At the annual parliamentary hearing, opposition parliamentarians asked the prime minister’s chief of staff, among others, if he considered it unnecessary to spend so much money on propaganda. Rogan generally shook herself, but said that government propaganda under the coronavirus also helped the RTL Club and Népszava.

Coronavirus: the second wave, the second closure

Later than expected by many, but in mid-November, the Hungarian government also decided to try to curb the second wave of the coronavirus epidemic by introducing restrictions. At the time of the decision, 5,000 new infections a day had been identified and the number of deaths from the virus was mostly between 50 and 100 in 24 hours. The first step is a partial closure, but how effective it is is questionable. Follow our news!

Antal Rogán’s annual hearing was held by the Justice Committee on Tuesday morning. This is one of the rare occasions in which the members of the opposition of the committee can also send their questions to Rogan, who has moved away from Parliament in the style to which he is already accustomed.

The politician said in his opening speech that his main task is to help the prime minister’s job. With national consultations, for example, he said, it is not the government alone that decides the guidelines, it does so together with the people.

He described the birth of a work-based society as an important point of agreement, which is why the government does not distribute aid. According to him, this increased the number of active workers, and the coronavirus, he claims, affected jobs in Hungary less.

The Minister also listed family protection measures, and the issue of immigration was not ignored. “We did not address it because we thought it was important, but because it was forced,” said Rogán, arguing that in Europe the left and the liberal side dealt with the issue, and the Hungarians only had their opinions. Regarding refugees, he chided the European Commission a bit for addressing the issue of immigration and integration even during the coronavirus epidemic.

Regarding the coronavirus, the government considered it important that the country does not close as long as possible, since “the Hungarian people wanted this.” He mentioned free parking as one of the most supported measures.

Subsequently, Csaba Gyüre from Jobbik, László Sebián-Petrovszki from the southeast, László László Keresztes from the LMP and László Varga from the MSZP asked their questions. For example, according to Rogán, it is not false to say that Hungarians are involved in decisions while constantly asking banal questions in national consultations about why 11.5 billion is spent on propaganda, settlement bonuses were mentioned, but the common problem was actually what will cost so much in Rogán’s prime minister’s office, and if they didn’t want to save on this to spend the money on job creation.

Rogán took out the Gyurcsány card for this: he said that it hurts the opposition to ask people for their opinion. “Perhaps that is why the IMF has never been able to enforce its will in Hungary.” According to the minister, the opposition confuses two periods because now there are not hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in Hungary, although he acknowledged that tens of thousands lost their jobs, who in turn are helped by the government. According to him, the left did not create jobs, but eliminated them before 2010. “I think that all the issues of the consultation are relevant: now the government has approved a law on maintaining epidemiological preparedness. If it’s so banal, why didn’t you vote? “- asked that, in his opinion, the rules on the use of masks and other restrictions should be negotiated for two weeks before the introduction of the emergency regime.

He said a bit more about epidemiological preparedness, decisions were made broadly in line with European trends, and even the curfew even earlier.

The government is only looking at statistics that are good for the coronavirus

In terms of EU countries, Hungary is at the forefront of the recent death toll per million people. However, the government communication has remained calm, stating that it is not looking at this but the epidemic as a whole, so the overall picture remains favorable due to the mild spring wave. The main question is how long more serious closures can be avoided.

Rogan has said so much about settlement bonds that he sees the opposition dislikes, but the issue has not been topical for more than three years. It was necessary when Hungary was facing severe economic difficulties in 2012.

According to Rogán, it is not true that the last national consultation would have cost 11,500 million florins, he said that exactly the same amount was spent on it as in previous consultations, and a significant part was for Magyar Posta, for example, but the informative videos from Pál Győrfi. . “If you feel sorry for the Post’s money, I’d like to ask, what foreign players would you see on the Post Office site?”

The data were provided by Dániel Kassai, XVIII. The municipal representative of the district requested it with a request for data of public interest, Rogán also had a comment about it. He argued that it was not possible to submit data requests under socialist governments while it is now possible (but it is very difficult to get data, as we did when requesting information on buying a fan – one ed.).

The results of some of the polls for the government are kept silent because, according to Rogán, it is a decision-making document and should not be made public.

The LMP’s response to your questions about job creation was that, in fact, the LMP supports municipalities that want to increase taxes. “From Vladivostok to London, there is no such thing in Eurasia, taxes are cut everywhere during the epidemic,” he said. (Mayor Gergely Karácsony, who previously reacted to this parallel, said that if the government is against the tax increases, don’t raise the solidarity tax expected from Budapest either.)

At the end of his answers, he summarized why his activities are important: “You can say that government communication activities are unnecessary, but I think that many of Pál Győrfi’s videos also learned what to do during the epidemic. In times of crisis, when you need to address the epidemic, you need communication. Basically, the government has spent on this and will continue to do so for a few more months. ” As for the government announcements, he also stressed that if the leftist RTL Club and Népszava, he said, had not benefited from these expenses, they would have had problems at the end of the year.

Antal Rogán no longer gave a substantive response to the reaction of the deputies, so this time no one received an answer as to why Fidesz – KDNP is targeting the Gyurcsány government even after ten years in office.


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