ABSTRACT: According to the Radical Party delegation--the only not exclusively Hungarian party to be invited to the POSU Congress--Hungary is in danger of two things: the proposition once more of an electoral system of proportional representation and "non-alignment". At the Democratic Forum Congress, the Radicals indicated the European Federation as the means for overcoming national and ethnic and national conflicts. Although it is true that in the West a high level of economic development has been reached, the same cannot be said--the Radicals stated to the Congress of Young Hungarian Democrats--in the area of freedom or civil and political rights. Speaking before the Congress of Free Democrats, Anne Losonczy sustained the necessity of Hungary's adherence to the European Community. Membership in the EEC, as proven by the Spanish and Portuguese experience, could reinforce the economy and political society, consequently making the return to democracy irreversible.
October 9, 1989
HUNGARY: RADICAL DELEGATION TO THE POSU CONGRESS.
STATEMENT BY RADICAL PARTY FIRST SECRETARY, SERGIO STANZANI.
Rome, October 9--N.R.--A delegation of the transnational Radical Party, made up of First Secretary Sergio Stanzani and Federal Council member, Anne Losonczy, daughter of Cabinet Minister Nagy, participated, beginning Friday morning at the POSU Congress. The delegation, the only non-Hungarian delegation invited officially, was invited as a transnational party, also active in Hungary.
Stanzani made the following statement:
"It is not necessary to point out the non-violent character and revolutionary significance of this Congress. It is as well-known and understood in Hungary, as it is in the rest of the world. I will instead stress the great risks which the process in progress involves. I do not wish to play the role of the oiseau de mauvaise augure, but to attempt to contribute our frank opinion as a transnational, democratic, non-violent, European federalist party to the democratic revolution now in progress.
I believe that the two greatest risks today facing Hungary are the following: first, taking once more the road, nostalgic or otherwise, of an electoral system of proportional representation, that system which in this century, with the "Real Democracies", produced great tragedies--generated by national party systems, consolidated and rendered irremovable by the division and allotting of power, which have de facto thwarted the very essence of the state of right--and today constitutes one of the main obstacles to the European affirmation of the will and the capacity to govern which would make possible facing and overcoming the great challenges dramatically characterizing the close of this millennium;
The second could be that of following, both for mythical reasons of equal distance as well as for nostalgia, the by now out-dated way of a national, neutral, "non-aligned" nation. There is thus the choice, on the one hand, between the Anglosaxon system, with its opposition of only two parties, or at any rate, only a few alternatives for governing of the great democratic reforms and the system of proportional representation, compromise and the division of power, and on the other hand, between European federalist option with its immediate and explicit demand for adhesion to the European Community, and national ways--"Austrian" neutrality, or Yugoslav "non-alignment", both of which are out-dated.
Those are the choices which can determine the future of Hungary. However, it is also through these choices that Hungarians could determine the future of all of Europe. I am thus convinced that it is also on these questions that Hungarian voters must be called on to decide.
The Radical Party, by following up its commitment which led its last Congress being held in Hungary, and in the full awareness of the effect had by its presence here, fully intends to fulfill its obligation to contribute, also in the context of the coming elections, to the development of democracy in the country.
October 20, 1989
HUNGARY: THE TRANSNATIONAL RADICAL PARTY GREETING TO THE PARTICIPANTS OF THE MAGYAR DEMOCRATIC FORUM
Budapest, October 20, 1989--R.R.--The following is the text of the Radical Party's greeting to the Participants of the Magyar Democratic Forum Congress, which concluded yesterday in Budapest.
Dear Friends,
The participation of your spokesman, KISS Gy. Csaba, at our Congress is proof of the reality and substance of both that area of thought and--above all--a common political commitment. In particular, the rejection of the figure of State and nation, and the defense of minority rights.
These issues which we share are in danger, however, of failing to lead to any common action, any common concrete commitment, if the question is not faced in the overall context of a possible solution to the problems, and the general problems to be faced in completing of the process of democratization in progress here, in which your organization assumed and assumes a leading role.
Thus, as a transnational party, we believe that, as the solution to the Basque problem is not in Spain, or the situation for Northern Ireland in Great Britain, or the Kosov in Yugoslavia, there is no solution for the Hungarian and Saxon minorities in an exclusively Roumanian context or--if the Bucharest regime were not what it is today--in a Roumanian-Hungarian context. We know from experience that only in the context of a federal union of free European states can a solution to these problems be found.
On another plane, our experience leads us to believe that the road to a freely assumed interdependence within the framework of a Federal Europe was the condition for each of our states to maintain its individual characteristics, its individual resources--not only cultural and human. We also believe that in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, interdependence is today the condition for both effective control and effective management of the process of transformation now in progress, and that it is a determinant element if the democratization of your country is to be a success--political, and also economic and social.
