The head of the Sovereignty Protection Office is coming from public television.

Image: Tamás Lánczi / Facebook

The prime minister has asked political analyst Tamás Lánczi, the online director of MTVA, and the host of the program 48 Minutes to be the head of the newly established Sovereignty Protection Office, the Hungarian Nation. Lánczi also confirmed the information.

Tamás Lánczi – the son of András Lánczi – in 2010-11 was the chief of staff of Minister Tibor Navracsics in the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice, and later became the director of Századvég – writes about him in Hungarian Orange. At the same time, Mária Schmidt’s XXI. He is also the director of Század Intézet, and after Mária Schmidt bought Figyelő, Lánczi became its editor-in-chief between 2017 and 2019, and from 2020 the online director of MTVA. Tamás Lánczi also worked as the manager of Árpád Habony’s London company, Danube Business Consulting, which is part owner of the international news agency V4NA.

The law establishing the new institution was promulgated on December 21. The office will be able to carry out analytical, evaluation, proposal and investigation activities “in order to protect constitutional identity”, and will start its operation on February 1.

What gives Orbán’s choice a special flavor is that when it was adopted, several media outlets, as well as the Association of Hungarian Newspaper Publishers, which brings together domestic media companies, spoke out against the sovereignty law, since the it goes against the spirit of the Basic Law both in terms of the rule of law and freedom of the press.