BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungarian government spokesman Zoltán Kovács has criticised Western Media for their coverage of Hungarian political affairs, accusing them of uncritically reproducing information broadcast by minor opposition movements in the country and exercising an ignorance of Hungary in their coverage.
An overwhelming majority of voters rejected the mandatory migrant redistribution plans of the European Union (EU) in Hungary on Sunday, with 98 per cent voting to reject the bloc’s plan.
The aftermath of the referendum has seen Western media argue over the validity of the vote as it didn’t reach the 50 per cent turnout threshold, and to question the policies of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government.
Spokesman for the Hungarian government Zoltán Kovács sat down with Breitbart London in his office in Budapest. He didn’t mince words when it came to the Western media.
“It’s always interesting to see how Western media is interested in Hungarian domestic affairs. It’s a kind of a habit for the past six years,” he said. He noted that most of the coverage is sent out to the media by opposition parties who he claimed had little other means to critique the government given the ruling party of Mr. Orbán.
His party Fidesz has an overwhelming majority in the parliament.
According to Kovács the reports in the Western media “shows the lack of knowledge about the country and the kind of ignorance, actually, about how Hungary works and about the Hungarian constitution and the legal system.”
Mr. Kovács stated that the provision for a majority turnout is only there for referendum votes to make the government act if the referendum question is brought up by an opposition party or an individual.
He said the government would have liked to get over 50 per cent, but that the result of 98 per cent for a No vote showed a clear will of the people in support of the government’s policy on mass migration.
The number of votes for No, which many try to relativise in the western media [is] that this is a dictatorship and only those voted, but that’s ‘blah blah’ and stupidity. It’s 3.3 [million] which means is 1.1 million more [votes] than this government got back in 2014.
Keep in mind that back in 2014 migration was not on the agenda and it simply is a reinforcement, actually, a reinforced mandate to step up against that particular issue and step up against the measures [imposed by the EU that] we see.
The result of the referendum will be a new amendment to the constitution of Hungary. This new seventh amendment, according to Kovács, will look at “the confines of sovereignty and European institutions and capacities,” and will likely be enacted on November 8th.
Details are still in the works, Kovács said, but the government spokesman assured the new policies would continue on laws already enacted.
Some, like the Serbians, are worried that a closure of the border in Hungary and total rejection of asylum seekers would create a migrant problem in their own country.
Kovács said: “We’ve just sent 25 policemen to the southern Serbian border to work together. But still, what happens on Serbian soil is the discretion and the sovereignty of the Serbians.”
He also criticized Serbia’s lack of preparedness last year after migrants tried to break through by force.
“An armed mob of a couple of hundred basically tried to break into Hungarian territory; imagine that happening in the U.S. What would be the response? So that was the only time when we had to use force,” he said.