Hungarian envoys told to dig dirt on migrants
Hungarian embassies across Europe have been ordered to collect negative stories about immigration in order to support the re-election campaign of Viktor Orbán,
The Daily Telegraph can reveal. The apparent use of state apparatus for political purposes emerged as Mr Orbán seeks a third consecutive term as prime minister at parliamentary elections tomorrow, with opposition groups fearing that victory for his ruling Fidesz party will irrevocably cement his grip on power. In a highly rhetorically charged campaign, Mr Orban has stoked fears over immigration, attacking Brussels for enabling what he called an “invasion” of refugees that threatened to “cast aside” the bloc’s Christian culture.
In an internal email, obtained by The Telegraph, a senior official in the Hungarian foreign ministry requests European embassies to collect “negative statements” on immigration to help support the campaign.
“I need all the specific news and declarations about the problem of migration in a given country. If an official says this – which can also happen – I need it even more,” wrote Tamás Menczer, the deputy undersecretary of communication and parliamentary co-ordination. “You can send me everything: from integration problems, no-go zones, educational difficulties, etc.” Addressed to the ambassadors and first counsellors of Hungarian missions in Sweden, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium and Italy, the email thanks colleagues for their previous information, making clear that this is not the first request.
The apparent use of foreign ministry resources to back Mr Orbán’s re-election was condemned last night in both Brussels and by Hungarian opposition politicians as an abuse of political power.
Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the European Parliament’s main liberal ALDE group, condemned Mr Orban and urged other EU leaders to follow suit. “It’s quite frankly a disgrace that the Hungarian government is using its diplomats to conjure up fake news stories in order to stoke fear about migration domestically for the benefit of Fidesz,” he told The Telegraph.
“This is a clear abuse of political power and I hope it is condemned by the international community.” A spokesman for the EU monitoring group, the OSCE, which is observing the Hungarian elections, declined to comment on the email, citing a policy never to discuss ongoing campaigns.
The OSCE will make a preliminary statement on the conduct of the election on Monday and will, as in all
‘This is a clear abuse of political power and I hope it is condemned by the international community’
elections, examine whether state resources have been misused. The contents of the email have been passed to the OSCE by The Telegraph.
Tamás Mellár, a leading economics professor who chaired Hungary’s Central Bureau of Statistics between 1998 and 2003 and is running as an independent candidate against Fidesz in the city of Pécs, 200 miles south of Budapest, said: “The government is clearly using its missions for unprofessional political purposes in order to gather frightening examples of migrants to scare the population. This is one reason among many that the Orbán government has to be replaced.”
However, the latest opinions polls show that Fidesz is on track to retain a majority in the 199-seat parliament, despite opposition efforts to use tactical voting to unseat Fidesz candidates following a series of corruption scandals.
Mr Orbán, whose son-in-law has been named in one scandal, has fought back with populist economic policies and attacks on Hungary’s supposed enemies, including liberal leaders such as George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist. Mr Orbán’s brand of identity politics has seen him make common cause with like-minded eastern European leaders such as Jarosław Kaczyński of Poland, whose governing Law and Justice party, like Fidesz, is under fire from the EU over its refusal to accept migrant quotas.
“We believe Poles and Hungarians have a common path, common fight and common goal: to build and defend our homeland in the form that we want ... Christian and with national values,” Mr Orbán said yesterday as Mr Kaczyński visited Budapest.
Mr Orbán’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is directed at Fidesz’s two million strong support base and fuels the memories of the 2015 migrant crisis when several hundred thousand refugees trooped through Hungary en route to Austria and Germany.
Mr Menczer and the Hungarian foreign ministry did not reply to a request for comment.
Additional reporting by Balazs Csekö