The next few days are crucial for the fate of Ilaria Salis, who risks losing immunity from MEP and returning to Hungary in trial before expected. Salis confides in the “rescue” by EU colleagues and says: “They would deliver me to a farce process. It would be serious for democracy”. Messages arrive from Hungary that warm the climate. Let’s see what’s going on and what can happen.
The Salis case: because it risks immunity
Let’s take a step back. Ilaria Salis on February 11, 2023 is a simple Italian teacher and is arrested together with some German boys on charges of having attacked three neonazian militants in Budapest. Follows a heated controversy over his detention conditions. After several “No”, the Budapest Review Court grants her home. In the last European elections Salis becomes a European member with the Verdi-Administration alliance (AVS). Immunity is triggered for its new status and the process is suspended. However, at the same time, however, the head of Cabinet of the Hungarian executive, Gargely Gulyás, announces that the Government of Orbán would have asked “the European Parliament for the revocation of immunity”. So it happens. Now it is up to the EU to decide.
Who decides on Ilaria Salis and what happens now
The request for the revocation of immunity has triggered a precise procedure that came at crucial moment. On 23 September in Brussels the legal affairs commission must discuss the case and decide whether to revoke immunity. He must issue a motivated opinion, which will then be voted by the European Parliament. The majority required is the simple one, 50%+1, Salis cannot vote for conflict of interest.
In any case, even if the immunity is granted, the trial against Salis will continue at the end of the mandate.
Salis: “serious and irrational to remove immunity”
“It would be extremely serious and irrational if the Commission and the European Parliament bend to the Vendicative drives of Orbán and of a illiberal and anti-Europeanist government which, as Parliament himself has repeatedly certified, has gradually dismantled the rule of law and democratic guarantees in Hungary”, writes the MEP on social networks.
Salis adds: “The revocation of my immunity would not mean undergoing justice at all, but delivering me to an orchestrated process orchestrated by the political power of an autocratic country with increasingly fascist and oppressive features, where a political opposite is evidently denied any possibility of just trial. It would be, at the same time, a serious and alarming defeat for European democracy and a violation of the fundamental rights that must protect each citizen “.
Hungary’s message for Salis
The Hungarian government has never made a secret of having poorly digested attention to the Salis case and his liberation. Orbán’s executive spokesman has repeatedly posted messages against Salis. The last in recent days: he responded to a European Tweet with a very short caption: “47.8690 n 18.8699 and”. These are the coordinates of the Marianosztra prison, in the north of Hungary.
47.8690 ° n 18.8699 ° and https://t.co/ljnxgrfq2o
– Zoltan Kovacs (@zoltanspox) September 18, 2025
In February he had been even more explicit. “You should be here, not on television,” he wrote posting a photo fake of Ilaria Salis still prisoner, wrists in chains and semi -hidden face behind the bars.
“Mr. Kovacs, the ineffable spokesman for Orbán, is not the exception but the rule. The far -right regime led by Viktor Orbán systematically exerts power in an absolutist, arrogant and vindictive way: the exact opposite of a state of law, based on the presumption of innocence, on impartiality and the sacrosanct right of each citizen to a fair trial” X.
Mr. Kovacs, the ineffable spokesman for Orbán, is not the exception but the rule.
The far -right regime led by Viktor Orbán systematically exerts power in an absolutist, arrogant and vindictive way: the exact opposite of a state of law, founded on the … pic.twitter.com/cf80ux4szj
– Ilaria Salis (@salisilaria) September 18, 2025
