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  • The shadow of Tusk hangs over Poland: commentary

    Free of the restraints of the position of president of the European Council, Donald Tusk will now fully unleash his negative rhetoric towards the Law and Justice (PiS) government.

    I call Donald Tusk an anti-Polish politician not because he is an agent working for a foreign power but instead over his complete lack of care for the good of his country and its citizens.

    If it seems like Tusk is unhappy over the continuous rise in their economic and cultural standard of living, it is because he always only cared for his own career, the careers of those who supported his ambitions, and those people who were his tools.

    The years since his political debut strengthened his vision of Poland as a place where he can build his own political position. It boils down to two tenements in Tusk’s life: power and accumulation of wealth. This is why he moved to Brussels without any qualms despite previous assurance that he could not ever see himself in a different role other than serving as the prime minister of Poland.

    I remember his visits to Poland as EU president when he almost never could stop himself from besmirching the PiS government or Jarosław Kaczyński. Lies, false accusations and manipulations directed at the government were a part of his daily schedule during these visits to his own homeland.

    “PiS is trying to take Poland out of the EU in a straightway. Jarosław Kaczyński is lying when he states otherwise,” Tusk had suggested more often than not. He also claimed that PiS is fulfilling the strategies of the Kremlin.

    The activist pointed out that Łukasz may have acted as he did because he had not undergone British training dealing with terrorism, which teaches civilians to quickly retreat to a safe location.

    “During the Second World War, Poles also did not abide by safety regulations, which is why they shot down so many German planes. There are times where sacrifice must be more important than manners and procedures. In this case, we can speak of a continuation of heroics among our countrymen and women,” Wróbel argued.

    He emphasized Polish selflessness in times of danger and pointed to an interview with Łukasz’s boss who said that the terrorist had not been in the hall with them but outside. Despite being personally secure, Łukasz still took the tusk and ran outside to save others. Lukasz’s boss said the Pole had been the only one to do so.

    Wróbel also drew attention to the comments made by one of the parents of a victim killed in the terrorist attack, who declared that he did not want to use his son’s death in politics and to tighten anti-terrorism laws.

    “This says a lot about the mentality of the British,” Wróbel added.

    Wróbel highlighted that there have already been many brave acts by Poles in the UK, including the terrorist attack near the London Bridge in 2017 when a Polish woman named Magda barricaded the doors to a pub and saved many lives from a rampaging terrorist. A Polish police officer also had displayed heroism in fighting the terrorists during that incident.

  • Season’s first snow takes Hungary by surprise

    Just four centimeters (1.5 inches) worth of snowfall over central Hungary has caused delays of over an hour on several train lines, while in Budapest many buses were forced to take alternate routes and some trolley lines were paralyzed by power outages on Monday.

    National Meteorological Service OMSZ predicted quite accurately both the timing and the size of the snowfall (equal to the average precipitation for the full month of December), but municipalities, local public transport and train services were somehow still caught off guard.

    The snowfall in Budapest began in the early hours of Monday and by 9 a.m., the peak hour of the morning rush, practically all major roads in the capital came to a crawl or even a standstill in the hilly Buda region.

    While the chaos was neither unprecedented nor of unusual proportions, this year it also had a political component, with many media reports putting the blame squarely on Budapest’s recently elected liberal mayor Gergely Karácsony, who replaced conservative mayor István Tarlós after ten years at the helm of the capital.

    Title image: Snow plough in Hungary’s northern Mátra mountains (MTI/Péter Komka)

  • Hungarian musical reaches one million viewers

    Budapest’s Vígszínház theater will celebrate one million views of its musical “The Attic” on Monday, a major landmark for the entirely domestic production.

    The musical, which premiered in 1988 and has since had an uninterrupted theatrical run. was written by Péter Horváth and features music by Gábor Presser and lyrics by Dusán Sztevanovity.

    Unlike a Youtube video, where earning one million views is not much of an achievement, this theater has managed to lure one million people to sit for a live performance over the course of three decades.

    The musical tells the story of a burglary of two young people in love and of four ghosts looking for the “other” world.

    In terms of longevity and commercial success, it is only rivaled by British playwright and actor Ray Cooney’s “Run for Your Wife”, which is nearing its 1,000th performance.

    Title image: The Attic performance (source: vigszinhaz.hu)

  • The most important Czech ever? Charles IV

    One-fifth of Czechs consider King Charles IV to be the most important Czech in history, according to a poll conducted by the Public Opinion Research Center (CVVM).

    Charles IV is followed in popularity by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first Czechoslovak President and former President Václav Havel, who often poll favorably with Czechs.

    Charles IV, who placed first, was King of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Emperor in the 14th century. During his reign, the Czech kingdom experienced unprecedented cultural and political growth.

    Recently deceased singer Karel Gott placed fourth in the ranking, with 15 percent of Czechs picking him as the most important Czech. He also had the biggest boost in support since the last survey in 2013.

    The four personalities were followed by theologian and church reformer, Jan Hus, President Miloš Zeman and the “teacher of nations” Jan Amos Comenius. Two percent of respondents also named the ice-hockey player Jaromír Jágr as an important Czech personality.

    Hussite Wars military commander Jan Žižka, former President Václav Klaus and the fictional Czech genius Jára Cimrman are considered to be important figures by one percent of respondents.

    The CVVM survey also looked into the most important Czech periods. Overall, 36 percent of respondents stated that the era of Charles IV was the peak of Czech history followed by the era of the First Czechoslovak Republic in the 20th century.

    The respondents were also asked to name three key events of Czech history since the end of the First World War. The 1989 Velvet Revolution was the most common answer. However, respondents also often mentioned the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, the end of the Second World War and the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993.

  • Czech St. Mikuláš Day tops winter festival list

    The British daily, the Guardian, included Czech St. Mikuláš day among the top ten traditional winter festivals in Europe.

