Today, the EU citizens’ initiative “Wake Up Europe” launched its online platform. A Europe-wide petition can be signed there, urging the European institutions to take a clear stance against the authoritarian agenda of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
While the European Commission is tackling some facets of the authoritarian developments in Hungary at a legal level, it is shying away from taking decisive political action against the systematic erosion of democratic principles and the Hungarian government’s constant violations of European values and human rights. The citizens behind “Wake Up Europe” view this with great concern and call on all EU citizens who believe that such authoritarian behavior has no place in Europe to join the initiative and sign the petition calling on the European Commission to initiate Article 7 TEU proceedings against the Hungarian government. “If the EU allows Hungary to move so far away from our common values, it encourages other member states to follow the same path. The latest developments in Poland clearly confirm this. We strongly support the EU launching rule of law proceedings against Poland last week and would very much welcome the same commitment from the European institutions to protect the rule of law in Hungary,” said Pierre Galand, member of the Citizens’ Committee at Wake Up Europe. The website on which the required 1,000,000 signatures will be collected will be accessible until November 2016.
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