Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Saker. My guest today is the chief spokesman and public face of arguably the European Union's most controversial government, the Hungarian administration led by Prime Minister Victor Orban. Zoltan Kovach is unfailingly loyal to the avowedly illiberal Mr. Orban. He portrays Hungary as a

plucky defender of Christian nationalist values against an international conspiracy of liberals,

moral degenerates and migrants. It's a crusade that Mr. Orban's Hungarian government has been engaged in

for the past decade. It's reached a new pitch in recent weeks as the Prime Minister has responded to

the coronavirus pandemic by imposing emergency measures, which his critics say put democratic

governance in the deep freeze, indefinitely.

Mr. Orban appears deaf to the grave concern expressed in Brussels and elsewhere, and he is well

used to defying the wishes of EU institutions. So has COVID-19 ushered in the EU's first de facto dictatorship? Well, Zoltan

Kovach joins me now on the line from Budapest. Welcome to Hard Talk. Be to talk to you.

Would you explain for me the reasoning behind the extraordinary powers that your government has taken in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

I believe the reasons are as simple as in any country around not only Europe, but around the globe.

We face an unknown enemy if it's about the virus. We've seen

viruses coming and go in, but this one seems to be special and seems to be so much unknown

that most governments in Europe and around the globe have asked for some kind of extraordinary

measure actually to be able to handle the situation and address the challenges

according to what happens day by day or week by week. Nobody knows when the pandemic is going to end.

That's why we have asked for from Parliament, obviously, the extraordinary measures which entitle

the government that only for fighting the virus, we can be swift, decisive and

effective efficient as soon as it is required.

You rightly point out many governments in Europe have taken emergency measures.

Yours are different in several key instances.

Let us begin with perhaps the most important of all.

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