    Czechs celebrate St. Mikuláš day on Dec. 5. This day is a children-focused tradition based on St. Nicholas (Mikuláš in Czech), considered the patron saint of children.

    Mikuláš is portrayed as a kind white-bearded old man who rewards children for their good behavior in the previous year. He is accompanied by an angel and a devil who threatens naughty children to put them in a big sack and carry them to hell.

    The Guardian invites people to Prague’s Old Town Square, which will fill with mysterious characters on the eve of St. Mikuláš day.

    The British daily called the celebration a “curious mix of Santa’s grotto and Halloween,” adding that children have to recite a poem or sing a song to Mikuláš to get sweets. However, if they were a little naughty, they will get coal or potato from the devil.

    For those truly naughty children, they may get something much worse.

    The devil, known as Krampus in countries like Austria and Czechia, has caught the attention of international media outlets in the past. Known as the “scariest Christmas tradition in the world”, Krampus is supposed to stuff the naughtiest children into a sack and take them off to hell.

    Among the top 10 traditional winter festivals named in the Guardian article are the Spanish festival Els Enfarinats and the Kjippen carnival in Florø, Norway. The Guardian also mentions the Slovenian Kurentovanje carnival, which is famous for its strange characters in sheepskin costumes.

    In addition, the Bavarian Rauhnacht, the Swiss Tschäggätt parade, as well as the Dutch corner blowing and the Italian Sappada festival all appeared on the list.

     

  • Prague lights up its Christmas tree

    On Saturday afternoon, Prague’s traditional Christmas tree lighting ceremony took place at the Old Town Square, with angels serving as this year’s theme.

    The 22-meter (72-feet) high Christmas tree is decorated with 40 angel figures, more than 600 Christmas balls and ornaments, and about 15,000 light bulbs.

    The tree lit up for the first time on Nov. 30 at 4:30 p.m., accompanied by the soundtrack of the famous Czech fairy-tale song Krkonoše Mountains composed by Vadim Petrov. However, the lighting ceremony will repeat every hour until 9:30 p.m. leading up to Jan. 6.

    Preparations for the traditional festive lighting of the Christmas tree, which attracts hundreds of people, began several weeks earlier. Every year, organizers set a different theme and take care of finding the perfect Christmas tree.

    “This year, we had a very difficult time finding a new theme as we have already done all topics connected to history, Prague, and the Czech Republic,” said Jakub Olbert, owner of SOS Dekorace company, which organizes the event. However, someone on the team came up with the motif of an angel, and after detailing what it would look like, the company decided to go with that motif.

    The decorating of the Christmas tree and the surrounding area began last Tuesday after the tree arrived.

    First, organizers installed thousands of light bulbs followed by the Christmas balls, ornaments, gingerbread men, angels, and retro ornaments. In total, 10 and a half kilometers of power cables were needed to light up the tree.

    The tree, which is decorated in the traditional colors of gold, red, green, and white, will be at the Old Town Square in Prague until the end of Christmas markets on Jan. 6.

  • NATO budget: Czechia to increase its contribution

    The Czech Republic will increase its contribution to the NATO budget by 42 million korunas (€1,680 million). The increase is quite significant as currently, Czechia contributes 580 million korunas (€23,1 million).

    NATO member states agreed to renegotiate their financial contribution to the NATO budget after the United States decided to reduce its contribution from 22 percent to 16 percent.

    The issue of NATO’s funding and defense spending will be one of the main themes of the upcoming NATO Summit in London, which will take place this Tuesday and Wednesday.

    At the summit, the Czech Republic will be represented by President Miloš Zeman, Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček, Defense Minister Lubomír Metnar and Czech Permanent Representative to NATO Jakub Landovský.

    As for the world leaders, US President Donald Trump, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron will be among attendees.

    According to Rudolf Jindrák, the head of the foreign affairs department of the presidential office, the initial purpose of the summit was to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of NATO. However, due to new developments around the world, the Alliance has decided to include other topics on the agenda.

    NATO leaders will, therefore, talk about NATO funding, Afghanistan and issues in the Middle East.

    At the plenary session, each of the representatives of the NATO member states will give three- to four-minute-long speeches. President Zeman has already announced he wants to talk about the need to focus on the fight against international terrorism. He would like the Alliance to become more active in this regard.

    Zeman may also speak about defense spending as he repeatedly supports the Czech Republic to meet the required two percent of its GDP on defense. Currently, it is around 1.2 percent of GDP, however, the Czech Republic has committed to achieving the two percent expenditure by 2024.

    NATO’s budget is about $2.5 billion (€2.27 billion).

  • Budapest’s iconic Chain Bridge lit red for World AIDS Day

    The Chain Bridge, one of the Hungarian capital’s best-known landmarks, was lit red on Sunday to commemorate World AIDS Day.

    Nearly everyone who comes to Budapest pays a visit to the bridge and takes a few photos of it. As one of Budapest’s main tourist attractions,  the bridge is lit up in different colors to celebrate certain key occasions and important events.

    On Aug. 20, the bridge turns red, white and green, the colors of the national flag, and on St. Patrick’s Day, the bridge turns green. On Scottish St. Andrew’s Day, the bridge turns blue and white and of course the bridge also features Christmas lighting.

    But on Sunday it was all red – offering a stunning contrast to the Royal Palace lit up all in white in the background.

    The bridge was designed by the English engineer William Tierney Clark and built by the Scottish engineer Adam Clark. It was also the first permanent bridge across the Danube in Hungary, opening in 1849.

    After completing the Chain Bridge, Adam Clark stayed in Hungary, married a member of the Hungarian aristocracy and died of lung disease in 1866. While practically unknown in Scotland, he is a household name in Hungary and even had a square named after him in 1912. The square connects the bridge he built with the tunnel he subsequently designed and built, the Buda Tunnel.

