Government spokesperson claims that the LIBE report was drawn up ‘by the Soros empire’

The draft report on Hungary presented on Thursday by the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee is authored by people “with strong ties to the Soros empire”, Hungarian government spokesman Zoltán Kovács has said.

Last spring, the EP’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) was asked to prepare a report on Hungary with a view to holding an EP vote on launching the first steps of Article 7, which suspends voting rights.

Presenting the report in a session of the committee in Brussels, green MEP Judith Sargentini said there was a “clear risk of a serious breach by Hungary of the values of the European Union”, which she said warranted launching the Article 7 procedure.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Kovács said the report aimed to achieve “what they couldn’t at the national election,” which was to break the government’s categorical rejection of a mandatory resettlement quota and turn Hungary into an “immigrant county”.

Kovács called the procedure a “political witch hunt”,

adding that Hungary had not been invited to the EP session and had even been denied access when the foreign minister requested to be present.