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Fidesz group leader: Hungarian-German relations good ‘despite smear campaign’ by press
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German-Hungarian relations are especially good “despite a smear campaign” in the German press against Hungary, ruling Fidesz group leader Gergely Gulyás said on Thursday.
Hungary-Germany relations are “alive and functioning”, he told an event organised by the Nézőpont Institute and the Hungarian bureau of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Germany is Hungary’s most important partner, and economic relations coupled with unique cultural and person-to-person ties are exceptionally strong, he added.
At the same time, a large portion of the German press is pursuing a smear campaign against Hungary, he insisted. “If you look at Hungary and compare it to the image drawn by the German press, then it is obvious that the two are not even distantly related,” he said. Attempts to discredit Hungary started as long as seven years ago and the issue of migration has only served to intensify them, he added.
He insisted that German press was not free but “partially free at best”.
Gulyás said that “much of the hatred of Hungary present in the German press” stemmed from differences in how the two countries’ values have progressed over time. He argued that differences in social development in the two countries had brought about differences in values.
“In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with this,” Gulyás said. “The question is whether we take on an exclusionary attitude [towards these differences], as the German press has, or whether we are capable of accepting that worlds that are different from ours can also be complete and functional.”
Gulyás said this was also at the heart of the dispute surrounding the issue of migration.