Katalin Cseh is a member of the Hungarian Momentum Movement, a strongly pro-West and pro-EU political party, which burst onto the scene in 2017 with a campaign for a referendum on the Hungarian bid for the 2024 Olympic Games.
Cseh’s statements and parliamentary work generally focus on rule of law related issues and Hungarian internal affairs. Cseh, a member of D-US, informed the US Congress on issues in Hungary in 18 specific fields covering internal and foreign policies. She recommended that NATO monitors its member states cooperating with authoritarian regimes and take measures against them, that the US should restart Radio Free Europe and support independent Hungarian media, and that the EU and NATO should both play a role in enforcing rule of law standards. She was enthusiastic about the inauguration of US President Joe Biden, stating that “America is back” at the table, proposing a global summit of democracy, but also emphasizing that the clock cannot be turned back to the pre-Trump era. At a Political Capital-organized event in 2020, she already noted that the Trump presidency showed that the EU has to become much more assertive on the international scene and become able to protect its own interests alone, when it is needed.
She was highly critical of the fact that Hungary, a country with a poor rule of law record, received the enlargement portfolio in the new European Commission. She said László Trócsányi was “completely unsuitable” to fill this post because he, for instance, “extradited Russian arms dealers caught in Hungary to Russia instead of our Western allies”. She also criticised the Orbán government’s policy in the Western Balkans (e.g., Gruevski case), stating that “Orbán and Putin are interested in weak, anti-EU and anti-NATO Western Balkans”. She remains a regular critic of the Hungarian government’s friendly approach to Russia and China. Cseh says that after an opposition victory in the 2022 general election, Hungary will commit itself “once and for all” to western values and move closer to its European allies instead of China, Russia or Azerbaijan.
On Ukraine, Cseh and Momentum have different views compared to most Hungarian political forces. The MEP explains in a Facebook post that Momentum, like others, believes Ukraine should amend its controversial education and language laws to guarantee the local minority’s language rights. However, she adds, blocking Ukraine’s accession to the EU and NATO is not a proportional answer by Budapest because this policy only helps Vladimir Putin, nobody else.
The MEP was among the sponsors of several EP resolutions concerning rule of law and human rights concerns in Turkey, China or India. Katalin Cseh is a member of the DROI committee that was sanctioned by Beijing as a response to the EU’s own sanctions against four Chinese officials who played a role in the repression of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang. In the debate on the resolution that froze EP negotiations on the ratification of the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investments (CAI), she highlighted that China is terrified of the united and value-based European foreign policy that the Parliament represents.
(Updated: 13/7/2021)
After the editor-in-chief of the most popular independent Hungarian news portal Index.hu was fired and almost all staff members left, she stated clearly that the freedom of the press is “non-negotiable” for her party. Katalin Cseh, who says the editor-in-chief was fired for political reasons, asked the EPP for updates on its “red lines,” referring to the fact that the Hungarian ruling party had not been expelled from the party family.
Cseh commented on allegations that the Hungarian ruling party is financing media outlets supporting the former ruling party VMRO-DPMNE in North Macedonia. In her Facebook post, she said that Fidesz worked to prevent North Macedonia from becoming a NATO member, and it is actively working against Ukraine’s accession to the bloc. She added that “it is obviously a coincidence” that Russia is trying to achieve the same goals.
Cseh wrote in a Facebook post concerning the visit of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that “War criminals have no place in Budapest.”
When Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Hungary in October 2019, she warned that Europe and Hungary should “stay as far away from Putin and his regime” as possible.
In a Facebook post, she said that it matters a lot who Hungary buys energy from, as our allies want an independent Hungary which strengthens Europe, while Russia wants a Hungary dependent on the Kremlin, which weakens the EU.