The alternative--independent, national and neutral--would for Hungary today inevitably signify dependence and the impossibility, before the world's economic and political giants, of effectively governing or controlling those changes occurring in the country. And we cannot help but remember the hypocrisy with which Western European countries encourage you to follow that alternative when they themselves--beginning with the leaders of countries like France, West Germany and Italy--have partly abandoned it and are on the verge of abandoning it definitively.
It is precisely this which we believe today to be the point of reference for Hungary's future, and not only Hungary: the choice between the independent and national way and the interdependent and Federal European one. It is our hope--and we will also attempt with humility and determination in this direction--to work towards Hungarians being given this choice in the next elections. In the hope that we will succeed in the coming months in developing together these common aspirations, our wishes for a good and profitable congress.
Transnational Radical Party
Via di Torre Argentina, 18--Rome
Tanacs Krt 11--Budapest
October 21, 1989
PARTICIPATION OF THE RADICAL DELEGATION AT THE FIDESZ CONGRESS
Attending the Fidesz (Federation of Democratic Youth) Congress which was held in Budapest from Oct. 20 to Oct. 22, 1989, was a delegation of the Radical Party, made up of Ferenc Parcz, Olivier Dupuis, Sandro Ottoni, Vito Cesmadziski and Massimo Lensi.
The following is a summary of the presentation:
..."You say in your programme that the West has reached an unprecedented high level of economic development and freedom. That is certainly true as regards economic development. However, it should not be forgotten that in our society there exists a large percentage of the marginated, the elderly, immigrants and young people excluded from the scholastic system, who are often those who, in desperation, turn to drugs and consequently to crime...
We should also not forget that this development has remained almost exclusively a development of the world's North, a North involved in this process only in its own exclusive interests; conditions in the world's South have, on the other hand, worsened. And this has generated, and goes on generating hunger, famine which and starvation for tens of millions of individuals each year.
Your programme says that the West has also achieved an unprecedented degree of freedom. We should like to take strong exception to that statement which would appear to us to be based on a concept of democracy as a definitive prescription and not as an evolutionary process. It does not take into account the incredible involution of the fourth estate and the power of the media, which has become literally a power within Power, capable of conditioning society as a whole, much stronger--also because it is more sophisticated--than in the "Real" socialist countries.
This degeneration of the media is tied up with the more serious degeneration of the so-called democratic systems: the degeneration of the party system, favoured by electoral systems of proportional representation of the continental democracies. According to this system, which is not Democracy, the parties manage all the society's spheres of power, beginning with the media--as we have seen--but also justice, nationalized companies, cities, public works...
In these systems there is no longer democracy, but above all "Real Democracy", which is to democracy as Real Socialism is to socialism--pure parody. It is for this reason, we struggle in our countries for the reform of the electoral system, the institution of substantially Anglosaxon two-party systems, the only ones which can represent for the public the great alternative plans for governing the great problems of our times.
We well know that many of you think and also say: "Better Real Democracy than our present system". But this is absurd because no one has the slightest doubt but that the way today for Hungary is democracy. The problem is that it must be constructed, not by reproducing faithfully the democratic model of forty years ago, or that of other countries, without even considering their shortcomings, degeneration, failures, or simply the social changes which have occurred over the years in those countries...
(...) Certainly, in your programme, there is talk of the necessary solidarity with other Eastern European countries. But the character is generally the nation's way out of the crisis. We are convinced instead that the only way to govern this process and, consequently, also the influx of foreign capital which would follow, is that of integration into a broader programme, one of interdependence--the only one which could effectively be controlled, and therefore a process which would provide, now, for the entrance of your country into the European Community.
October 27, 1989
PRESENTATION BY ANNE LOSONCZY TO THE CONGRESS OF FREE DEMOCRATS
Budapest, October 27--N.R.--Presentation by Anne Losonczy, Member of the Federal Council of the Radical Party, to the Congress of Free Democrats (SDS).
Dear Friends,
It is with great joy and deep emotion that I join you here today. The occasion is also a very singular one, since I am here both as a representative of the Radical Party and as a new member of the Alliance of Free Democrats (SDS). This membership, my double membership, is a clear example of the fundamental ideas of today's Radical Party: the transparty idea, or the indispensable complementary nature of political commitment, on the one hand, to an organization whose objectives are deeply rooted in national consciousness and, on the other, on the transnational level to the creation of a political space within which to find solutions to the many problems which go beyond the strictly national context.
Who today can reasonably think that problems like the dam on the Danube, of the Hungarian minorities in the bordering countries, the economic crisis, or our existence in the world can be dealt with on an exclusively national plane.