    Title image: Budapest Chain Bridge lit in red (MTI/Márton Mónus)

  • Migrant crisis 2.0: Hungary prepares for 100,000-strong migrant wave building in the Balkans

    Hungary must take action against the 100,000 illegal immigrants gathering in the Western Balkans as they ready to enter deeper into Europe, said Szilárd Németh, vice president of the ruling conservative Fidesz party, on Sunday.

    Németh asserted that in order to meet this threat, Hungary has convened a session of its anti-migration cabinet to devise further measures to stop them.

    Fidesz’s vice president said that while the situation is still under control, it increasingly looks like another huge wave like the one Hungary experienced in 2015 is building up and “if the migrants are released and approach the Hungarian border, this could result in major trouble which we must be prepared for.”

    Németh pointed to the fact that parliament extended the emergency regime regarding migration in September, which gives the government much-needed additional jurisdiction and power to deal with any migrant crisis. Németh said the Balkans currently play a key role in the security of both Europe and Hungary, another reason why Hungary fully supports the ambitions of the region’s countries to join both the European Union and NATO.

    He said the recently discovered tunnels on the Serbian-Hungarian border used by illegal immigrants are further proof that pressure is mounting. So far, border defense units have been successful in defending Hungary’s borders, but an influx of migrants may offer a far graver challenge for security forces.

    The anti-migration cabinet was established in 2018 and is led by Németh, who is also the state minister at the Hungarian Ministry of Defense.

    The 2015 migrant crisis saw tens of thousands of migrants passing through Hungary on their way to countries like Germany and Sweden. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán effectively sealed off Hungary’s border using Hungarian soldiers and a new border fence, both actions which dramatically decreased the number of illegal immigrants entering the country.

     

    Title image: Illegal migrants (illustration)

  • Polish rock star: God is the truth young people are searching for

    “I’ve received more from God than from all of the rock world’s hedonism,” declared Polish rock star Muniek Staszczyk, who recently survived a stroke. He emphasized the struggle for youth to find truth in their lives and their aversion to the Church due to pop culture.

    Staszczyk pointed out that many young people today see rejecting the Church as being “cool”. Many even feel ashamed to admit that they like Christianity.

    “They look into different beliefs, yoga or some lotus flowers but even the Dalai Lama says that one should stick to their family’s faith,” the musician explained in an interview for portal Aleteia. He added that although there might not be as many believers anymore, the quality of faith might go up.

    Muniek Staszczyk spoke of young people’s search for truth, despite often not knowing what truth actually is. These young people are lost due to an abundance of choice and the temptations offered by the modern world and media.

    The price of this new model is a “life filled with lies and drugs.”

    The rock star is convinced that it is worth it to believe in God, as faith has no cost.

    “People often think that you need to excel in your relations with God. That’s not true. We meet Him most often when we’re stuck in deep crap. God is there to help tear us away from that crap,” he said.

    Staszczyk emphasized that he has received more from God than from all of the rock world’s hedonism. He said that thanks to God, he has found answers and explanations to many things that seemed impossible to him as well as gaining a sense of meaning through his connection with God.

    “Relations with God give you such simple and pure happiness. In today’s supposedly free, but actually highly enslaved world, that is a very interesting journey full of twists and shocking turns,” the musician explained.

    Staszczyk underlined the importance of going to Church to deepen one’s faith and to not “sour” ourselves in hatred towards “stupid priests” or “pedophiles” since courts exist to punish these people. Instead, the singer proposed that people should focus on what is good in Church, saying there is much to be found there to enrich the soul.

    “I don’t know where we would be today as Poles if not for the Church. Maybe under Putin’s rule?” the rock star said.

  • VW funds anti-Semitism report on Poland that defies reality: commentary

    Jews do not feel threatened in Poland and Holocaust survivors emphasize the lack of anti-Semitism, yet organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are intent on creating a false image of Poland.

    It is simply too much for me, I have to admit!

    Last week, I wrote about how I was fortunate enough to meet Holocaust survivor Edward Mosberg during the “Evening for the Righteous”. He told me that he “comes to Poland very often”, and added, “Not even once have I experienced any kind of expression of anti-Semitism.”

    He criticized Israel’s historical politics and pointed out what he thinks should change in the relations between Poland and Israel.

    Mosberg also shared his thoughts on collaborators during the Second World War.

    “They had good Polish people and bad Polish people,” he said. “The same thing with the Jews. There were good Jews and bad Jews. And I as a Jew am ashamed of those Jews who collaborated with the Germans and I ask the Polish nation to be ashamed of the Polish collaborators.”

    Israel daily Haaretz was outraged, saying that Mosberg “cannot compare non-Jewish” collaborators with Jews, who cooperated with the Germans.

    The paper claimed that the majority of Jewish collaborators “had not done that of their free will or joy, but were coerced, starving or had a naïve hope that they could save their families and closest ones.”

     

    The reason for this is the decreasing number of schools which offer family life education lessons. This has been occurring for years, and usually with the default permission of parents, mostly due to the uncomfortable and difficult hours in which the lessons were held.

    Nature does not like a vacuum and the lack of family life education will be replaced by sexual education based on the “standards” mentioned earlier. Corruptors from different organizations and foundations are already waiting on the starting lines.

    They have trained specialists and special resources, often from abroad and even from environments considered to be mostly conservative,such as the marshal offices in cities like Łódz where the pro-family Law and Justice (PiS) has a majority.

    The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. That’s what happened in Bydgoszcz to our children, and if we fail to deliver a strong response, it is what will happen across all of Poland.

