“The Government continues to believe that the issue of immigration is behind all of the attacks aimed at Hungary in the recent period”, Government Spokesperson Zoltán Kovács declared at a press conference in Budapest during the recess of Wednesday’s cabinet meeting.
Mr. Kovács was reacting to a statement by the European People’s Party (EPP) group of the European Parliament. On Tuesday, in reply to a question concerning the billboards put up by the Hungarian Government, Manfred Weber declared that it is unacceptable to mix the disputes that have developed with relation to EU procedures on the rule of law with those that concern the issue of migration.
According to the Government Spokesperson, in a legal sense the previous disputes concerning the rule of law, constitutionality or the media act were closed years ago.
“It is absolutely obvious that behind the current open questions lies Hungary’s standpoint on the issue of migration”, he stated.
“The Government will not be changing its position because it is representing it based on the decision and mandate of the Hungarian people”, Mr. Kovács added. “During the past three years the Hungarians have expressed their will and intent on several occasions, most recently at the April elections, and the Cabinet must represent this in disputes with the European Union and European politicians. We cannot allow Hungary to be turned into an immigrant country”, the Government Spokesperson stressed.
In reply to a question, Mr. Kovács emphasised that we know how Manfred Weber voted at the debate on the Sargentini Report. “The Hungarian position is clearly that the rejection of migration is what lies behind the attacks on the country”, he underlined.
Manfred Weber voted in favour of adopting the Sargentini Report at the European Parliament debate on 12 September.
The Government Spokesperson said reports that the Visegrád Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, the V4) had not issued a joint statement following a recent meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister at the initiative of Viktor Orbán were untrue and “fall into the category or typical fake news”.
In reply to a comment by the press concerning the fact that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that the 100th anniversary of the unification of Transylvania and Romania should be jointly celebrated by Europe, Mr. Kovács said: we have two types of opinion on this: the “acerbic” one is that Jean-Claude Juncker “made the statement in accordance with his (mental) state”, while the other is that a lack of historical knowledge further confirms the fact that the EC President is unfit for duty.
In reply to another question, Mr. Kovács said that in recent weeks several news portals that have published what was later proven to be pieces of fake news concerning Viktor Orbán and his family did not ask the administration prior to printing. He cited RTL and ATV as exceptions and media that have acted fairly, however. According to the Government Spokesperson, we must prepare for the fact that the generation of fake news will be repeated on a daily basis in the upcoming period; attacks based on unconfirmed pieces of information are to be expected every day.