The government will launch a new campaign based on the topics surveyed in the recently completed ‘national consultation’, and this will involve posting public billboards, state secretary of the government office Csaba Dömötör told Friday’s daily Magyar Idők.
The government expects intensive debates to continue about the issues surveyed, especially regarding illegal migration and EU migrant quotas. The 99 percent public support for the government’s position in the survey provides it with strong political backing during negotiations, he said.
When the law on public billboards was recently debated in parliament, a proposal was made to ban the posting of billboards outside the campaign period, he noted, adding that this ban would have applied to the government too, but the opposition parties unequivocally rejected the proposal. The government will therefore continue to make use of outdoor advertising, he said.
Dömötör cited Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as saying at the closing event of ruling Fidesz’s nationwide national consultation campaign that respondents were in agreement that Hungarians do not want to hand control over large areas of policymaking to Brussels.
Orbán told the event that Europe’s unity is threatened not only by illegal migration but also by whether “we are heading towards the Europe of Brussels or a Europe of nation states,” the paper said. He said that only Europe can decide on its future and “by that we mean the community of European citizens, not Brussels or the European leaders,” it added.