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May 15, 2020Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said he is ready to give up "in late May" to the extraordinary powers that were granted to him by Parliament in March to manage the Covid-19 crisis.

Orban, visiting Serbia, said that those powers have served to better manage the pandemic in Hungary. "We have successfully defended our homeland and our performance is comparable to that of any other country," said Orban, stressing that once he relinquishes his powers, "we will give everyone the opportunity to apologize to Hungary for the false accusations that have been brought against us in recent months. "

Viktor Orban has been the subject of strong criticism, including from the European Parliament, for not having set a time limit on the state of emergency and its extraordinary powers. The Hungarian prime minister said he was convinced that the countries that gave their leaders "good powers" during the pandemic had more success in the fight against coronavirus than those that "could not get out of the usual political decision-making mechanism".

The emergency legislation, adopted by the Hungarian Parliament on 30 March, granted the nationalist prime minister full powers, effectively allowing him to govern by decree, without a precise time limit until the declaration of his cabinet of the end of the state of emergency. It was an initiative branded as authoritarian by its detractors and also criticized by the EU.