Brussels’s Poor Fed by “Hungarian” Soup Kitchen

Some of Brussels’s poorest residents were treated to gulyás and fánk prepared by Fidesz MEP Livia Jároka (pictured) and other volunteers this previous Thursday, dunatv.hu reports, ironically enough with a photograph that looks like pörkölt. The special soup kitchen was organized by European anti-poverty organizations and the European Parliament’s Belgian information office in advance of the annual conference on poverty. During the meal, Jároka expressed her hope that 2010 would see “a fight against poverty through actions not just words.” Jároka, the only Roma member of the European Parliament, continued that poverty is not determined primarily by ethnicity, adding that two-thirds of Hungary’s poor were not Roma, and that one in five children and every other unemployed individual lived in poverty. Knowing how good gulyás and fánk can be, we hope the less fortunate in Brussels who received the Hungarian meals were able to enjoy themselves a little, at least while they ate.