Amendment of the Hungarian Constitution with regard to the movement of armed forces

Dátum: 2003-11-25 16:25:00, eredeti URL: http://archiv.fidesz.hu/index.php?Cikk=17689
KCMDB-be feltöltve: 2024-05-04 19:11:09.229338, Feltöltő: fidesz_hu_scraper_v2

The Hungarian Constitution is still the one accepted in 1949. That does not mean, however, it has been unchanged for more than fifty years. After the fall of communism, the control of the armed forces (army and border guards, not including the police) was transferred to Parliament, with decisions taken by a two-thirds majority.

In 1999, Hungary became member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Soon it was clear that this would require a qicker and easier decision making mechanism. During the past five years, several attempts have been made in order to amend the Constitution with regard to the control of armed forces. Between 1998-2001, the Government (Ms Ibolya Dávid as Minister of Justice) launched four different amendment proposals. One of these created the integration of the Defence Ministry and the General Staff. Also, Mr Zsolt Lányi former MP and Chairman of the Defence Committee had prepared one which was similar to those made by the Government. The opposition parties did not show willingness to give their support for these proposals.

After the general elections of 2002, Mr József Szájer, present Deputy Speaker of the Parliament (Fidesz) raised the question of amending the Constitution at a four-party negotiation which was called together to discuss actual issues of the approaching EU- membership. His proposal was turned down.

There have been two proposals since. One by Mr György Keleti, MP, present Chairman of the Defence Committee. This proposal was perfunctory, therefore non-supportable. The other one is a general proposal prepared by the present Government regarding several issues at one time. This proposal was unpreceded by any negotiation.

The increasing amount of NATO activities, Hungarian contribution to NATO's work and the setting up of the NATO Reaction Force made the necessity of changing the Constitution more and more current. In order to know under what conditions Fidesz and the opposition could support the amendment, the Government initiated four-party negotiations. After a series of roundtable discussions, the representatives of the four parliamentary parties finally agreed on the present text.

In the sense of the agreement, all the four parties support the idea of repealing the two-thirds majority rule concerning the control of armed forces and placing it under the responsibility of the Government in the following cases:

- application of Hungarian armed forces abroad and application of foreign armed forces in Hungary in case of Norh Atlantic Council (NAC) decision

- other movement of troops based on the decision of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Through the new regulation Hungary becomes a more reliable allied partner, with an effective decision making capability.

Budapest, 19 November 2003