The European Union Capital of Culture competition has rejected the city of Székesfehérvár after claiming a video presented by the city’s mayor showed the city to be too white and Christian.
Székesfehérvár, which was competing with several other Hungarian cities in the contest, presented a short video to the judges at the political bloc showing why the city should be shortlisted for the project.
According to Székesfehérvár mayor András Cser-Palkovics, the committee who watched the film dismissed it as a “propaganda film of white Christian Europe”.
Mr Cser-Palkovics congratulated the three cities that had been shortlisted for the project but said that one of the EU “experts” said his city’s video was “a propaganda film of white Christian Europe, everyone is white, happy, dancing in the streets.”
The mayor claimed that one of the panel, a Belgian politician, “objected to the identity of the application based on the Greek, Roman, and Christian-Jewish cultures.”
“In the context of the applications, almost nothing was done, they did not deal with sustainability, funding, and did not deal with programs or investments, but only with daily political and ideological accusations. Just because we take pride in our cultural values. The cross is not only a religious but also a cultural value, and gives it the diversity that makes us proud of Europe,” he added.
The European Capitals of Culture initiative, started in 1985, is touted as promoting the diversity of Europe by highlighting different cities across the continent in an effort to promote a European identity.
The rejection for being “too white” echoes a movement across the western world to promote “diversity”. This has been slammed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who recently called for a “patriotic alliance” to combat advocates of mass migration and globalism.
The Orban government has laid much of the blame for the promotion of ‘diversity’, open borders, and mass migration on left-wing billionaire George Soros and his massive network of NGOs.
The Hungarian government recently passed a new law that would implement a new tax on NGOs assisting mass migration, which would be used to further reinforce the Hungarian border.
Orban has also been a champion of traditional European culture, remarking back in November that governments should be dedicated to Christian values.
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