Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has summoned five ambassadors to discuss "fake news".
The foreign ministry summoned the ambassadors of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden on Monday, citing the spread of “fake news by the international liberal mainstream”.
The minister said the Hungarian government rejects “fake news” propagated by media outlets abroad, and it also objects to officials of EU member states spreading corresponding “lies”.
Minister Szijjártó noted that his counterparts in the five countries had expressed support in a letter to the secretary general of the Council of Europe, who had raised concern about Hungary’s coronavirus-related law. Several of them had made individual statements citing “lies now verging on the boring such as [the Hungarian government] building a dictatorship or striving for unlimited powers,” he said.
“The Hungarian nation is over one thousand years old and Hungarians reject pathetically hypocritical patronizing,” Minister Szijjártó said. The minister insisted that Hungarians “are able to decide what they want and what they do not”, adding that the foreign ministers of the five countries “had better mind their own business”.