Zoltan Kovacs, Hungary's state secretary in charge of international communications, has rejected recent remarks published in an opinion piece by EUobserver suggesting that the Hungarian government "is waging a concerted effort to capture the media". In his article published by the same outlet on Tuesday, Kovacs noted that Harlan Mandel, the author of the piece, was head of the US-based Media Development Investment Fund, which "has received at least 16.5m dollars from [US billionaire] George Soros".