The Hungarian government has not been given unlimited power in the wake of the freshly-adopted law on the containment of the coronavirus, and it never desired anything like that; that would be very unfortunate, Zoltán Kovács said in a short interview given to the BBC on Wednesday.

The Minister of State for International Communication and Relations pointed out on the British public service broadcaster’s programme that in Hungary Parliament continues to remain the highest authority which can revoke the special authorisation at any time when it deems the crisis to be over.

He stressed that the operation of Parliament has not been suspended, while the sole purpose of the rule by decree is the fight against the epidemic.

In answer to the reporter’s question, Mr Kovács dismissed claims that Hungary is heading towards dictatorship as laughable, adding that they have been hearing such accusations for ten years now.

On Monday, Parliament adopted a law on the effort to contain the coronavirus which enables the government to introduce extraordinary measures in departure from the laws in force during the state of danger in the interest of protecting people’s health, legal security and the stability of the economy. Some details of the law have provoked a number of criticisms throughout Europe.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)