The report on Hungary that the Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe (CoE) has recently adopted is biased and politically motivated, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Foreign Ministry Zsolt Németh declared yesterday on the sidelines of a CoE session. The procedure involves risks for the CoE, because it may force the organisation into ideological battles, he said.

Zsolt Németh had talks with Jean-Claude Mignon, the President of the CoE Parliamentary Assembly, who also agreed that this should be avoided and the procedure should be changed. Hungary supports the reinforcement of human and fundamental rights mechanisms within both the CoE and the European Union, Zsolt Németh said.

The Monitoring Committee had previously decided that the CoE Parliamentary Assembly should discuss at its next session in June whether to launch a monitoring procedure against Hungary in connection with the report on the state of the rule of law in the country.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)