Government official rejects ORF CEO’s remarks on Orbán

In a Thursday post that has since been removed from his page, Pachner said that Prime Minister Viktor Orban dying of a heart attack would be a “fair thing”.

Menczer said Pachner’s position as a leader of the Austrian public media had “made the situation even graver”.

“This post is already terrible in itself, it is a slap in the face of an entire country, as the prime minister was elected by the people,” he said.

He called on Austrian media authorities to act.

Levente Magyar: No one can be allowed to disparage Hungarians

No one can be allowed to make disparaging remarks about Hungarians or their democratically-elected government, Levente Magyar, the deputy foreign minister, told public media on Friday.

Magyar said he had told the charge d’affaires of the Austrian embassy in connection with the matter that the Hungarian government was convinced that a leading figure of Austria’s public media had made “especially harsh and outrageous comments” about Hungary’s democratically-elected prime minister.

Because of the overwhelming support behind the prime minister, Pachner’s comments could be seen as insulting to all Hungarians, Magyar said.

This issue needed to be brought up to the representative of the Austrian government, who distanced himself from the comments and expressed an intention to cooperate, Magyar added.

“However, I made it clear that if such comments are made in the future, this will not be enough to settle the issue,” Magyar said. “These words go beyond the civilisational norms that are allowed in Europe even in such a time of war when we should be focusing all our efforts on meeting the challenges presented by the shockwaves of the war together.”

Hungary strives for good relations with Austria, but will not allow Austria or any other foreign players to disparage Hungarians, their democratically elected government and its leader, the deputy minister said.