It is for these reasons that we Radicals believe it necessary that Hungary request membership in the European Community now. Membership in the EEC, as we saw in Portugal and Spain, worked as reinforcement and stimulation of the economy and the political societies of those countries making it possible for them, in the space of a few years, to reach the level of the other member countries, rendering the return to democracy irreversible.
The political tradition, the political programme, the ideas and campaigns of the Free Democrats leave no doubt as to their capacity and will to commit themselves to this historical objective: the request for Hungarian membership in the European
Community in the interim before the creation of the United States of Europe.
It is obvious that in this prospective, the transnational Radical Party would be only too happy to make available its transnational structures and experience, as well as to pledge the support of its members in European Parliament.
There can be no doubt that Radical Party members, and in particular Hungarian members, will participate as enthusiastically in this transparty action, as they do in the defense of minorities and as they will, on November 15, before the Roumanian Embassies in ten European capitals, for a Europe as we would like it, stretching from Lisbon to Moscow, and from Brussels to Budapest.
For those of you in this hall who know me and whom I know, it will be clear that there is nothing formal this greeting. I hope that you--that we, since I am now a member of the SDS--will be able to debate it during the sessions of this Congress. I also hope, and sincerely so, that a resolution will be adopted in the direction I have explained.
HUNGARIAN GLOSSARY
POSU: Hungarian Workers' Socialist Party (MSZMP); state party from the end of the war until the present. It was the party of Imre Nagy, Janos Kadar, Laszlo Rajk, Geza Loconczy. It was the party of the events of 1956, but also the party of the East German refugees. More than in other Communist countries, it has truly represented, for better or worse, Hungarian society and politics. Presently, it is divided into two currents; the Reformist Circles and Kadar nostalgia. Its leaders are: Karoli Grozs, Imre Pozsgai, Rieszo Nyers, Miklos Nemeth.
At the Congress in October its name was changed to the Hungarian Socialist Party.
MDF: Democratic Magyar Forum; founded in September of 1987; approximately 17,000 members throughout Hungary; of grass-roots and Catholic origin, it is considered one of the country's major opposition forces; its leadership is formed in the halls of the monthly "HITEL", the director of which, Zoltan Biro, is the leader of the movement. Other leaders are: Sandor Csoori (writer), Istvan Csurka and Josef Antall.
SZDSZ: Union of Free Democrats; founded at the end of 1988; with a membership of approximately 7,000, mostly centered in Budapest; of liberal tendencies and made up for the most part of an urban class of intellectuals and students, who desire Hungary's withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact and radical economic changes; other battles are: against pollution in Budapest and against the dam on the Danube; civil rights and internationalism among the Eastern opposition. Leaders: Miklos Tamas Gaspar, Janos Kis, Imre Mecs, Miklos Vasarhelyi, Ferenc Koeszeg.
Fidesz: Young Democrats League, founded in March of 1988; a membership of around 5,000; difficult to label ideologically, it is composed for the most part of Budapest University students, who support the free market, are against nuclear power, and for human rights and Parliamentary democracy, etc. etc...Membership in Fidesz is not possible for anyone over 35 years of age. Its leadership, which was elected at the last Congress, is composed of 13 members each with different duties. Leaders:
Small Proprietors Party: re-created in 1988; around 5,000 members; Hungarian nationalists, they attempt to base their consensus on the principle of a popular and national Hungary. Leaders: Imre Boross, Ivan Baba, Pal Dragon.
Hungarian Socialdemocrat Party: re-created in 1988; with around 10,000 members; its aim is that of bringing about democratic reform in Hungary and modifying in a Social-Democratic key Communists of POSU; their symbol is a rose held in a closed fist. Leaders: Tibor Baranyai, Istvan Gasko, Andras Revesz.
Roundtable of the Opposition (EKA): created with the aim of instruct the Hungarian Parliament on government bills on the main issues for democratic renewal. Its discussions have included issues such as electoral law, laws on parties and public financing, economic reforms, education. Its decisions are binding for the signatories. Parliament can only reject them, presenting them for further TR discussion; it cannot modify them.
The Roundtable is made up of three sections: the first includes POSU and government representatives; the second the opposition forces (MDF, SZDSZ, Fidesz, the Hungarian Popular Party, the Christian Democrat Popular Party, the Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Organization, the Small Proprietors Party, the Social democrat Party and the Democratic League of Independent Unions); the third the social organizations (Alternative Left, the Patriotic Popular Front, the Demisz-Hungarian Communist Youth, the Partisan Antifascist League, the Hungarian Women's League, the F. Munnich Circle, the SZOT Union).
