Deputy State Secretary and Head of the Hungarian International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) delegation, Gergely Prőhle stated that FRA’s report on anti-Semitism, published on Friday, raises several questions with relation to methodology, strongly questioning its representative nature.

The appendix to the report also explains some of these flaws, he added, such as on page 70, stating “this methodology is unable to deliver a random probability sample fulfilling the statistical criteria for representativeness”; “the chosen survey mode is likely to have excluded some eligible members of the target population”.

However, Mr Prőhle emphasised: “since Hungary has been home to Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Slovaks and many other nationalities for centuries, if only a single individual lives in fear because of their nationality, even that is too much.” This cannot be put into perspective even by the fact that the report shows a much higher ratio of assaults in other countries, making it a universal European phenomenon, he pointed out.

Data collection occurred in the autumn of 2012, and having recognised the seriousness of the situation, the Hungarian Government has since brought several important decisions designed to monitor and combat anti-Semitic phenomena, the most important being a cooperation agreement with the Action and Protection Foundation (TEV) in the interests of gaining a detailed understanding of anti-Semitic phenomena. The Foundation's reports have been published on a monthly basis since July and are also available in English, here.

In addition, legislation has been introduced to regulate and sanction football hooliganism and anti-Semitic political statements (the related part of the Fourth Amendment, the stricter House Rules and making Holocaust denial a criminal offence). Several high-level political statements have been made on the issue, such as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán speaking at the meeting of the World Jewish Congress, Deputy Prime Minister Tibor Navracsics and Minister of Foreign Affairs János Martonyi at the Tom Lantos Conference, etc.

Deputy State Secretary Prőhle stated that the Holocaust Memorial Year and the 2015 presidency of the IHRA are also designed to enable all Hungarian compatriots of Jewish origin, who are also members of Europe's third largest Jewish community, to feel at home in Hungary. We welcome the fact, he added that despite the results of the FRA study, Jewish cultural and religious life in Hungary is becoming increasingly colourful, indicated also by the increasing number of people attending the Jewish Summer Festival.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)