Orbán cabinet: EU hearing ‘ideological campaign masked as legal process’

Commenting on the latest round of Article 7 proceedings against Hungary in the European Union’s General Affairs Council on Tuesday, the government’s top communications official branded the proceedings as a “relentless legal process masking what is really an ideological campaign”.

Zoltán Kovács, the state secretary of international communications and relations at the Prime Minister’s Office, described the process as being driven by “self-proclaimed NGOs and their left-wing allies in Brussels” working in cahoots with US financier George Soros.

“The Soros choir is ready to take the stage,” he said on Twitter.

Hungary, he said, is ready to work with the EU to address problematic issues. He added, however, that it was now clear that the accusations against Hungary were driven by revenge on the part of the pro-migration majority in the European Parliament. “We’re attacked because we reject migration.”

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Judit Varga said she was ready to defend Hungary at the second hearing of the Article 7 procedure.

Varga told the press before the hearing that it was “the current episode of a repeated political witch hunt against Hungary”.

She added that the procedure launched more than 15 months ago, “based on false accusations”, was “not leading anywhere”, and had only succeeded in draining confidence between member states.

In September last year, the EP adopted a resolution based on a report by Judith Sargentini of the Dutch Green Party, calling for the Article 7 procedure on the grounds that Hungary was at risk of compromising the bloc’s core values such as the observance of the rule of law, including the functioning of the constitutional and electoral system and the independence of the judiciary.

The report also referred to problems with corruption and freedom of expression and freedom in academic life.