(LifeSiteNews) — Zsófia Tóth-Biró, head of office at The European Conservative, joins Jonathon (himself a writer and contributing editor at the outlet, for this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show to discuss the left’s attempts to shut down this year’s National Conservatism Conference (NatCon) in Brussels.
Tóth-Biró begins the program recalling that organizers began negotiating with Concert Noble to host the conference around November 2023 (she also noted that The European Conservative was a co-sponsor). While Concert Noble was originally scheduled to host the event, Tóth-Biró recalls that the venue went “completely silent” about two weeks before the conference, despite the fact that there were still unanswered logistical and administrative questions.
She further notes that the venue was under “massive media and political pressure” from “‘left-wing’ forces of Brussels” because of the event. The CEO of Concert Noble confirmed the media pressure in a meeting with her and Frank Füredi, the executive director of Matthias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) Brussels. The CEO would also tell them that the venue was hesitant due to safety concerns and spoke to the mayor of Brussels to ask for police protection on multiple occasions. The venue was ostensibly offered only two unarmed police officers, a decision Tóth-Biró says was “purely political.” After the mayor would not give adequate police protection, Concert Noble backed out of hosting the event.
NatCon organizers had four days to find an alternative venue, which they did in Sofitel, a hotel in Brussels. “We started the negotiations, we signed the contract, we transfer the deposit,” recounts Tóth-Biró. “We thought everything is on track until it wasn’t.” The venue pulled out from hosting the conference the day before it was set to take place, claiming “conflict of interest.” Finally, NatCon organizers spoke with Claridge, which agreed to host the event.
“It was pretty hard,” Tóth-Biró says. “We had to relocate the conference overnight. We stayed up all night, packing things, putting things out, checking with the (audiovisual) team. What Claridge’s staff did was just amazing. They were there all night with us, trying to put everything together so that we might start our conference the next morning. It was truly remarkable.”
READ: Reaction: Leftist tyrants in Brussels try and fail to shut down NatCon conference
Shifting the conversation, Tóth-Biró says that, before the event officially started, she was about to go on stage when those there were told that the police presence outside of Claridge was not to protect the event, but to stop it. When she and several others went outside to speak to police, they were told that they had only 15 minutes to respond to the order from the third mayor that attempted to stop the event. Meanwhile, police would not let people in or out of Claridge at one point, including Tóth-Biró.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International and its team of lawyers, one of whom was set to speak at the conference, then challenged the mayor’s decision, filing an “extreme urgency procedure.”
“A court hearing took place the same day on the 26th of April at 10:00pm, and the judge essentially decided that the mayor’s decision was groundless and that it had to be suspended,” Tóth-Biró tells Jonathon. “So justice was served and we were able to continue the conference, but there were some couple of hours when we had no certainty whether we will be able to carry on or not.”
Tóth-Biró speaks to the mayor’s order, first considering former French presidential candidate and NatCon speaker Éric Zemmour’s statement on the mayor himself. According to Zemmour, the “Turkish mayor,” Emir Kir, “used the police as his own Islamist militia to shut down his political opponents.” Tóth-Biró added that Kir attempted to shut down NatCon over the possibility of “public disorder.” However, she noted that the conference was “completely peaceful,” despite the presence of Antifa, whose members only “stared.”
As far as Tóth-Biró is aware, liberals and progressive have not raised a protest regarding the attempts to shut down NatCon, which was in direct contradiction to European values. She further adds that if conservative politicians running in European elections do not use what happened in Brussels in their campaigns, they will be making a “major mistake.” The elections themselves are set to take place in two months’ time.
“What happened in Brussels perfectly illustrates what [Members of the European Parliament] in the [European Conservatives and Reformists] and in the [Identity and Democracy] group have been saying for years,” she asserts. “So if anyone had any doubts why this election matters in terms of freedom of speech, freedom of thought, well, here is your proof.”
Tóth-Biró further opines that what happened with the Belgian police regarding protection at Concert Noble was a “clear message” that those who seek to organize conservative events likely to attract Antifa protests will not receive police protection. However, she also thinks that the issue was less about potential violence than a “message from high above,” noting that Füredi tried to tell the CEO of Concert Noble this. She also recalls that Füredi told the Concert Noble CEO that the organizers would provide security if the Brussels police was unwilling.
“It was never about actual threats,” she says. “It was just about a political decision that was made in the heart of Europe that is just completely hostile to conservative forces.”
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