Democracy Digest: Hungary Denies It Vetoed EU Text on Putin’s Arrest Warrant

Orban's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, was even more dismissive of the whole affair at his regular Thursday presser, saying that Putin "would not be arrested in Hungary" because the ICC's Rome Statute was never promulgated in Hungary due to it being "incompatible with the Hungarian constitution". Actually, Hungary signed the ICC's Rome Statute back in 1999 under the first Orban government, but for decades - even during the eight years of the Socialist-Liberal government - it has failed to put the decree into effect via an official proclamation. Some experts claim it is, nevertheless, legally binding.

Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs and German MEP Daniel Freund (Green), being "best enemies forever" on social media, took their antagonism to a higher - and definitely funnier - plain this week, when Freund tweeted that he had asked AI chatbot ChatGPT to put together a rap song about Orban and corruption in Hungary. The result was widely shared on social media:

He's been stacking the courts, packing the press
Making sure his critics are silenced, no less
Using public funds to line his own pocket…
From football clubs to luxury castles
Orban's empire is built on scams and hustles…

Government spokesman Kovacs hit back using the same chatbot, but his effort backfired when it portrayed Freund as a "true fighter for democracy", leaving Kovacs fuming and accusing ChatGPT of being little more than a "bullshit generator". Perhaps time to spend taxpayer money on a Hungarian version of ChatGPT that's controlled by the government communications department.

Green mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karacsony, announced in a TV interview this week that he will run for reelection...