According to Deputy Prime Minister Tibor Navracsics, the letter sent by President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán regarding the fourth amendment to Hungary's Fundamental Law resembles a threat and the expression of concern without corroborating facts.

On HírTV news channel's Friday 8 programme, the Minister for Public Administration and Justice pointed out that officers of the European Union often say that "the problem is context", and it is the behaviour of Hungary that awakens their suspicions, although the individual laws are not themselves suspicious. Within the EU, they regularly try to prove that Hungarian measures transgress Community law in some form, but the Commission is usually unsuccessful in doing so, he said.

With regard to the fact that a delegation from the Venice Commission, which operates under the aegis of the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, was also in Budapest on Friday in relation to the issue of the constitutional amendment, the Minister stated that on the basis of what they had said, the members of the delegation made no secret of the fact that the only reason they had come to Hungary was so that nobody could say they hadn't even bothered to visit the country before formulating their standpoint, when in fact they have already formed their opinion and what they have been told here could only affect nuances to that.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Justice presented the delegation with a 47-page document explaining the arguments against all their objections, he said. The Minister also mentioned the fact that scepticism with regard to the EU had grown in most member states recently, in several countries because of the fact that the European Union is unable to find a solution to the crisis. The Commission examines Cyprus's economy every year and found everything to be in order, yet the country went into crisis, he pointed out. In his opinion, many member states feel that the Commission in incapable of performing the tasks it was set up to do, and perhaps this is why it is searching for problems that it feels it might solve more easily.

In relation to the banning of the "Nationalist Bikers" rally, Mr. Navracsics declared that the same organisation that condemns the Government for banning the event "otherwise has no inhibitions about calling the Government racist on various international forums and telling people how it is restricting democracy and how it is making a deal with the extreme right". This logic is morally unacceptable and says much about the organisation in a political sense, he said.

On Monday, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ordered Minister of Interior Sándor Pintér to assure that on the day of the March of the Living, no events of a political nature could be held that might offend the human dignity of the marchers. On Tuesday, the headquarters of the National Police Force confirmed the fact that the bikers' rally had been banned. On Wednesday, however, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ) said that once they had accepted it, the police had not legal right to subsequently ban the rally.

(Ministry of Public Administration and Justice)