Human rights are under attack from populist and nationalist movements across the world – in Hungary, Italy, Poland, the US and elsewhere. These forces encourage their supporters to look inward and reject the outsider, whether it is an idea or a migrant on a boat. We need to overcome this narrow focus and look out for the interests of everyone.

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Because the biggest challenges of today and tomorrow, from climate change to migration, are international, they are minutely interconnected. Individual governments cannot tackle them alone and should not act unilaterally. I say this as someone who has spent his professional life conducting orchestras – the world needs conductors. The conductor ensures that all the sections of the orchestra are in harmony. A populist credo such as “America first” is like having the first violins playing their own tempo regardless of the other groups. In the case of Hungary, the European parliament should lead and coordinate. On Wednesday, MEPs will vote on whether the EU should trigger article 7 of the Lisbon treaty, a legal process that could lead to sanctions on Hungary in response to restrictions on freedom of expression and the independence of the judiciary. MEPs have an opportunity (and, I think, an obligation) to help to save Hungary from its own populist dissonance.

I have had the privilege of conducting Wagner in Bayreuth, Mozart in Salzburg and Verdi in Milan. In such productions singers and musicians from all over the world work together. Music has always been an international profession. In the 18th century, Handel, a German, was living in London and Salieri, an Italian, in Vienna. Music brings people together as we make it, obliging us to speak on behalf of people who have no voice.

Hungary is one of the least international of the EU member nations, with a low rate of foreign language learning. Left unchecked, the government of Viktor Orbán will continue to undermine pluralism and further marginalise voiceless minorities.

I am a member of the Helsinki Committee – a human rights organisation originally founded in the Soviet Union in 1976. Our work is exemplified by the need to protect the international Central European University in Budapest, which is under threat of closure from the Hungarian government.

This summer, I took a taxi in Budapest, and the driver told me that all migrants were terrorists and the worst thing any government could do was to allow them into the country. Notions like this, and the idea that migration is part of an international conspiracy, poison a country. I would welcome a debate on the real dangers of populism, the kind of thinking that would allow migrants to die at sea rather than being rescued.

Supporting article 7 – the clause setting out sanctions against member nations when they are found to have breached the EU’s founding values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and human rights, including the rights of minorities – would encourage the country to look beyond the government’s insidious propaganda that misinformed my taxi driver. Today we are facing the same arguments against groups supporting human rights that were made 40 years ago under communism and 80 years ago under nazism. The techniques of autocratic power are the same, and freedom is in danger across Europe once again.

By voting yes on Wednesday, the European parliament can show that it understands both our collective past and the necessity of a collaborative future, and is prepared to stand with us on the right side of history.

• Ádám Fischer is a Hungarian conductor