  • The Finnish Santa, Joulupukki, visits Budapest

    As he does every year around this time, Finland’s Santa, Joulupukki, landed again in Budapest on Nov. 28. Joulupukki skipped the long journey by sleigh, instead choosing to arrive in the Hungarian capital by plane.

    Unlike in Anglo-Saxon countries, where Protestant tradition links Santa Claus to Christmas, many predominantly Catholic European countries celebrate him on Dec. 6, when the saint his figure is based on, Nicholas, the bishop of the Greek port of Myra, died in 343 AD.

    A well-known philanthropist in his time, his mythology includes a number of miracles and one modern version of his legend recounts that he dropped a gift destined to a poor girl through the chimney. The presents fell into the girl’s socks, who put them in the fireplace to dry, a story that serves as the basis for the tradition of putting presents in stockings to celebrate Christmas.

    In pagan culture, Joulupukki, a winter figure in the Finnish province of Lapland, originally traveled in a sleigh pulled by dogs.

    Most theorists believe when Christianity began incorporating pagan ways into their festivals, they merged the pagan figure with an already existing Catholic legend known as Saint Nicholas to create Santa Claus.

    Finland’s Joulupukki receives more than 500,000 letters from over 200 countries every year. Most letters come from China, Poland and Italy. 

    Title image: Joulupukki holding a press conference at the Budapest Chain Bridge Hotel (MTI/Balázs Mohai)

     

  • Polish Navy gets a news patrol ship

    Eighteen years after construction started, the Polish naval vessel ORP Ślązak has finally hoisted a Polish flag. The vessel was transferred to the Polish Navy during a ceremony in Gdynia.

    Ever since the construction of Ślązak was initiated on November 28, 2001, Poland has had eight different prime ministers who formed nine different governments. There have also been seven different ministers of national defense.

    Although the ship had been launched into the sea on July 2, 2015, from the Naval Shipyard Gdynia SA in Gdynia, it wasn’t until Nov 8, 2019, that the delivery-receiver protocol was signed and the vessel was officially given to the navy. On Nov. 28, 2019, the Polish flag was finally officially raised on it.

    Ślązak is a patrol ship, although it was first built as a multi-task corvette vessel and was meant to be a part of a series of seven similar ships.

    The series was never completed as the program’s financing from public funds was halted. The program itself, named Gawron, was terminated entirely in 2012 by the Civic Platform (PO) government and the prototype was sold. That same year a decision to build a patrol unit with limited combat capability, based on the vessel’s hull, was made.

    The main roles of the ship are to engage maritime and air targets, patrol and protect coastal waters, escort commercial vessels, and control maritime shipping routes within the framework of multinational forces.

    The vessel is also intended for use in missions related to combating piracy and maritime terrorism, securing the activities of special forces and participation in humanitarian and ecological actions.

    Ślązak is the first navy ship fully designed and built in Poland since the fall of communism in 1989. It is 95.2 meters long and has a buoyancy of 1,800 tons.

    The cost of constructing the vessel was €277 million.

  • Media bias: Liberal press attacks Hungary’s decision to not attend Eurovision

    The Hungarian government has shot back against claims that the country pulled out of next year’s Eurovision Song Contest because it was “too gay”, saying the allegation is based on irresponsible and biased journalism.

    Zoltán Kovács, the spokesman for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, responded to the claims on About Hungary, writing that the Guardian story is entirely false.

    “In case you missed it: Instead of participating in the Eurovision song contest, from 2020 Hungary’s ‘A Dal’ talent show will focus on supporting Hungarian artists directly,” Kovács wrote.

    Kovács pointed to media bias fueling the Eurovision claims, saying that the term “too gay” was never uttered by a single member of the government.

    “‘Too gay.’ Don’t let the many quotation marks fool you. Nobody said that. It’s the media quoting itself, it’s own biased, malicious speculation. But a bunch of them jumped on the bandwagon without bothering to check the facts,” he wrote.

    The Guardian and a number of other left-wing publications have written negatively about Orbán’s government for years and have been especially critical about Hungary’s stance on migration.

    Kovács also took to Twitter to say the decision had been made weeks ago and reflected a trend in false reporting against Hungary due to its policies on migration, economics, and family.

    “Hungary and Eurovision: fake news, fake news, fake news. Dear editors at , , and the like, here’s the real story:

    Kovács said that the term “too gay” was never used by anyone in the Hungarian government, and does not reflect the Hungarian government’s position.

    MTVA, the umbrella organization for Hungarian state television and radio, issued a rebuttal to the allegations on Thursday, with the statement saying, “These press allegations alluding to sexual orientation offend human dignity, ethical standards of the press and the rule of law.”

    MTVA added that they do not keep records of sexual preferences in relation to any production or event, and the statement ends with, “This raises the question of why the media writing about this topic would do so?”

    The story broke in the English-language press on Wednesday when Britain’s Guardian published an article entitled Hungary pulls out of Eurovision amid rise in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.

    The Guardian claims that Hungary provided no reason for the country’s withdrawal from Eurovision, saying, “Orbán’s spokesman, Zoltán Kovács, described the index.hu story as ‘fake news’ on Twitter, but did not specify any other reason for Hungary’s non-participation.”

    Despite the Guardian’s assertion that Hungary and Kovács gave no reason for the withdrawal, that claim seems to be contradicted both by Kovács and the MTVA.

    The Guardian article appeared a month after MTVA had already announced in an Oct. 28 statement that it will not take part in next year’s contest because it wants to focus funds on the creation of new domestic music. Kovács also indicated that the funds that would go to Eurovision are simply being spent on “Hungary’s own, domestic talent.”

    The Guardian quoted an unnamed source from the MTVA board who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The unnamed source said that the assumption among employees was that Eurovision’s association with LGBTQ+ culture was behind the move.

