Metsola announces that they received a request for Péter Magyar's immunity to be waived

She has received a request from the Hungarian authorities to waive the parliamentary immunity of Péter Magyar, Roberta Metsola announced on Thursday. The President of the European Parliament (EP) said that the matter would be referred to the EP's Legal Affairs Committee.

The Committee will then give its opinion, which will be put to a vote before the entire European Parliament.

The Prosecutor General's Office requested that the immunity of the Tisza Party MEP be waived back in September. According to a statement from the body, while Péter Magyar was out partying at a Budapest club in June, a man was filming him with his mobile phone. When one of Magyar's companions noticed that the man was filming, they got into an argument. During the argument Magyar suddenly snatched the phone from the man's hand and put it in his pocket. He refused to return the phone even after repeated requests, denying that it was in his possession. After leaving the nightclub, he walked towards the Danube, followed by several others, including the man whose phone he had taken. He walked down to the waterfront and deliberately dropped the phone into the river. "This conduct is consistent with the legal definition of the felony of theft," the statement said.

According to Magyar, the man who tried to film him partying was a paid provocateur. “As many of the young people present did not consent to being recorded, we asked him to stop recording and to delete the footage from his phone, but in vain. When he had started bringing up my family and my children, I grabbed the phone out of his hand, which resulted in physical threats. He started pushing me, and making physical threats against me and the people I was with.”

Tamás Deutsch, head of the Fidesz-KDNP delegation at the European Parliament recently sent a letter to all MEPs "about the immunity of Péter Magyar, his scandalous behaviour and the criminal offence he committed". Magyar responded by promising to sue Deutsch for defamation and said that he would give up his immunity as soon as the government joined the EU prosecutor's office.

Manfred Weber, leader of the centre-right European People's Party, Tisza Party's EP group responded to the case by asking: “Why politicise the matter, if we believe in the rule of law?” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Tamás Deutsch both mentioned the case in the EP debate the following day.

Cover photo: Fred Marvaux / European Parliament / European Union