“The Hungarian Parliament is controlled by the Hungarian people”, the Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister’s State Secretary for International Communications and Relations Zoltán Kovács said in an interview on American news television channel CNN on Monday evening.

The State Secretary explained that decisions are made by Hungarian Parliament and Fidesz has a constitutionally acquired two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, on which the Hungarian people decided at this year’s general elections.

In reply to a question on the protests that have been ongoing in recent days, Mr. Kovács underlined: “The opposition does not represent the majority of Hungarians”. “The few hundred or few thousand protestors that CNN has presented in its reports summarising the events of the past few days are part of a political drive organised against the Government”, he said. He pointed out that the news channel had shown selected scenes of alleged police violence, which was in fact a response to the violent behaviour of the crowd.

He took exception to the fact that the international media is not reporting on the country’s huge economic growth, the two-digit increase in real wages, and the extremely low level of unemployment.

“The demands with relation to the legislation that enable voluntary overtime are unfounded in view of the fact that it is not compulsory to undertake to perform 400 hours of overtime a year; everything is dependent onan agreement between employer and employee”, the State Secretary emphasised.

The CNN reporter also asked Mr. Kovács about the fact that Hungarian Parliament adopts laws that the European Commission objects to, claiming that they go against the fundamental values of the European Union. Amongst others, he cited as an example the new act on the establishment of public administration courts.

“These regulations are in line with EU law and the Government has acted in accordance with EU law”, Mr. Kovács underlined.

“In recent years the Government has heard similar criticism on many occasions from non-governmental organisation that are funded by or have ties to George Soros”, he stated.

In reply to a question on why the Government is dealing so much with George Soros, he said it isn’t George Soros that concerns the Government but the billionaire’s political “conspiracies”.

According to Mr. Kovács, George Soros thinks he has the right to play a role in the decision-making of a democratically elected Parliament, despite never having received a democratic mandate to do so.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)