    Since then, a number of publications have picked up on the story, including the Daily Mail, Express and Metro, all of which quote the single unnamed source used in the Guardian publication.

    Many countries have refused to participate in Eurovision

    The production company of the Eurovision Song Contest, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), also released a statement related to the issue saying that it was not unusual for a country to skip one or more years. Hungary, for example, attended the event each year since 2011 but has previously had years when it did not participate.

    Among the countries that have chosen not to participate have been Italy, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Denmark, the Czech Republic, and Greece.

    Italy did not participate in 1981, 1982, 1986, between 1994 and 1996, and again not between 1998 and 2010. The Netherlands has sat out Eurovision four times in 1985, 1991, 1995, and 2002, but two of those times were due to poor results.

    Slovakia has only attended once between 2013 and 2019 while Austria missed nine times, including 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2010.

    When France sat out Eurovision in 1982, journalist Pierre Bouteiller, then director of television channel TF1, had this to say regarding the decision, “The absence of talent and the mediocrity of the songs were annoyance set in. (Eurovision) is nothing but a monument to stupidity,” and that interest in it has “dissipated due to the lack of talent and the mediocrity of the songs.”

    Title image: Poster of the 2020 Eurovision song contest. (source: ebu.ch)

     

  • Poland is escaping the trap of medium development, says PM Morawiecki

    Poland is slowly extricating itself from the trap of being a medium-developed country, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki declared. He pointed out that the most successful countries were the ones who reached symbiosis between state and market.

    “I have the feeling, one built by data, that we are extricating ourselves from the medium-developed level. We are on the right track to escape that trap,” Morawiecki said at the 10th Congress of Polish Economists in Warsaw.

    He added that the process is still a long one and emphasized that Poland must have the certainty and conviction that it is escaping those traps.

    Morawiecki listed the quality of state institutions as an important factor in the process. He pointed out that there should also be more talk about “the symbiosis between the state and market.” In the prime minister’s opinion, the countries which have been most successful had achieved that symbiosis.

    As an example, he pointed to Germany, which efficiently supported its market and German entrepreneurs after the Second World War.

    In the letter, the students referred to at least five of the sexual assault accusations against Polański, underlining that the youngest of the possible victims was 10 years old. Given the gravity and number of the accusations, they demanded that the meeting be canceled.

    They also argued that a university should be a place where sexual violence is condemned and that there may be students or faculty at the school who had their own personal experiences with sexual violence.

    The MP, referring to the issue of migration, claimed that it is a “natural phenomenon” only if it is not a “mass phenomenon.”

    Bosak further pointed out that although the Law and Justice party (PiS) did not explicitly say it would accept the same number of migrants as PO, it had brought in ten times as many anyway.

    “PiS opposes illegal migration, but permits legal migration,” he said and added that it is very bad that there is a low index of internal migration within Poland.

    “It’s easier for Poles to travel to England than to the other end of their country,” Bosak emphasized.

    Bosak also asserted that there is a serious difference between free-market views and “globalism”, explaining that if there are no borders, then that is anarchism and not a free-market approach. In his view, the market only works when resources are limited because it will not work when work resources are unlimited, which is why wages are not increasing in Poland.

  • Hungarian record-holding skydiver receives lifetime award

    Former Hungarian Army skydiver György Mészárovics received a lifetime achievement award for his national record of 16,071 jumps on Nov. 27.

    Mészárovics, 74, is a retired master sergeant from the Hungarian Army who made his first jump back in 1962 from an AN-2 Soviet-made airplane, which at the time was one of the most ubiquitous planes in Europe. Since then, he has used 57 different types of parachutes and it was only after his 4,000th jump that he first had to make use of his secondary parachute.

    “My life was never in danger, as safety always comes first,” he said. The veteran is a national skydiving champion many times over and in 1972 he established a world record with an “absolute zero” jump, meaning that he hit a 2-centimeter target circle while landing.

    His last jump was this May after spending a lifetime of jumps that totaled 71-and-a-half hours in freefall, equal to nearly three days in the air.

    The world record holder for the most jumps is American Don Kellner, 82, who owns a skydiving firm in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

    Title image: György Mészárovics watching a video recording of his last dive. (source: Magyar Nemzet)

  • PM Orbán: Europe is ‘silent’ over Christian persecution

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called on Europe to end its silence over Christian persecution during the 2nd Conference on Christian Persecution in Budapest on Nov. 26.

    In a video on the conference posted to his Facebook page, the Hungarian prime minister said that – like the apostles – a small number of dedicated people can achieve great results.

    “Hungarians make up 0.2 percent of the world’s population. Does it make sense for such a small nation to stand up and act? Our answer is yes. And your presence, attention, encouragement and the fact that you are here today convinces us of this, not to mention the history of Christianity. The twelve apostles certainly represented a smaller proportion of humanity at their time than Hungarians today, yet we are all here,” Orbán said.

    Orbán said during the conference that despite Christians being the target of 80 percent of all religious persecution in the world that “Europe remains silent over and over again.”

    “A mysterious force shuts the mouths of European politicians and cripples their arms,” he said. “Christians are not allowed to be mentioned on their own, only together with other groups that are being persecuted for their faiths.”

    Data shows that Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world. A recent report commissioned by the United Kingdom’s government states that persecution of Christians is reaching near “genocide” levels. A report issued by the U.S. State Department states that approximately 245 million Christians live under severe persecution and that four out of five people persecuted for their religion are Christians.

    This persecution often takes the form of outright murder, with 11 Christians being killed every day for practicing their religion.

    Orbán sees Hungary as a bulwark against Christian persecution, and although it is a small country, he believes it will give courage for others to act.

    “We are convinced that doing the right thing inspires good deeds, the determination of Hungarians breeds courage, the example can catch on. Action will liberate the paralyzed and restore faith in the importance of individual effort,” he said.

