Orbán’s cabinet weekly press briefing about Ukraine education crisis, migration quotas and other topics

Anyone who endangers Hungarian interests will find themselves up against the Hungarian state, government office chief János Lázár said at his weekly press briefing on Thursday, in connection with the new Ukrainian education law and Romanian policy affecting a school for ethnic Hungarians in Targu Mures (Marosvásárhely).

Lázár said the “coarse violation of Hungarian minority rights” was “unacceptable and shameful”. He called on the Ukrainian president not to sign the law, adding that the law was “a stab in the back”.

“Ukraine will lose a friend,” he said.

The government office chief also said Hungary would withhold its support for Romania’s membership of the OECD unless it sought a satisfactory conclusion to the issue of the Hungarian school in Targu Mures.

Hungary has also expressed its objection to Croatia’s OECD membership,

saying that the country has “harmed Hungarian economic interests”, citing the dispute between the two countries over Croatian oil and gas company INA and Hungarian peer MOL.

Meanwhile, on the subject of pensions paid to high-ranking dignitaries of the Communist regime, Lázár said the government was ready to examine the issue and conduct an investigation omitted in 1990.

Asked about remarks critical of the government by former ombudsman László Majtényi, who heads a prominent NGO, Lázár said NGOs are free to express their opinions, and he added that public life in Hungary was blooming without any hindrance.

Majtényi has accused the government and ruling parties of conducting a smear campaign against NGOs with the intention of intimidating them.

It is easy to blame the opposition parties’ failures on the government in election season, Lázár said. “But the opposition looks in the mirror, sees something appalling and smashes the mirror instead of taking a shave”, he said.