The European Parliament rejects the request of Hungary to lift the immunity of opponent Peter Magyar and activist Ilaria Salis

The European Parliament rejected on Tuesday, two votes in the plenary lifting the immunity of two MEPs, respectively the leader of the Hungarian opposition Peter Magyar and the Italian activist Ilaria Salis, thus refusing the request of Hungary, where the two are investigated in unrelated files, reports Agerpres.

Peter Magyar is a former ally of the Hungarian Conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who became his opponent following a political-surrounding business. Magyar resigned at the beginning of Orban's Fidesz Party after divorcing Judit Varga, the former holder of the justice portfolio and an ally of the prime minister.

He then founded the Tisza Party, which describes himself as a pro-European center-right party and is supported by Brussels, who challenge the sovereign policy of the Hungarian Prime Minister.

The Tisza party imposed quickly as the main opposition formation, and in the European Parliamentary elections it ranked second, after Fidesz, with almost 30% of the votes. Some recent polls claim that Tisza would be a fidesz in voting intentions and that Orban risks losing power after the parliamentary elections will take place next year.

Peter Magyar has three criminal files in Hungary. In the first he is accused of forcing the phone of a person who was filming him in a nightclub and then threw the camera in the Danube, and the other two files concern charges of defamation.

“A victory for democracy, the rule of law and antifascism”

As for the Italian MEP Ilaria Salis, this anti-fascist activist is accused in Hungary of violence in the margin of a neo-Nazi assembly. Arrested by the Hungarian authorities in February 2023, it was brought before the court handcuffed with chains, a situation against which Italy officially protested. After more than one year of preventive arrest, she was then placed under house arrest and ultimately released after obtaining a MEP mandate at the European Parliamentary elections in 2024.

In her case, the rejection of lifting immunity was decided on a difference of only one vote, with 306 votes for maintaining immunity and 305 against.

On the other hand, the norms of the European Parliament on immunity stipulate that it does not protect the MEPs in the face of the legal procedures initiated before their choice in this position. However, following the rejection of the elevation of immunity, Ilaria Salis will not be judged by the Hungarian justice, although the procedure against it was opened before becoming a member of the European Parliament.

“This vote is a victory for democracy, the rule of law and antifascism,” said Ilaria Salis after the vote in the European Parliament, where she was chosen on the lists of a small Italian party called “The Green and Left Alliance.”