On Friday head of Smer-SD party,Robert Fico, made a call for the government to speak out against the undemocratic actions of the Hungarian government, especially against the new Press Freedom Act that was promulgated in Hungary on 1 January 2011.
Fico questioned the silence of PM Iveta Radicova and foreign minister Mikulas Dzurinda, while the rest of Europe is speaking out, including the European Commission, which is investigating the new law in Hungary. The new Press Freedom Act means news media can be fined up to a whopping EUR 727,000 if their news coverage is ‘unbalanced’.
Foreign affairs minister Duzrinda has retaliated, saying that when Fico’s Smer-SD party was running the country, it constructed the government on three basic pillars – populism, nationalism and hate.
Dzurinda denied that the current government was putting a blindfold on in such matters, backing his argument with the pre-Christmas speech of PM Radicova in which she says the Hungarian press act raises questions about its alignment to “the democratic principles of freedom of the press in the EU”.
Dzurinda is claiming that Fico is endeavouring to spread hate, while the current government wants to improve relations between Slovakia and Hungary.