Miklós Soltész, state secretary of the ministry of human resources for church, citizenship and civil society relations, wrote to Timmermans that his remarks had “gravely offended our country, the Hungarian people and the Jewish community here, and so there is no option other than to resign from your post”.

The state secretary said he had read the interview with a sense of “outrage”. “I reject the baseless charge in the name of all Hungarians who have been offended,” he wrote, adding that Timmermans’ remark suggested that he “knows nothing of the Hungarian reality...”

Soltész noted that the government led by Orbán had ploughed 19 billion forints (EUR 61m) of taxpayers’ money into support for Hungary’s Jewish community, resulting in the renovation of synagogues around the country and beyond its borders.

The government has also given financial support for a national programme to renovate Jewish cemeteries. It has also introduced a remembrance day dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust and designated Holocaust denial as a crime.

Soltész further listed the numerous areas in which the government has supported educational and other activities of the Jewish community. He also noted that the film of Nobel prize-winning Imre Kertész’s Fatelessness and the Oscarwinning film Son of Saul also benefited from state support under the current government.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.