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Hungary's foreign minister says to push ahead with 'Stop Soros' bill

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto in Sounion, Greece, May 11, 2018. REUTERS/Costas Baltas

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Hungary will proceed with a parliamentary vote this week on the government's so called "Stop Soros" bill without waiting for the opinion of a panel of law experts, the country's foreign minister said on Tuesday.

The vote is scheduled for Wednesday while the Venice Commission, a panel of constitutional law experts of the human rights body Council of Europe, is due to issue its opinion on the bill only on Friday.

Asked during a news conference in Stockholm whether the vote would proceed without taking the Venice Commission's view into consideration, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said:

"Yes, there will be a voting session tomorrow, and our parliamentary group will vote in favour of the proposal."

The bill, which would empower the interior minister to ban non-government organisations that support migration and are seen as a national security risk, is part of the nationalist government's campaign against George Soros, a Hungarian-born U.S. financier known for funding liberal causes.

(Reporting by Daniel Dickson; writing by Niklas Pollard)