An anti-immigration billboard campaign hits the streets of Brussels

Guy Verhofstadt, a former prime minister of Belgium, and currently a leading member of the European Parliament, serves as the leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, a parliamentary group that advocates for Turkish membership in the EU and more concentration of power in Brussels.

Verhofstadt is relentless in his harsh criticism of Hungary, which he has identified as a threat to the international order. Last month he hired an advertising billboard van to drive around Brussels, and eventually to Hungary, promoting the message “Stop Orban”. The message is a personal attack on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

When Verhofstadt started personal attacks on the Hungarian leader, a typical leftist tactic, he was not expecting a taste of his own medicine, however.

The Hungarian government reacted to the provocation of the pro-immigrantion politician and launched a counter campaign. Zoltan Kovacs, at a government spokesman’s press conference, explained that “this poster will be visible in Hungary in the next few days and then in Brussels”.

The Hungarian administration has since been mocking the Verhofstadt initiative with its own billboard van. Hungarian website Origo reported on the Hungarian advertisement: “Billboard that shows the truth to Verhofstadt hits the streets of Brussels.”

On the Facebook page of the Government of Hungary, it was announced that a van is on the streets of Brussels to draw attention to the consequences of Brussels’ policy that supports immigration.

While Guy Verhofstadt believes immigration is needed, hundreds of people have been killed in terrorist attacks, the Hungarian billboard reads. “This is insane!” the message on the Hungarian van concludes.

The politically incorrrect language used by the Hungarian government displayed on the billboard van, is standard in the Hungarian media, where creeping Islamization and jihad are openly discussed.

But while the Verhofstadt van is still going, the Hungarian funded billboard van was quickly stopped and banned by authorities in Brussels.

Csaba Dömötör, a spokesman for the Hungarian government, announced in a Facebook video that the van was stopped by policemen in the city and the driver was forced to remove the billboard.

Orban told listeners on the Kossuth Radio programme Good Morning, Hungary: “I see signs of exhaustion at the end of the parliamentary term”, but after next year’s elections to the European Parliament there will be new MEPs, and “I believe that the quality of democracy will improve.”

Regarding the issue of the so-called “migrant visa”, Orban remarked with irony that “it is rather funny” that a vote on an issue must repeated over and over again until the desired outcome is finally achieved.

“If I tried something like this here in the Hungarian parliament, I would face a rebellion not only from the opposition, but also from the members of my own parliamentary group,” he said.

He noted that no democracy – including in Hungary – is perfect, but that the variety in Brussels is even further from such an ideal. He confirmed that the Government will not tolerate anyone trying to destroy the country’s reputation and integrity, observing that “those who bite us will need strong teeth, because that is something which we shall not tolerate”.