Euro trashed
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A violent egg-tremist?: BNP leader Nick Griffin has close links to all anti-Romany movements in Europe, a £80,000 salary and looks like he needs a hug
On June 4th, voters across Britain elected their representatives to the European Parliament, but it wasn’t until Sunday night that the results came in. With the bad news that the openly racist British National Party had gained two seats, came even worse news from Hungary. The country now has 3 openly anti-Romany Members of the European Parliament (MEP), and one less Romany MEP.
Hungary's centre-right opposition may have scored its best-ever result in the European elections, but an openly anti-Romany party called Jobbik, stole the headlines by winning nearly 15 percent of the votes. Fidesz, the main opposition party, secured 56.37 percent of votes, allowing it send 14 of Hungary's 22 MEPs to the 736-member European parliament. One of them will be Lívia Járóka, a Romany MEP from Hungary, who will now be the only Romany MEP for the 2009 – 2014 session after the departure of fellow Romany Hungarian MEP Viktória Mohácsi.
In Hungary, the MCF Roma movement, bringing together several Roma organizations, did not succeed in the polls. They received only 13 440 votes, completely failing to mobilise the 500 000 – 600 000 Romanies that live in Hungary.
But the real surprise was Jobbik -- which means "better" in Hungarian and is short of "Movement for a Better Hungary -- which won three seats with a startling 14.74 percent of the national vote.
In openly anti-Jewish and anti-Romany speeches, Jobbik's leaders rail against multinational companies and the purchase of Hungarian land by foreigners. Jobbik seeks to stamp out what it sees as "Romany crime" and members of its paramilitary wing, the Hungarian Guard, march through villages with high Romany populations in an attempt to intimidate those it sees as "criminals". There has been a dramatic increase in anti-Romany violence in Hungary in recent months.
In the Czech Republic, the other EU country to have witnessed anti-Romany violence recently, the neo-Nazi Workers’ Party (DS) and the openly racist National Party (NS) were well supported in the Ústí and Karlovy Vary regions of the country, according to the Czech Statistical Institute. But the DS received approximately one percent of the vote nationwide, while the NS received about one-fourth of a percent. As a result neither party has made it into the European Parliament.
Back in Britain, the British National Party, which has close links with all anti-Romany political movements in Eastern Europe, now has 2 MEPs that each command £80,000 salaries as well as well resourced offices across Europe. But while it may be gaining ground in the secrecy of the ballot box, it is still being hotly pursued on the streets. Yesterday as its leader Nick Griffin attempted to hold a press conference outside parliament he was chased away by egg-throwing anti-fascist protesters shouting “Nazi scum off our streets.” Within 6 minutes he was whisked away by his bodyguards.
The upsurge in anti-Romany feeling is life imitating art for novelist Adam Lebor. He has just published a novel about a right wing conspiracy to destroy the Romany community using a genetically engineered drug. He says:
“Across Eastern Europe, there are murderous attacks on the Romany minority, a fury with the political class, soaring poverty and unemployment, worries of economic collapse, fear that the street not parliament may be where the country’s future will be decided, and dynamic new forces of extremists driving a wedge between citizens and the state. In Hungary, Romany villagers have already formed self-defence squads to patrol their homesteads at night.”
“All the ingredients are in place for a long hot summer of social unrest. Disturbingly, that is not fiction, but fact.”
The Budapest Protocol by Adam Lebor is published by Reportage Press at £11.99. To order it for £10.79 inc p&p call 0845 2712134 or visit www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst