Foreign ministry staffers used to be rounded up to fill empty seats at Szijjártó’s press conferences, paper claims

Interesting details have emerged about how press conferences at the ministry of foreign affairs were organized during Péter Szijjártó’s tenure as foreign minister, according to 444. The paper reports that while representatives of the independent press were typically not even invited, ministry staff were regularly instructed to attend the events and fill the 50-to 60-seat conference room.

Several former and current staff members of the foreign ministry spoke to 444 about how the system was run. The minister’s cabinet would notify department heads in advance of how many of their staff members were expected to attend Szijjártó’s upcoming joint press conference, and were required to specify in advance who would be participating.

Staff members had to take their seats half an hour before the start, and according to accounts, they were not allowed to stand up again until Szijjártó left the room. Several departments tried to recruit attendees on a voluntary basis, but if there weren’t enough volunteers, participants were selected by the department head. Certain departments rotated their participating staff, which meant that some employees attended a Szijjártó press conference approximately every two weeks.

The participants were not necessarily ones whose work was related to the subject of the press conference. According to a ministry official, staff members were assigned primarily based on whose workload allowed them to attend the event that day.

In addition, the organizers sometimes played it too safe, so it would happen that staff members working in other buildings were sent to the main building on Bem Square during office hours—even in bad weather—only to be told upon arrival that the room was already full and they could get back to work.

According to 444, this was necessary because the number of invited press and the foreign guests alone would not have filled the room.

Independent news outlets, however, were not invited, lest Szijjártó be asked uncomfortable questions.

A foreign ministry official also recounted that there were instances when there was only one journalist—from the state news agency, MTI—at the press conference. The source claimed that on one occasion, they even saw a staff member from the foreign ministry’s press office dictating the questions they should ask to the MTI journalist. According to the paper, when coming to these events, even inside the building, Szijjártó was always escorted by one or two members of the Counterterrorism Centre (TEK-which was responsible for protecting the members of the government during the Orbán administration).

Filling the room, on the other hand, had little practical significance in terms of the broadcasts, since the live coverage typically only showed Szijjártó and his foreign guest, not the staff members sitting in the audience. As 444 notes, this means that the foreign ministry staff rounded up this way probably mostly served the purpose of creating the impression that the event was drawing significant interest.

The paper reported last week that it took them three years of legal proceedings, enforcement proceedings and criminal complaints to obtain the documents which provide a more detailed insight into how the ministry led by Péter Szijjártó approached press freedom. Incidentally, two years ago in Guatemala (!!!), Szijjártó boasted about Hungary being fortunate because its patriotic government was protecting the patriotic media.

This has especially been proven true since Fidesz lost the April election, and the media affiliated with business circles close to them—generously propped up with taxpayer money—have been shutting down and laying off their employees one after another. Szijjártó had previously claimed that the entire Western European press was lying about the state of press freedom in Hungary.

The former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade recently left Fidesz and switched out his seat in parliament for a job at the China's BYD, whose expansion in Hungary he had actively supported while serving as foreign minister.