“It is appalling to listen to the absurdities that Dutch Green Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Judith Sargentini has been spouting for almost eighteen months now, since she began compiling her report on Hungary”, Government Spokesperson Zoltán Kovács told BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday.

Speaking on Radio 4’s morning news magazine show, Mr. Kovács declared: The Report is totally biased and politically motivated, and was prepared by a “far-left political activist who could be described as an anarchist and leftist”.

According to the Government Spokesperson, the big problem is that certain political forces within the European Union, including Judith Sargentini “and her far-left political views” are to all intents and purposes conducting a political campaign in the name of European values against a country that they do not like for political reasons, and are also totally ignoring the facts.

In reply to a suggestion on the part of the interviewer concerning the fact that foreign journalists working in Hungary are claiming that it is becoming increasingly difficult to perform their jobs and Hungary’s image has worsened with relation to the civil liberties, the Government Spokesperson said this is a lie, “as I am at this very moment talking to a foreign reporter from a foreign radio station, and this is something we do regularly”.

“Particularly during the past eight years it has been easy to find a few people, including journalists, who do not like the Hungarian Government and who are prepared to make false accusations, which we have been struggling against for years”, he added. According to Mr. Kovács, it is evident that these accusations are “ancient history”, in view of the fact that the majority of them have been successfully resolved during the course of legal disputes with the European Commission and other European institutions, and the remainder are factually incorrect and mirror political tastes.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)