Prime Minister’s New Year press conference

A liberal columnist thinks that Prime Minister Orbán mixed moderate and radical messages in his first press conference this year. A pro-government columnist praises the Prime Minister for his pragmatic vision.

On Index, Gergely Nyilas writes that the Prime Minister mixed both in tone and content moderate as well as radical ideas in his Thursday press conference. His remarks on migration and Geroge Soros were very similar to his previous messages, the liberal commentator asserts. Nyilas finds particularly radical PM Orbán’s criticism of the Debrecen Court decision which ruled against segregation of Roma students in schools. Nyilas, on the other hand, cited what he called as the Prime Minister’s pragmatic foreign policy notes, his commitment to battling global warming as well as his conciliatory comments on the opposition, as examples of a more moderate approach.

Magyar Nemzet’s Ferenc Kiss praises the Prime Minister for his dynamic and courageous vision outlined at the press conference. Rather than being both moderate and radical, PM Orbán was just simply honest, and therefore his ideas cannot be easily compartmentalized along simplistic and stereotypical concepts, the pro-government analyst contends. Kiss also welcomes the Prime Minister’s commitment to increase family funding and climate neutrality. He also appreciates the Prime Minister’s physical resilience during his almost three-hour long press conference, as a resounding rebuke to allegations that he is a tired man. On the contrary, Kiss writes, Mr Orbán ‘is bracing himself for the 2022 elections in peak form’.

Tags: Orbán