Parliament to hold special session over political billboard act on Friday

Parliament will hold a special session this coming Friday to hold a new vote on a recent law that sought to restrict political advertisements which the president sent back to the legislative body for reconsideration, the group leader of ruling Fidesz said.

János Áder returned the law to parliament last Thursday, saying that it did not establish a legal norm while it contained passages which were either controversial or could not be interpreted or implemented. He called on parliament to re-consider it in its entirety.

The vote on the political billboard act is likely to be the only item on the agenda in the special session, Lajos Kósa told a press conference on Monday.

He noted that stipulations of the law which required a two-thirds majority had failed in last Wednesday’s vote and only the ones that required an absolute majority had passed.

He expressed hope that the parliamentary parties would be able to reach a consensus and pass the law in its entirety. If the stipulations requiring a two-thirds majority fail to pass again, then the ones that passed last week would not have a chance of passing again, he said.

Kósa said that the opposition Socialists had convened a meeting of parliament’s five parties for Monday afternoon to discuss a their own bill aimed at ensuring a level playing field during election campaign periods. If the parties can sit down for talks on that proposal, then perhaps a two-thirds majority can be secured for the billboard law, he said.