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A Fidesz member of the European Parliament has admitted to being among those present at an illegal party in Brussels last Friday, which Belgian media reports indicate was a sex party where illegal drugs were recovered.
Fidesz MEP József Szájer released a statement Tuesday afternoon confirming he had been at a house party last Friday in Brussels, and that he had been issued a verbal warning by police.
"There was a report in the Belgian press today about a private party in Brussels on Friday which I attended. After the police asked for my identity- since I did not have ID on me – I declared that I was a MEP. The police continued the process and finally issued an official verbal warning and transported me home," Szájer wrote.
Belgium's most popular newspaper HLN reported on Tuesday that Brussels police had charged 25 people, including an MEP and an unnamed number of diplomats, after discovering a sex party attended by mostly men above a café in central Brussels. The MEP allegedly tried to escape through a window but injured himself in the process and was detained by police, and reportedly attempted to invoke European Parliament immunity.
Illegal drugs were also found at the scene, HLN reported. Participants were charged for breaking Belgium's pandemic rules prohibiting gatherings of more than four people.
Tuesday's reports indicated that the European Parliament member was MEP Szájer. HLN described the MEP as a leading member of Fidesz who was a party leader in the Hungarian Parliament before joining the European Parliament.
The paper also alleged that the MEP announced his resignation from the European Parliament on Sunday, which Szájer did, writing, "The strenuous give-and-take of participating daily in the political struggle has become an ever-greater burden, and those who are on the battlefield must be fit for combat."
Reports that Szájer was participated in the illegal sex party suggest his resignation two days later was motivated by an impending scandal rather than the strenuousness of his parliamentary duties.
In his statement, Szájer did not confirm the nature of the party, and denied using drugs.
"I didn’t use drugs, I offered to the police on the spot to have an official test done, but they didn’t do one. Police said an ecstasy pill was found. It’s not mine, I don’t know who placed it or how. I made a statement to the police about this," he wrote.
However, a Tuesday press release from the Office of the Public Prosecutor of Brussels noted that "a passerby reported to police that he had seen a man flee down the drainpipe; he could point out this man. The man had bloody hands, he may have injured himself in the flight. Narcotics were found in his backpack. This man could not provide any identity documents. He was escorted to his place of residence, where he identified himself on the basis of a diplomatic passport as S. J. (° 1961) ... An official report was also prepared of drug law violations for Mr. S.J. The procedure is ongoing." (József Szájer, whose initials may be indicated in the prosecutor's press release as "S.J.", was born in 1961.)
Szájer was a founding member of Fidesz and one of the chief architects of Hungary's new constitution adopted by the party's supermajority in 2011. He claimed to have written much of the document on an iPad. The constitution included new passages that define marriage as between a man and a woman.
Critics of the constitution said it enshrined Fidesz's conservative Christian worldview into Hungary's laws, and made references in its preamble to the "nation-preserving role of Christianity" and the protection of Hungary's Christian culture.
Following his resignation on Sunday, the Fidesz-KDNP delegation to the European Parliament thanked Szájer "for playing a crucial role in enabling Hungarian civic conservatism and Christian democracy to take their rightful place on the European political scene."
"I am sorry that I have violated the rules on social gatherings, it was irresponsible on my part and I will take the penalties for that,” Szájer closed his statement.