With relation to the mass shooting in Texas, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the wave of violence that has been sweeping across the world recently is shocking. At a press conference on Monday, Péter Szijjártó confirmed that no Hungarians were injured in the shooting at Sutherland Springs Baptist church.

“We sincerely hope that all responsible decision-makers will make their decisions accordingly in the upcoming period, and that this wave of violence and its further spread can be stopped”, he stressed.

“The Hungarian Government expresses its condolences to the families affected by the tragedy and wishes the inured a speedy recovery”, the Minister said.

Mr Szijjártó also told reporters that according to official information received from the American authorities, no foreign nationals were injured in the attack. There are currently 63 Hungarian citizens in the United States who have registered for consular protection, two of whom have designated Texas as their location; one is 350 kilometres away from the site of the massacre, and the other is 500 kilometres away.

The Texas shooting is the fifth most serious in United States history and the most serious armed attack ever to have occurred in Texas, the Minister told the press, adding that “The United States can rely on Hungary with relation to action that must be taken to combat any form of violence”.

A gunman went on a rampage at midday in the church in Sutherland Springs in South Texas on Sunday, killing 26 people and injuring over thirty others. The attacker, a former soldier, also died in the attack under hitherto unclarified circumstances.

With relation to the incident in Denmark, when police and security personnel were forced to rescue Immigration Minister Inger Støjberg from a crowd of angry refugees in a refugee centre, Mr Szijjártó said he had rather a feeling of déjà vu because a similar incident had occurred over two years ago in Hungary, or rather on the Hungarian border, when immigrants attacked Hungarian police officers, adding that the consequences of that attack were somewhat more serious, because several Hungarian police officers were injured.

According to the Hungarian Foreign Minister, this shows that in a good many cases or perhaps the majority of cases the behaviour of migrants falls into the violent category, and this is something we must not turn a blind eye to. “Such incidents must be taken into account and it would be worthwhile for MEPs to examine footage of such events when they distribute illegal immigrants all over Europe without any kind of control based on a quota with no upper threshold”, he said.

The Government would not like to see scenes like the ones in Denmark here in Hungary and does not want to allow these aggressive people into Hungary, or into the territory of Europe either, he added. “We must finally make it clear that people who come to Europe must respect our laws. We will not live according to the rules of people who come here; they must live by our rules”, he said.

With relation to a question on the latest leaking of an offshore database, he told reporters that István Nagy had stepped down from the position involved in the documents that have been made public long before he was appointed as Ambassador to Switzerland.

With relation to Eximbank, the Minister stressed that the credit institution is not involved in any offshore loans. The Bank gave a company a loan with relation to an export transaction and issued a tender for the performance of the related legal procedures, which was won by Deloitte. It was during the performance of this service that the consulting company employed a subcontractor whose background led to Eximbank being included on the list, he explained.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)