The must-have newsletter about Hungary

KOVÁCS 'SERIOUSLY CONCERNED' FOR PRESS FREEDOM IN GERMANY

 

Zoltán Kovács, the state secretary for international communications and relations, said on Facebook that he was “seriously concerned for the freedom of the press in Germany”, in connection with how a German radio station reported recent comments on Hungary made by German Social Democrat politician and Vice President of the European Parliament Katarina Barley. The matter concerns an admission by German public radio Deutschlandfunk on its website, in an editor’s note, that it had earlier “falsified” a statement by Katarina Barley. Kovács said Barley’s recent remark that member states, such as Poland and Hungary, “must be financially starved” had raised uproar. She told Hungarian news portal 24.hu on Friday morning, however, that she had been misquoted and she actually had said that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán should be financially starved, Kovács added. “No excuses whatsoever; they have instead changed the text of the interview,” he said.