    Orbán has been vocal about Christian persecution in an attempt to raise awareness about the plight of Christians, a topic often overlooked by the media and aid organizations.

    Despite much of Europe turning its back on Christians, Orbán said that Hungary has taken the step of actually protecting Christianity through its Constitution.

    “Hungarians believe Christian values lead to peace and happiness and that is why our Constitution states that protection of Christianity is an obligation for the Hungarian state,” he said.

    “It obligates us to protect Christian communities throughout the world suffering persecution.”

    During the conference, Orbán highlighted the country’s “Hungary Helps” program, which was created in 2017 by Orbán’s government with the purpose of helping Christian communities living under oppression. The Hungarian government provides direct aid instead of going through international NGOs or the United Nations.

    The program has provided nearly €24 million to Christians around the world, including five Middle Eastern countries and two from sub-Saharan Africa, often regions where Christianity is under the gravest threat.

    U.S. President Donald Trump sent a letter to the conference, voicing his support for Hungary’s efforts to support Christians and religious liberty. The letter, which was read out loud during the conference, stated, “The United States has always vehemently defended the inalienable right to live and worship freely according to one’s conscience and beliefs,” Trump wrote.

    “I am gratified that Hungary’s State Secretariat for the Aid of Persecuted Christians and the Hungary Helps program share America’s conviction in defending and advancing religious liberty, and I thank them for convening this gathering,” the letter continued.

    Orbán also indicated that Europe’s Christian culture is also under threat, but while this persecution is not always violent, it comes in other forms, such as “population exchange through mass migration, stigmatization, mockery, and the muzzle of political correctness.”

    The Hungarian prime minister believes that mass migration in Europe is a major threat.

    “Western Europe has already provided dozens of militants to the Islamic State, and uncontrolled immigration has produced a radical change in the demographics of the population,” he said.

    If Europe does not reverse these trends, Christianity and the entire continent itself will suffer the results.

    During the conference, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Sziijártó emphasized the bias against Christians, even at the highest levels of the EU.

    “Whenever I try to raise the topic of persecuted Christians in EU ministers’ meetings, everybody says, ‘Peter, it’s better to say ‘religious minorities’. Well, I want to say ‘persecuted Christians’!” Sziijártó exclaimed.

    The conference featured a number of speakers, including Christians who have experienced persecution first-hand.

    Ignatius Aphrem II, Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East, spoke on the suffering of Christians in Syria, saying, “After 5 years of sounding the alarm, our cries haven’t been heard by many and very few tangible steps have been taken to counter this real threat to our existence as indigenous people in the land of our forefathers.”

  • World’s oldest ceramic statuette to be displayed

    The Venus of Dolní Věstonice, the world’s oldest known ceramic statuette, was transferred under police supervision from Brno’s Moravian Museum for display in the Regional Museum in Olomouc.

    The Venus of Dolní Věstonice, which depicts a female body, is an 11.5 centimeters (4.5 inches) high clay statuette. It is probably the best-known Czech archaeological discovery and a key example of prehistoric ceramics.

    It was first unearthed in 1925 by experts who were excavating a prehistoric mammoth hunters’ settlement in South Moravia.

    The Venus of Dolní Věstonice will be displayed together with other rare exhibits in Olomouc from Nov. 27 to Dec. 8. The museum was negotiating the lending of this almost 30,000-year-old valuable artifact for three years.

    According to representatives of the Moravian Museum in Brno, which has the statuette in its collections, the Venus of Dolní Věstonice is displayed only on rare occasions.

    “Recently, it has been displayed twice, in 2013 in London for the exhibition titled Art of the Ice Age: Arrival of the Modern Mind at the British Museum and the second time in 2014 to celebrate 200 years of museums in the Czech Republic,” said the spokesman of the Moravian Museum Barbora Javorová.

    The statuette approximately 25,000 to 29,000 years old and is the oldest known object made of clay. Thus, it is evidence of the beginnings of ceramic art.

    At the time of its discovery, the statuette became a world sensation.

    “The Venus of Dolní Věstonice is the oldest and at the same time a very valuable art object made from ceramics. It is one of the most important works of art of hunters of the Early Stone Age and Paleolithic eras,” added the spokesman of the museum.

  • Czech intelligence warns against Russian, Chinese activities

    Chinese espionage activity was growing in the Czech Republic last year, especially in the academic community, security forces, and civil service, according to the Czech Security Information Service (BIS) report for 2018.

    According to the BIS, China has successfully established a network of people willing to cooperate. In recent years, pro-Russian agents have also been increasingly and systematically agitating against the political order in the Czech Republic, as well as the membership of Czechia in the EU and NATO.

    On the other hand, the traditional extremist community and activity from anarchist groups stagnated last year.

    In addition to Chinese and Russian activities, the BIS did not detect any other serious hostile foreign intelligence activities, except for Iran.

    Among other things, the counterintelligence service of the Czech Republic repeated its warning about accepting invitations to training sessions or seminars in China. The BIS determined that Chinese counterintelligence is increasing its efforts to find and contact potential collaborators among Czech citizens. The Czech intelligence agency points out that even Chinese diplomats are part of the issue.

    According to the BIS, the excessively staffed Russian embassy in the Czech Republic is a problem as well. Russian intelligence services, which also operated in the country last year, aim to manipulate decision-making processes at all government levels.

    Nevertheless, the expulsion of three Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal in the UK has weakened the Russian counterintelligence activities in the Czech Republic.

    According to Jiří Ovčáček, the spokesman of President Zeman, it is unacceptable for the BIS to identify people with different opinions as potential spies or individuals spreading disinformation.

    “This is an attack on the freedom of speech,” said Ovčáček.

    President Miloš Zeman has been criticizing the Czech Security Information Service for some time and was skeptical of its warning of Russian and Chinese influences in the past.

