N. Peter Kramer’s Weekly Column
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will speak today at the National Conservatism Conference in Brussels, a two-day far-right conference, after the Belgian Council of State decided overnight to suspend the ban by Mayor Emir Kir. The judgment said that ‘The threat to public order appears to be deduced solely from the reactions that its organisation could arouse among opponents’. The principle of proportionality requires ‘…that measures are taken to curb demonstrations on public roads, rather than banning meetings in a closed space’,
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo condemned the local mayor’s decision. ‘Municipal autonomy is a cornerstone of our democracy but can never overrule the Belgian Constitution, which has guaranteed the freedom of speech and peaceful assembly since 1830’. Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, president of the European Conservatives and Reformers (ECR) party, some of whose members were present at the event, thanked De Croo for his ‘timely and clear stance against the hateful oppression of freedom of expression taking place in Brussels.
UK’s Prime Minister Rishu Sunak as well condemned the shutting down of the far-right conference. He said: ‘It’s very clear that free debate and exchange of views is vital. Even when you disagree’.
Remarkable is that hardly any reporter mentioned, that, four years ago, Mayor Kir has been thrown out of the Parti Socialiste (PS), the francophone Belgian socialist party, because of his contacts with Turkish extreme-right.
