Hungary to Fire Diplomats Asking for Home Office, Minister Says

(Bloomberg) -- Hungarian diplomats asking to carry out their work from home during the coronavirus pandemic will be fired, according to Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

“There was a very important magic word -- home office -- and a petition to have this,” Szijjarto told his ambassadors in Budapest at a meeting on Wednesday. “I didn’t authorize this and won’t do so in the future either.”

Serving Hungary abroad necessitates a personal presence on the job, Szijjarto said, comparing colleagues asking for home office to unionized workers.

“That’s not a game we play at the Foreign Ministry,” Szijjarto said in comments broadcast on his Facebook page. “If someone wants to play that game, that can be done outside the ministry.”

The 41-year old Szijjarto, who’s been Hungary’s top diplomat for six years and is one of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s closest subordinates, is facing calls to quit himself.

The investigative news website atlatszo.hu photographed him earlier this month vacationing on a luxury yacht on the Adriatic Sea. The yacht, belonging to a businessman who’s a major recipient of government contracts, costs 180,000 euros ($213,000) to rent weekly, the G7.hu news website reported.

Opposition parties called for Szijjarto’s resignation on the basis that the trip’s cost was disproportionate to his reported savings, raising the suspicion of corruption.

Szijjarto on Tuesday refused to address reporters’ questions on how he had funded the trip, repeating only that it was part of his “personal life” and that he had broken no laws.

Corruption among the governing elite is rarely investigated in Hungary, where the chief prosecutor’s office is led by a former ruling-party lawmaker known for his loyalty to Orban.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.