Election Monitoring Missions

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 10 February 2022

Thursday, 10 February 2022

Questions (304)

Paul Murphy

Question:

304. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs further to Parliamentary Question No. 88 of 26 January 2022, if his attention has been drawn to the fact that Hungary has not complied with the Copenhagen Declaration as Hungary has not provided a legal framework for domestic citizen NGOs to conduct election observation missions; if he will urge a full-scale independent election observation mission of the forthcoming April elections in Hungary; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7209/22]

Written answers

Minister for Foreign Affairs

I am aware that current Hungarian legislation, while allowing for international observation, does not allow for non-partisan election observation by domestic civil society organisations. Ireland encourages the Hungarian Government to implement the recommendations of the June 2018 Final Report of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) Election Observation Mission in this regard and thus bring Hungary into line with the OSCE Copenhagen Document of 1990.

I note the recommendations of the OSCE ODIHR Needs Assessment Mission of 4 February 2022 to deploy an Election Observation Mission (EOM) to observe the Hungarian parliamentary elections scheduled for 3 April.