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The European Commission brushed off the results of the Hungarian national consultation on the EU sanctions against Russia, Euractiv reports.
According to the news site, a spokesman dismissed the results at a press conference on Monday. Peter Stano noted the “very low participation of the consulted citizens,” saying that of 8.2 million registered voters, only 1.4 million took part in the consultation.
According to the official results published by the government, 97 percent of Hungarians rejected “sanctions that would cause serious damage.”
Hungarian news site Mandiner noted that
Brussels’ criticism of participation is two-fold: while the Commission talks of low participation in the national consultation, the body itself claims that an online consultation of less than 5,000 people showed that ‘young people made the choice,’ when in fact, according to the Commission’s current criticism, it should have involved more than 60 million participants.”
It is also worth noting that neither the Commission, nor any other EU government has organized any official consultation or referendum on the sanctions- only surveys have been released by private pollsters.
According to Balázs Hidvéghi, MEP for Hungary’s governing Fidesz party, the Commission’s own youth consultation was filled out by only 4,686 people. Speaking to Mandiner, the politicians stated that the Commission dismisses the Hungarian national consultation simply because the result is inconvenient for them.
Featured photo via the European Commission