: 2024-05-04 18:23:34.935731, Feltöltő: fidesz_hu_scraper_v2

The parliamentary group of Fidesz - Hungarian Civic Union supports the NATO accession of all the candidate countries invited to join the Alliance at last year's Prague Summit.

During the Soviet era, the currently acceding countries, with the exception of Slovenia, were in a similar situation as Hungary. They were held against their will in an organisation, the Warsaw Pact, which was charged with supressing their internal freedom. Under the Brezhnev-doctrine, the idea of liberty had to be prevented from gaining ground wherever that might have happened in the Soviet bloc, and efforts to that end had to be repressed by all means, including with the use of military force.

We are particularly indebted to the Baltic States which were incorporated into the Soviet Union. They were the ones who suffered probably the most under oppression. We feel it a moral obligation, therefore, to support them in obtaining membership in an Alliance which guarantees for them long-awaited internal and external freedom, parliamentary democracy and the free choice of foreign policy orientation.

It is in Hungary's interest that her neighbors belong to the same security organisation, as our own security is enhanced by being surrounded by allies.

We have been supporting and we continue to support the accession of Romania and Slovakia also for the reason that we hope that their membership will be accompanied by securing the rights of the Hungarian communities living on their respective territories. From this aspect we hope that the implementation of the law on the restitution of church and community property confiscated during communism will be accelerated. For NATO, besides being a military alliance capable of guaranteeing the security of its member states, is also an alliance of values, the first of them being freedom. And no country can be free where minority communities cannot freely use their native languages, cannot freely develop their national cultures and cannot preserve their national identity.

Budapest, 30 May 2003

Zsolt Németh

Deputy head of parliamentary group