European Union officials are not necessarily known for their sharp one-liners, but European commission head Jean-Claude Juncker had a scathing welcome for Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban at a summit in Riga on Friday, greeting him with “Hello, dictator”.

The barb, made in front of the press at the Latvian summit, came amid growing unease over the policies of Orban’s rightwing government, which has carried out constitutional changes and brought more authoritarian rule, critics say. Orban’s response was not audible.

Delegations at the summit took several hours to hammer out a 10-page statement full of bland postulations of the EU’s Eastern Partnership programme, but ahead of the meeting, Juncker was clearly in a more light-hearted mood. He also ribbed Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras for not wearing a tie.

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Orban was labelled a “neofascist dictator” by US senator John McCain late last year, and has alarmed EU leaders by suggesting that his country could reintroduce the death penalty and place harsh restrictions on immigration.

Further controversy has been caused by a questionnaire sent to all Hungarians by Orban’s government to sound out their views on immigration. The UN human rights office said on Friday the survey was “extremely biased” and “absolutely” shocking, as it linked migration and terrorism.

On Tuesday, former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt gave an agitated speech at the European parliament in Strasbourg, spending several minutes lambasting Orban in a furious voice, waving the immigration questionnaire in the air. “If you attack immigration, think a little bit of the many Hungarian refugees who left their country because of the communists in 1956 and how they were received with open arms by the other people of Europe,” Verhofstadt said, to applause, while Orban looked on impassively.



“Hungarians talk straight about tough things. We don’t like to beat about the bush. We are a frank people,” the Hungarian leader responded.