Hungary’s conservatives and radical party Jobbik virtually swept the board in Sunday’s European Elections. Among the country’s politicians to take their seats in the EP are a former Olympic champion, a British academic and a former member of the European Commission on Human Rights.
Topping the Fidesz list is Pal Schmitt, 67, a member of the European Parliament since 2004 and the head of the Hungarian Olympic Committee. Schmitt is head of the European Peoples’ Party Hungarian chapter. Also among the Fidesz EP ranks is British-based Gyorgy Schopflin, 70, a guest lecturer at the London School of Economics and a former BBC World Service correspondent.
Heading the Jobbik EP representatives is lawyer Krisztina Morvai, 46, who served as an expert to the United Nations, having been delegated by Fidesz leader and former prime minister Viktor Orban. The mother of three who is not a member of Jobbik also served in the European Commission on Human rights in Strasbourg. Another Jobbik MEP, Csanad Szegedi, 27, is a member of the organising committee of the Hungarian Guard, a radical militia.
The single representative to be delegated by the moderate conservative Democratic Forum is Lajos Bokros, 55, a former finance minister under the Socialist-liberal government of Gyula Horn, who is synonymous with an austerity package implemented in the mid-nineties.
Kinga Goncz, 62, the foreign minister until just before the collapse of Ferenc Gyurcsany’s government earlier this year, is the daughter of former President of the Republic Arpad Goncz. She practiced as a psychotherapist before taking up posts in academia and heading the Ministry of Social and Family Affairs.
