Hungary to End Poster Campaign Targeting Juncker on March 15

(Bloomberg) -- Hungary will end the poster campaign that targeted European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on March 15, government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said in a tweet.

“We undertook an information campaign, which will come to an end, according to original plans, on March 15,” Kovacs tweeted. Hungarians “have a right to know what kind of pro-migration plans are under preparation by the Brussels bureaucracy,” he added.

Kovacs’ tweet followed an interview on Friday in which European People’s Party candidate for Commission president Manfred Weber said that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban must end his anti-EU campaign and apologize. Orban’s Fidesz party is part of the EPP and the controversy prompted some members of the grouping to call on him to change tack or leave the group.

The Hungarian government last month started a billboard campaign depicting Juncker as doing the bidding of Hungarian-born, U.S. liberal donor and billionaire investor George Soros, a frequent foil in its anti-immigration rhetoric. Orban has defended the posters as being “based on facts,” but it was sharply criticized by some European leaders.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gabriella Lovas in Budapest at glovas2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Steve Geimann at sgeimann@bloomberg.net, John Deane, Neil Denslow

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