Prime Minister Viktor Orban's spokesman Peter Szijjarto countered that the premier had spoken with his counterpart Jean-Claude Juncker by phone and had been assured that Asselborn’s was not his cabinet's official stance.

Fidesz House cultural and press committee chairman Laszlo L. Simon told Nepszabadsag that the act meets international and EU norms, as it “incorporates relevant EU guidelines literally”.

Conservative German daily Die Welt wrote that “in Hungary we can see how quickly a democracy can destroy itself… it is as if a film that was stopped in the dictatorial, anti-Semitic 1930s is now rolling again.”

The Polish Gazeta Wyborcza declared its solidarity with Hungary’s press in a Hungarian-language front page headline. Nepszabadsag editor-in-chief Karoly T. Voros sent a letter of thanks to Adam Michnik, his counterpart at Gazeta Wyborcza.

Michnik, who was reportedly a friend of Orban’s in the 1980s, wrote that the Hungarian premier has begun to travel down the road that leads to Lukasenka’s Belarus.

Socialist Party chairman Attila Mesterhazy urged President Pal Schmitt not to sign the act.

LMP deputy caucus leader Gergely Karacsony said at least 40 provisions of the law violate the Hungarian Constitution and EU guidelines and his party will seek to have the act overturned by the Constitutional Court.

OSCE official Dunja Miyatovic for media freedom said the act violates the OSCE's norms for press freedom, and threatens editorial freedom and the pluralism of the media."

Source: Hungary Around the Clock

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