Márton Gyöngyösi is a Hungarian politician, who has been the leader of the political party
Jobbik
The Movement for a Better Hungary ( hu, Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom), commonly known as Jobbik (), is a conservative political party in Hungary.
Originating with radical and nationalist roots, at its beginnings, the party described itself ...
since 2022. He was a Member of Parliament from 2010 to 2019. He was the leader of the Jobbik's parliamentary group from 2018 to 2019. He was elected a
Member of the European Parliament
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...
(MEP) in the
2019 European Parliament election
The 2019 European Parliament election was held between 23 and 26 May 2019, the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent more than 512 million peopl ...
, as a result he resigned from his seat in the national parliament.
Early life
As a child of Hungarian foreign trade experts, Márton Gyöngyösi spent the most of his childhood in
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
,
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
,
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
and
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. He graduated from
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to:
Australia
* Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales
* Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
,
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
Nuremberg
Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...
as an exchange student. In
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
he participated in the professional chartered accountancy examinations (ACA).
In December 2004 he moved back to
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
and started working as a tax consultant in the
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
office of
KPMG
KPMG International Limited (or simply KPMG) is a multinational professional services network, and one of the Big Four accounting organizations.
Headquartered in Amstelveen, Netherlands, although incorporated in London, England, KPMG is a net ...
. Between 2007 and 2010 he worked as an expert at Ernst&Young.
He speaks Hungarian, English, German and Russian.
Political career
Gyöngyösi has been participating in the activity of Jobbik since the autumn of 2006. Within a short time, he has become an advisor to the president of the party,
Gábor Vona
Gábor Vona (born Gábor Zázrivecz; 20 August 1978) is a Hungarian historian, teacher and former nationalist politician who led the political party Jobbik from 2006 until 2018. He was the party's candidate for the position of prime minister i ...
. On the 2010 elections, he was nominated as a candidate for foreign minister of a future Jobbik government.
From 2003 through 2010, he regularly published articles of political and public interest in Hungarian daily
Magyar Nemzet
''Magyar Nemzet'' ('' en, Hungarian Nation'') is a major Hungarian newspaper published in Hungary, and in 2021 styled itself as "close to the current Hungarian government led by Viktor Orbán."
History and profile
''Magyar Nemzet'', a moderate ...
as well as
business
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...
and
economy
An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...
related publications in business daily
Napi Gazdaság
''Napi Gazdaság'' (Hungarian language, Hungarian: ''Daily Economy'') was a Budapest-based daily newspaper published from 1991 to 2015. The daily focused on financial and business news. It was succeeded by ''Magyar Idők'', a conservative politic ...
. Gyöngyösi was elected MP via the party's national list in the 2010 and 2014 parliamentary elections. Between 2010 and 2018 he served as the vice-chair of the Foreign Committee of the Hungarian National Assembly. He was the leader of the Jobbik's parliamentary group from 2018 to 2019.
In 2019, he was nominated as the lead candidate of Jobbik's
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
list. Jobbik received 6.34% of the vote in the
European Parliament election
Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are considered the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's.
Unti ...
, a serious throwback from the 14.67% they received at the last European election in 2014. Despite the setback, the party was able to secure 1 mandate, so that Gyöngyösi was elected to the European Parliament.
Gyöngyösi is member of Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Delegation to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly and he is the substitute of
Committee on International Trade The Committee on International Trade (INTA) is a committee of the European Parliament. Its current chair, elected on 10 July 2019, is Bernd Lange.Subcommittee on Human Rights and Delegation for relations with the United States.
Following internal disputes, Gyöngyösi was elected leader of the Jobbik on 2 July 2022, acquiring 68 percent of the vote. He defeated István Földi, a confidant of former party president
Péter Jakab
Péter Jakab (born 16 August 1980) is a Hungarian politician and member of the National Assembly. He served as president of the right-wing Jobbik between January 2020 and June 2022. He had been the parliamentary group leader of Jobbik from July ...
. Gyöngyösi told "in Hungary, there is no real national and real conservative party on the political spectrum", he wants to lead and build one. He added "my task is to shake up the opposition voters, to shake up the opposition, to show with the leadership of Jobbik that it is indeed possible to offer an alternative to this rbángovernment".
International politics
Gyöngyösi has been a key figure in the transformation of Jobbik to a mainstream party. As the politician of Jobbik in charge of foreign affairs he was the initiator of the Wage Union European Citizens’ Initiative. According to Gyöngyösi the European Union should give more powers to its member states, but close cooperation is necessary.
According to
Political Capital
Political capital is the term used for an individual's ability to influence political decisions. This capital is built from what the opposition thinks of the politician, so radical politicians will lose capital. Political capital can be understoo ...
, Márton Gyöngyösi was found to be the most hawkish against
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
, regularly condemning authoritarian actions with his votes in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
,
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
,
Bolivia
, image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg
, flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center
, flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...
or
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...
– among others.
Inter-parliamentary relations
On March 26, 2007 the Hungarian Parliament established the Hungary-Azerbaijan interparliamentary friendship group. Márton Gyöngyösi was the chairman of this Group.
Personal life
Gyöngyösi is married. His wife is Ágnes Gyöngyösiné Cserhalmi, jurist and economist. They have a son.
Controversies
In 2012 as a junior MP in the Parliament, while evaluating an
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
i military action in the
Gaza strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
, Gyöngyösi suggested that there should be a list of Jews in the National Assembly. Later he apologised, and told that his statement was “a bad sentence, it was a not-well-thought-through sentence, it was a disastrous sentence.”