Orbán's party outraged by European Pravda "attacks" on Hungarian poll on Ukraine's EU accession

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party has expressed outrage over what it called "attacks" in European Pravda articles covering a Hungarian "referendum" on whether Ukraine should join the EU.

Source: a statement by Fidesz communications director Tamás Menczer, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Menczer claimed that European Pravda had "attacked" the Hungarian government's national consultation on Ukraine's accession to the EU.

He accused European Pravda editor Sergiy Sydorenko, whom he dubbed "Zelenskyy's favourite journalist", of deliberately backing the opposition Tisza party, which argues that the results of Orbán’s "referendum" are neither objective nor representative of the true opinion of Hungarian society.

"It’s clear as day that Zelenskyy and Tisza are colluding with each other," Menczer said, citing Sydorenko as saying that Zelenskyy "wanted a change of government in Hungary because Tisza and its leader, Peter Magyar, were in favour of giving Ukraine EU membership".

"The sovereigntist Orbán government and the political community of the Fidesz-Christian Democrats behind it will defend the decision of the Hungarian people against every attack," Menczer said.

Update: Menczer said his quote from Sergiy Sydorenko saying that Zelenskyy "wanted a change of government" came from a European Pravda video blog from the June EU summit, but there is no such statement in the video.

In an excerpt from the video, Sydorenko says: "Of course, as long as Orbán remains the leader of Hungary, it is impossible to bypass his veto on issues that require unanimity. But what can we do? We cannot change the government in any European Union country with our decision."

Sydorenko goes on to note that "when Orbán leaves – and we want to believe that this will happen someday – we will be able to catch up and move towards EU accession".

Furthermore, in an article on how Ukraine should respond to Orbán's anti-Ukrainian actions, Sydorenko stressed that Kyiv should refrain from emotional reactions and public criticism and should cooperate with the Hungarian authorities as they are. Nor should it expect a clearly pro-Ukrainian position from the Tisza party, since a large section of Hungarian society is not ready to accept this.

Background:

• The Hungarian government claimed that 95% of voters in the consultation were opposed to Ukraine joining the EU.
• Orbán claimed that the results of the so-called "referendum" had authorised him to speak out even more strongly against EU membership for Ukraine. 

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