Hungary has yet again “come under fire from the international liberal mainstream”, Peter Szijjarto, the foreign minister, said on Tuesday on Facebook.
Hungary has yet again “come under fire from the international liberal mainstream”, Peter Szijjarto, the foreign minister, said on Tuesday on Facebook.
Referring to criticism of Hungarian measures against novel coronavirus, Szijjarto wrote: “There’s nothing surprising about the recent attack by the failed Italian left-wing prime minister, the German Socialist who are forever the little brother in the grand coalition, the never-elected Austrian Greens or the Luxembourg communists, or indeed the extremely intolerant northern liberals.”
Hungary: The truth about Viktor Orbán’s emergency powershttps://t.co/ay7d3pFQXV
— Voice of Europe ? (@V_of_Europe) March 31, 2020
“The international liberal mainstream attacked us ten years ago when we sent the IMF packing,” he wrote, adding that the government also had come under attack for cutting taxes instead of introducing austerity and embarking on job-creation rather than continuing welfare benefits, “thereby protecting Hungary from the economic collapse”.
“We were also attacked five years ago … for building a fence on the southern border, under the command of the police and army to protect the security of the Hungarian people,” he wrote. “And the international liberal mainstream has attacked us even now, when the democratically elected Hungarian parliament has given us the authority to protect our country against the world pandemic.” Szijjarto said such attacks were born of “frustration and envy” because “they can only dream of the kind of social support that the Hungarian government has won by a two-thirds majority in the last three parliamentary elections.”
Kovacs reacts to Von der Leyen’s statement
The Hungarian government’s declaring a state of emergency and taking related measures are in compliance with the country’s constitution and European Union treaties, Zoltan Kovacs, state secretary responsible for international communication and relations, said in a Twitter message on Tuesday, in reaction to a statement by the president of the European Commission.
We completely agree. That’s why the Hungarian state of emergency and extraordinary measures are congruent with the Treaties and Hungarian constitution and targeted exclusively at fighting the #coronavirus. It upholds EU values, rule of law, press freedom.https://t.co/HwaVlTozao https://t.co/45NOA89oqr
— Zoltan Kovacs (@zoltanspox) March 31, 2020
In her statement, Ursula von der Leyen called for rapid and efficient action by the national governments to secure public health but added that those measures should not go against the EU’s fundamental principles and values. She also said that the measures should be justified and proportionate, and their effect must have an end date.
Populist leaders voice support for Orbán's emergency law https://t.co/zrBQHqQgP0
— Voice of Europe ? (@V_of_Europe) April 2, 2020