  • Facebook and Google regulation will strengthen freedom of speech

    Recently, it seems that those who claim that Facebook and Google have long stood above states which have no regulatory power over them could be right.

    So far, attempts to set up comprehensive regulations of tech giants have been very weak, although politicians like to talk about this topic a lot.

    They tend to focus mainly on disinformation or fake news and thus miss the essence of the challenge posed by the technology companies. While media publications in countries like the Czech Republic are not permitted to print any political advertising, Facebook explicitly says it can and will continue to do so.

    While users face penalties for certain posts, Facebook does not care as it describes itself as an “Internet platform” and laws regulating political advertising supposedly do not apply to the company.

    We are in a situation in which individuals, media, and even telecommunications companies have to accept certain responsibilities, but social media networks are exempt.

    So what is the next step? In Europe, the noose around Google and Facebook is tightening as France, Germany and the EU itself are currently taking action to regulate their powers.

    Both companies are well aware of this and have increased their PR activity to counter these regulations. They grant money to nonprofits and media while emphasizing principles of the freedom of speech, but the only goal is to discourage regulatory efforts.

    If you repeat that you are an innovator but 90 percent of your revenue consists of online advertising, you will not be able to get away with such claims for long. If certain media and non-profits repeat it with you, your chances are much better.

    A favorite argument against regulation is that it is generally harmful and does not belong in a capitalist system. However, nothing is a greater enemy of capitalism than a monopoly, and every monopoly has to be destroyed or restricted so the free market can function normally.

    Particularly dangerous is the monopoly in an area with no rules, and that is the case of the internet giants. While discussing the possible limitation of the power of these companies, we should adhere to two assumptions: Regulation can ultimately strengthen freedom of speech, and it can also return competition to tech, an industry which have lacked any real competition for many years.

  • Prosecutions launched over people killed fleeing communist Czechoslovakia

    The law enforcement Office for the Documentation and Investigation of Communism Crimes (UDV) has launched prosecution of pre-1989 top communist officials Miloš Jakeš, Lubomír Štrougal and Vratislav Vajnar over abuse of power charges relating to people shot crossing the border.

    Police authorities claim that the three officials are responsible for the death of nine people who were shot or mauled by dogs as they tried to cross the Czechoslovak border from March 1976 to the end of 1989.

    Another seven people were injured because of their inaction.

    The UDV dates the accusations back to 1976 since the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came into force that year. The covenant guarantees everyone the right to leave any state, including their home country.

    The defendants are former Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Miloš Jakeš, former Prime Minister Lubomír Štrougal and former Interior Minister Vratislav Vajnar.

    “They were aware that members of the border guard were using firearms against people who tried to illegally cross borders of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. These officials have not taken any measures to prevent the use of firearms,” said Jan Lelek, the head of the District Public Prosecutor’s Office for Prague 1.

    Jakeš and Štrougal were members of the Communist Party Presidium, and according to the police authorities, had the opportunity to change the legislation that allowed the use of firearms.

    Jan Lelek also pointed out that Vajnar, as the then Interior Minister, had the authority to regulate the rights and obligations of border guards, including the right to use weapons.

  • Hungary’s official Christmas tree installed in front of parliament

    It is still just Nov. 27, but Hungary’s official Christmas tree has already been erected in front of parliament in Budapest.

    In line with tradition, this year’s tree was again a blue spruce with the usual impressive measurements. The tree is 20 meters (65 feet) high, weighs 20 tonnes (22 tons) and its trunk has a diameter of 70 centimeters (27 inches) at its widest point.

    It was donated to the nation by Irma Trombitás from the central Hungarian town of Veszprém.

     

    This is only the unofficial arrival of the tree for the time being. According to tradition, the Christmas tree on Kossuth Lajos square in downtown Budapest should stand there fully decorated and illuminated from Advent (December 1) to Epiphany (January 6).

    Budapest is making a name for itself with travelers, especially for its winter attractions. CNN recently named the city the most “magical” winter city in Europe and gave an in-depth look at its Christmas markets and attractions like the Christmas light tram.

    Title image: Firefighters lift Hungary’s Christmas tree into place in downtown Budapest on Nov. 26, 2019 (MTI/Balázs Mohai)

  • Hungary has cheapest natural gas in the EU: Eurostat

    Hungarians pay considerably less for natural gas than the citizens of any other EU member state, a recent Eurostat report shows. Electricity prices are also the second-lowest among the 28 member states of the EU.

    The price for a kilowatt-hour (kWh) worth of natural gas in the first half of the year was 3.4 euro cents in Hungary, closely followed by Romania and Croatia, while the highest prices were registered in Sweden (11 cents), the Netherlands (9 cents) and Denmark (8.5 cents).

    The year-on-year increase of natural gas prices was the highest in Bulgaria (18.3 percent), Latvia (15.8 percent) and Estonia (14.2 percent), while prices decreased by more than one percent in Denmark, Hungary and Austria.

    In terms of electricity prices, it was the second cheapest for household consumers in Hungary at €11.2 per 100 kilowatt-hours, only bested by Bulgaria with €9.9 per kWh. Electricity was the most expensive in Germany €30.9 per kWh, closely followed by Denmark and Belgium.

    In determining energy prices, Eurostate includes taxes, levies and VAT for household consumers but excludes refundable taxes, levies and VAT for non-household consumers.  

    Title image: Gas meter in a Budapest apartment (source: Magyar Hírlap)

  • ‘Supermarket tax’ introduction postponed in Poland

    The Polish Ministry of Finance will postpone introducing a retail sales tax, also known as the “supermarket tax”, until mid-2020 due to the unresolved conflict with the European Commission (EC) on the tax in the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

    “We propose to extend the period of not collecting the tax until mid-2020,” the spokesman of the ministry, Paweł Jurek, told “Rzeczpospolita” daily.

