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Criticism of Hungary’s law which enhanced government powers to tackle the novel coronavirus epidemic were “unwarranted”, Speaker of Parliament László Kövér said on Tuesday, arguing that the Hungarian government was among the first ones to relinquish its special powers.

The handling of the epidemic required a change of plans and that the government be granted special powers, Kövér told commercial broadcaster Inforadio. The law handing the government those powers was a part of this, but parliament eventually terminated the government’s emergency powers, the speaker noted.

In many European Union member states, parliament does not even have the authority to grant the government emergency powers the way the Hungarian constitution does, he said.

So in many cases, a political agreement was needed to allow the legislative branch to grant the government special powers to manage the epidemic or the laws had to be changed, he explained.

Kövér said the reason why the Hungarian government was among the first ones to give up its emergency powers was because it had been “among the first ones to recognise the danger and tried to get ahead of it by enacting these measures”.

The speaker said public support for the government’s epidemic response measures had transcended partisan boundaries. The Hungarian people’s trust in political institutions and the government is far greater than that of the European average, he added.

Though a vaccine against the virus is at least several months away, “we can perhaps say that the epidemic is over”, Kövér said.

“But we must also consider — based on the experiences of the past six months — that globalisation has certain unexpected, albeit logical consequences that may threaten us again in the future,” he added.

Kövér called the current global economic model “unsustainable” and said personal relationships were becoming more valuable while “other things” were becoming less important. “It isn’t that important that we spend our holiday abroad.”

As regards the virus, Kövér said

ruling Fidesz and the opposition parliamentary parties had agreed that in the absence of a second wave of the epidemic, parliament will return to holding its sessions in the lower chamber.

He said parliament over the past several months had looked out for the well-being of lawmakers who are in the age group considered more vulnerable to coronavirus. Since the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance has a supermajority, these MPs were only required to be present for votes that required a two-thirds majority to pass, the speaker said.