This is my story: the story of a European woman, but before that, the story of a little girl, born in the 1980s in communist Hungary. I am the daughter of two academics, who, as they were not affiliated with the communist party could not continue their research at home. Because of perestroika, we were able to move to Austria when I was 3 years old. From there we went to Germany and then two years later to Brussels. We could leave legally, but I still remember the long hours that we spent in different consulates and other immigration offices to obtain all the necessary visas, and then the long waiting hours at the border.
In 1989, I was in Brussels in a German school when Hungary opened its borders to let East Germans through to the West. At this time, we also became aware of a fiery young man, by the name of Viktor Orban, who was the first to cry: “Russians get out” at the tomb of a martyr of the 1956 revolution. He was young, intelligent and made excellent speeches. He then went to study in Oxford with a stipend paid for by Goerge Soros and initiated his party, the young democrats (FIDESZ, which he still leads now).
But let me rewind to my own life in Brussels in 1989: at the headquarter of the EEC, the uproar was huge; at my school we were singing the Ode to Europe every morning and I learnt a Hungarian poem about people’s liberty that I recited in front of about 200 pupils. It is one of my most striking childhood memories.
The wall fell, a wind of liberty was blowing over Europe and we moved to Strasbourg with my parents for two years. There, I attended the Robert Schumann French-German international school, where I learnt to speak French. Then, when I was 10 years old, we moved back to Budapest. My parents were full of hope for Hungary’s future. I spent my whole adolescence in Budapest. It was changing tremendously: commercial malls were opening, the infrastructure became more and more modern, and tourists were pouring in. It was just the metro coaches that were still the same as in Moscow.
In 2000, after my A-levels, I came back to France to continue my studies. As a non-EU national, I had to renew my residence permit every year. It did not take long but it still had to be done. People would ask me, ‘But why. Isn’t Hungary in Europe?’ Each time I would explain that although Hungary was in Europe, it was not part of the European Union. Europe does not mean the same as the European Union. Even though Serbia, Switzerland and Norway are not in the EU, they are nonetheless, in Europe.
I was admitted to the Ecole Normale Supérieure, a prestigious Parisian graduate school, where students get a salary. As a non-EU national, I did not receive a salary - a situation I thought was somewhat unjust. I was allowed to take the entrance test (in French of course) and to be admitted but did not receive the same treatment as the other students. I did get a student stipend, but of a smaller amount, and I did not have the same status as my peers.
Finally in 2004, when I was almost 22 years old, Hungary entered the European Union, and I became an EU citizen, which meant no more residence permit and the same salary as my French peers. Things got sorted out in France for me. I started my PhD in neuroscience as part of a collaboration between a Parisian lab and a lab at University College London.
But from the 2008 financial crisis onwards, it was in Hungary that things got more and more complicated. Many people lost everything as they had taken up mortgages in Swiss Francs, and when the Forint (the local currency) lost much of its value, they were left deeply in dept, having to pay back much more than their initial mortgage. Then in 2010, a certain Viktor Orban was reelected (he had already been Prime Minister from 1998 to 2002). In the meantime, I defended my PhD in France and started my work as researcher at the University of Geneva. Since 2010, I have lived in Haute-Savoie in France near the Swiss border. I married a Frenchman at the end of 2012 and we have two children together.
Hungarian political life took a worrying authoritarian turn, the government modified electoral districts to increase their chances of being reelected, and progressively politics became more and more nationalistic especially since 2015 and the refugee crisis when thousands of refugees crossed the Hungarian border from Serbia. The Dublin III regulation requires asylum seekers' claims to be processed in the first European country they enter. This created havoc in the Hungary and led Orban to confront the EU on the grounds that the EU does not protect Hungary enough and imposes too many regulations. Orban is reelected in 2014 and in 2018 and still has more than 2/3 of the seats in the Hungarian parliament.
The regime reinforces its nationalistic and not always democratic policies. Some opposition newspapers are closed without warning and the government now controls parts of the media. They also attack some Universities and since January of this year even the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Slowly and methodically, they modify the existing system in a way that is now directly impacting my family who live in Budapest.
This is why, living in France and seeing this from far away, I am now convinced that I need to get involved in politics for the European Union - for this Union that raised me throughout my life. I lived sometimes within it, sometimes outside it, sometimes suffering because I was not a part of it, and then suffering from the politics of my homeland. This is the reason for my political commitment for the European Union: for strong, inclusive, social and ecological politics. As a scientist combating global warming is also a vital question for me.
And let me just end by saying that Hungary is not only Orban, Poland is not only the Kaczyński brothers. Even if the opposition is not always well structured in these countries, knowing them from the inside and knowing many people who live there, I know that many, many are against the political system that is being put in place, and overall people strongly approve of the EU. Also, these are EU countries so the EU has a share of the responsibility for the current situation in these countries.
My commitment is to preserve and develop a democratic, social and progressive European Union for all Europeans.