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HATC SAMPLE EDITION:
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11th August, 2026
Staff filled empty seats at press conferences
Foreign Ministry staff were regularly ordered to appear at Péter Szijjártó’s press conferences when he was the minister of foreign affairs and trade, website 444 reports.
They were ordered to fill up the conference hall seating 50-60 people, while independent journalists were not even invited lest Szijjártó receive unpleasant questions.
Ministry employees had to take their seats half an hour before the start of the press conference.
Szijjártó’s former press chief Máté Paczolay did not answer a question on why no independent news outlets were invited to the foreign minister’s press conferences.
He told Telex and 444 that the ministry did not want to offend guests by having them deliver speeches to an empty room.
Szijjártó recently left Fidesz and Parliament to work for the Chinese carmaker BYD, whose expansion in Hungary he had actively helped as foreign minister.
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Sources regularly consulted, with abbreviations used in text: Népszabadság (N); Magyar Hírlap (MH); Világgazdaság (VG); Napi Gazdaság (NG); Magyar Nemzet (MN); Népszava (Nsz); Kossuth Rádió news (KR); nightly TV news (TV).
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