A letter to the Speaker of the Riksdag

 

To: Mr Andréas Norlen, President of the Swedish Parliament

Subject: Hungarian non-ratification of Sweden's accession to NATO and what lies behind it

 

Dear Mr President!

On April 9th, 2023, Mr. László Kövér, the President of the Hungarian Parliament, stated in an interview that "in Hungary there was a referendum on NATO membership, but in Sweden and Finland they forgot to ask people whether they really wanted to join NATO or whether this was just the private opinion of their political elite. Hungarian MPs have received dozens of e-mails from Sweden and Finland saying that they should not accept (Sweden’s) accession because there is no democratic legitimacy behind the Riksdag’s decision”.

Mr President, I can assure you that the overwhelming majority of the Hungarian people envy the welfare democracy the Swedes have created for themselves, and we are also convinced that the decision of the Riksdag on 22 March 2023 (on Sweden's membership of NATO) is based on clear democratic legitimacy.

That being said, what could be behind the extremely rude, undiplomatic remarks of Mr. Kövér, the Hungarian Speaker of the House, who has a hostile attitude (let’s call it “police mentality”) towards our parliamentary opposition, handing out disproportionately severe punishments for breaches of the House rules, but is lenient towards his own comrades?

We may recall that it was he who, in a speech in February 2020 to the heads and staff of the national security services, then under the control of our Interior Minister, stated his conviction that the "left-wing" opposition posed the greatest threat to Hungary's security, and justified his ideological reasoning by giving the services a mandate (which he had no right to do) according to that obsession. The speech also referred unmistakably to NATO, the EU and the UN as "enemies" of Hungary, in a context that is difficult to misunderstand.

Similar formulas can be found in the writings of a certain Mr. László Földi, a former director of the Information Office (civilian intelligence). Mr. Földi is linked to our Speaker of the House through Mr. Sándor Lezsák, a Christian Democrat MP and Vice-President of the Parliament, for whom he works as an "expert advisor" on a commission basis. For example, in one study on the (refugees’) "invasion of Europe", he states that "We, having no other choice, will plunder the munition stocks of the barracks (and take up arms) to defend our houses, our cities, our countries". For this pamphlet inciting treason, conspiracy against the constitution and armed rebellion, Mr. Lezsák (who is also a member of the National Security Committee, NSC of our Parliament), apparently with Mr. Kövér's knowledge and consent, even paid a considerable sum from the budget of his office, instead of banning the MPs from contacting Mr. Földi. The Office of the Chief Prosecutor should also have been notified.

In the same spirit, in September 2017, Mr. Földi made a highly publicized statement for the media, that civilians helping refugees could be “liquidated” because they are "collaborators and war criminals". In other writings, he defends the International Investment Bank against suggestions that it may be a front for Russian intelligence, and even suggests that those who criticize the bank, may have received training abroad, i.e., may be agents of foreign powers. Földi defends not only the Russian bank, but also those former state security officers who continued to serve (in the old spirit) after the regime change (in 1989-1990). In another article, he writes that NATO has become 'strategically obsolete', its military leadership is 'tied to the same place where the Brussels administration takes its orders from', and that 'our enemies will not stop, will not back down, they will not give up the goal of occupying and besieging Hungary" (citing the local election results as proof), and that "we will inevitably come to the point where NATO's structural presence in Hungary can (only) help the aims of those external forces". In other words, the main enemies in his eyes are the Brussels bureaucrats (the EU), the NATO, and the United States. This is the reason, he argues, that there is no need for a NATO rapid reaction force in Hungary.

Another pillar of Mr. Kövér's private secret service network is dr. Csaba Hende, former Minister of Defense, who is now the chairman of the ruling party’s electoral committee in Szombathely (a small town in western Hungary), but also deals with national security issues (although he has no legal mandate for that). On Mr. Kövér's behalf, dr. Hende has for years regularly attended to and reported on the Interparliamentary Intelligence and Security Forum's conferences without the formal approval (and perhaps without the knowledge) of the NSC of our Parliament. There is no evidence that the NSC or anyone else received any of those reports, except Mr. Kövér.

Incidentally, dr. Hende was the head of the recent delegation that was commissioned by our governing party faction to assess Finland's and Sweden's “eligibility” for NATO membership. His participation in this role is highly problematic, as in the process of the merger of the two military national security services (intelligence and security) in 2012, the NATO contribution capabilities of our military intelligence in the Russian, Ukrainian and Balkan directions were largely dismantled, while the actual leadership of the service was transferred to the counterintelligence branch (in fact the shadow secret service of the Minister of Interior), and the main responsibility for all that lies with the then Minister of Defense, dr. Hende himself.

In another development, Mr. János Stummer, the chairman of the NSC of the National Assembly (of which Mr. Kövér is the Speaker), received a statement weeks before the 2022 Russian military offensive against Ukraine, the author of which, a former senior intelligence officer, informed Mr. Stummer that during 2021-22 he had obtained irrefutable evidence of anti-NATO intelligence and propaganda operations by the "shadow secret service" (SSS), pointing out that the crisis threatens to escalate into war. The SSS collaborated with a fake “academy” used as a cover organization in support of Russian GRU (military intelligence) efforts. The former intel officer requested the assistance of "Mr. President" (of the NSC) in forwarding the relevant documents to the responsible authorities and informing the Committee. To this end, he offered to provide the evidence at a personal hearing and to discuss the way ahead. Mr. Stummer did not officially register the letter, and told the whistleblower through an intermediary that he is not in the habit of reading letters sent to his parliamentary e-mail address (i.e., he does not want to deal with it). Unsurprisingly, neither did he inform the opposition's joint candidate for prime minister, Mr. Péter Márki-Zay, of the contents of the letter. Thus Stummer (as  head of the National Security Cabinet of the opposition alliance for the 2022 elections), also deprived Hungarian voters of the opportunity to make informed decisions based on the realities of the domestic and foreign policy situation around Hungary, before casting their votes at the ballot box.

On February 27, 2023, members of the National Security, Justice, European Affairs, Defense and Law Enforcement, Culture (Education) and Foreign Affairs Committees of the Parliament (at least one deputy from each party) received an eight-page briefing on the influence of Russian intelligence services in Hungary. The document stressed that "from the point of view of our Western allies, the decisions of the National Assembly on this issue send a clear signal as to whose side Hungary is on in this war situation". No reaction to the letter was made from any of the MPs.   

In my opinion, none of the above constitutes evidence of the existence of serious problems with parliamentary democracy in Sweden or Finland.  Rather, they suggest that Hungary has been poisoned by the pro-Russian intelligence and propaganda machinery of the SSS, left with us from the former regime under one-party rule. This anachronistic shadow organization has by now infiltrated not only all the three branches of power, but also, unfortunately, misled significant segments of civil society, including the Hungarian Atlantic Council.

Dear Mr. President, there is no need to dramatize the partial disputes within the EU and NATO on matters of principle or practical details. With few exceptions, the Alliance has so far in its history been able to manage disagreements between the member states with an elegant culture of behaving. Expressing a dissenting opinion – whether on LGBQT rights or the Russia-Ukraine war – is not treason. But military espionage and subversion against allies for the benefit of a foreign power is exactly that: a crime against the state and against international commitments.

Therefore, on behalf not only of myself but also of many other Hungarian citizens, I would like to once again express my full support for the NATO membership of democratic Sweden, a country governed by the rule of law, and I trust that with this letter I have contributed, even if only slightly, to the ASAP ratification by the Hungarian Parliament (of Sweden’s accession), and perhaps also to the much-overdue restoration of democracy and the rule of law in Hungary.

With best regards:

15^th, May, 2023

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