As time and results have shown, the Coronavirus Protection Act served the country well; many Hungarians are alive today because of it, Minister of State for International Communication and Relations Zoltán Kovács wrote in an article published in Euronews, taking the view that this might be a good time to offer an apology for the criticisms levelled at the legislation.
In his article, the Minister of State pointed out that on Tuesday, the Government of Hungary – as promised by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán earlier – is submitting to Parliament the bill proposing to hand back the extraordinary powers that it acquired under the state of emergency put into effect to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr Kovács recalled that the international criticism levelled at the coronavirus containment legislation adopted on 30 March “was swift and intense”. The Minister of State took the view that much of it was “badly misinformed, often just plain false, and all of it was shamefully biased”, clearly singling out Hungary, despite the fact that similar measures in other EU countries went much further.
“They sounded the alarm over Prime Minister Orbán’s supposed ‘seizure of absolute power,’ that the government was exploiting the pandemic to dissolve parliament, cancel elections indefinitely and threaten journalists with the prospect of jail time. One group called it ‘a full-blown information police state in the heart of Europe,’ and some drew allusions to Hitler,” Mr Kovács wrote.
The Minister of State stressed that the act did not grant the government ‘unlimited powers,’ nor did it dissolve or suspend parliament. The legislative package was passed entirely in accordance with Hungary’s constitution, the Fundamental Law, which requires that it come to an end once the threat is no longer present. In fact, he continued, it went further by giving parliament the right to lift the state of emergency.
“Today, as time and results have shown, the Coronavirus Protection Act served the country well because it enabled the government to take swift action, closing borders (which Hungary did early on), enacting movement restrictions, enforcing quarantines, slowing the spread of the disease, and ensuring that our national healthcare system has the medical and protective equipment necessary to treat all those who require care,” the Minister of State wrote, adding that according to a statement made by the Prime Minister in a recent interview, the containment effort has saved the lives of thousands of elderly people thanks to the swift decisions.
Mr Kovács drew attention to the fact that according to statistics out of Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, Hungary has 38.73 confirmed cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 inhabitants in Hungary, one of the lower rates in Europe, especially compared to Western European countries where the figure is in the hundreds.
“Prime Minister Orbán promised at the beginning of this crisis that these extraordinary powers would stay in force only as long as necessary to protect the population and slow the spread of the coronavirus. Once the threat subsided, they would be given back. With this move on Tuesday, the prime minister is fulfilling that promise,” Mr Kovács pointed out in his article. He added that critics claimed that this law hailed the end of democracy in our country. However, in fact, more Hungarians are alive today because of it.
“To our vociferous critics, this might be a good time to offer an apology, but that would require some humility and a sense of good will, so I suspect we will not be hearing any,” the Minister of State for International Communication and Relations wrote in conclusion.