Hungarian Defense Minister Csaba Hende tendered his resignation, the Government Information Centre told news agency MTI. It said in a the statement that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accepted Hende’s resignation and asked István Simicskó to manage the defence portfolio.
The Hungarian government’s national security cabinet met in a session earlier in the day to assess the migration situation and heard a report about the current state of the barrier being constructed along the Hungarian-Serbian border, the statement said. Hende submitted his resignation following the meeting. He has served as defence minister since 2010.
István Simicskó has been a lawmaker for the Christian Democrats (KDNP) since 2006. He served as state secretary overseeing civilian national security services between 2000 and 2002 and state secretary at the defence ministry between 2010 and 2012. He has been state secretary for sports at the human resources ministry since 2014.
The reason behind Csaba Hende’s decision has not been disclosed yet, however, media speculations suggest that the Prime Minister was not entirely satisfied with the speed at which the border protections were being constructed. “A country without borders is not a country,” Viktor Orbán said on Monday addressing a meeting of Hungary’s foreign mission leaders. Orbán said that people who had already made it to Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria are already safe, so they are not running for safety. They have actually “set their eyes on life in Germany”, he insisted.
via hungarymatters.hu and MTI photos: MTI