    He explained that the reason for this decision is the ongoing conflict with the EC concerning the supermarket tax in the ECJ. Jurek emphasized that the final decision will still come down to the Polish government.

    The previous minister of finance, Marian Banaś, had aimed to introduce the tax on Poland’s largest supermarkets as early as September 2019 despite the ongoing conflict with the EC. The reason for the previous earlier timeframe had to do with the Polish government’s victory in the Court of the European Union in May 2019.

    ECJ ruling

    The Court released a verdict which read that “the Polish tax on trade does not impede the European Community’s regulations concerning public aid and can be collected.” The EC appealed to the verdict and the ECJ will respond in 2020 at the earliest.

    Renata Juszkiewicz, the head of the Polish Trade and Distribution Organization, declared that the decision to postpone the tax was a good one and that in the case of taxation, it is important to wait for a final decree from the ECJ.

    Other experts, such as Andrzej Maria Faliński, the head of the Polish Economic Forum Association, believed that the government should abandon the tax project entirely, claiming that it would be harmful not only to trade in the entire country but also would be perceived poorly abroad.

    Retail tax details

    The supermarket tax, officially known as the retail sales tax, would concern shops that earn an income of €390,000 per month. It would feature a 0.8 percent tax rate for income earned above €390,000 and a 1.4 percent rate concerning stores with income exceeding 3.95 million.

    According to the Ministry of Finance calculations, the tax would bring in over €371 million per year from about 200 stores.

  • FM: Compulsory migrant settlement quota is very much alive

    Hungarian diplomacy has been successful in asserting the country’s interests this year despite pressure from pro-migration forces in the European Union, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said at the annual hearing of parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

    Migration remains at the top of the European political agenda, Szijjártó said at the hearing on Tuesday. Those nations who go against the mainstream by advocating for the right to decide who should be allowed into their respective countries are subjected to permanent pressure and the idea of a compulsory settlement quota is very much alive, he said.

    Under these circumstances it is a great success that Hungary was able to defend itself and did not yield to pressure, Szijjártó said.

    Under these circumstances it is a great success that Hungary was able to defend itself and did not yield to pressure.

    He warned that there are major forces at work who want to make the United Nations’ Global Migration Compact into a document of international reference, and despite the opposition of Hungary and several other countries, these forces may still achieve their goal.

    Szijjártó said that Hungary is a medium-sized Central European country surrounded by major powers and Hungarian diplomacy must ensure that all of them recognize Hungary’s interests.

    In this sense, 2019 was a success, as indicated by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s visit to Washington, the decision of the leaders of Germany, Russia and Turkey to visit Hungary, and the prime minister’s regular consultations with the French President Emmanuel Macron.

    He added that the Visegrád Four (V4) group remains the most successful political alliance in the European Union. The countries of the group are both effective in representing their joint interests in the EU’s various bodies and are also committed to maintaining and further improving lucrative economic relations.

    He also pointed out that in his capacity of minister of foreign trade, foreign direct investments in the first ten months of the year have reached 1,400 billion forints (€4.17 billion), surpassing the full-year figure from last year.

    Szijjártó highlighted that another major diplomatic success of the country was the approval of its candidate for EU commissioner for the EU’s enlargement and neighborhood relations portfolio despite the “tricks” employed against him.


    Title image: Minister if foreign affairs and trade Péter Szijjártó (C) at the annual hearing of parliament’s foreign affairs committee. (MTI/Szilárd Koszticsák)

  • US sanctions on Nord Stream 2 companies in new Pentagon budget bill

    U.S. sanctions on companies involved in the construction of Nord Stream 2 have been written into the Pentagon budget bill for the 2020 financial year.

    Jim Risch, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, explained that this was the last call for writing the sanctions into the bill as the majority of Nord Stream 2 has already been completed.

    The chairman emphasized that the sanctions will be extremely severe and will discourage companies from participating in the project. “It will cost them dearly. I think if those sanctions pass, [the companies] will shut down, and I think the Russians will have to look for another way to do this, if they can do this,” Risch said.

    Risch believes that the amendments concerning Nord Stream 2 have much in common with the “defense of European energy security” bill which the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted through in July 2019.

    In that bill, U.S. Senators determined that Russia is using resource delivery as a tool for political blackmail and Nord Stream 2 will facilitate Russian efforts even further. The new amendments foresee sanctions on financial and business partners of Nord Stream 2 in Western Europe.

    The U.S. has previously passed a resolution against the project in 2018.

    Both chambers of the U.S. Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives, must now vote over adding the amendments to the budget project.

    Meanwhile, German far-right Alternativ für Deutschland MP and member of the Bundestag Commission for Economy and Energy, Steffen Kotre, spoke out against the sanctions, claiming that they would lead to an “increase in the prices of gas for European consumers.”

    He argued, that the sanctions will not be able to stop the construction of Nord Stream 2 and are “an act of aggressive U.S. economic policy towards Europe.” He also accused the US of being “wicked”.

    Kotre stated that the real goal of the U.S. is to make way for the export of LNG gas to Europe.

    According to German daily “Bild”, if the sanctions were to be introduced by Dec. 31, 2019, it would delay the project by five years. Experts underlined that the opting out of specialized companies due to sanctions would have “serious consequences”.

    Nord Stream 2 is meant to be 1,200 kilometers long and the second gas line between Germany and Russia running through the Baltic Sea. The owner is Russian Gazprom with European investment partners including Engie, OMV, Shell, Uniper, and Wintershall.

    The Nord Stream 2 investment is worth $11 billion with a capacity of 55 billion cubic meters of gas a year.

    Poland along with other Visegrad Four countries have been opposed to the Nord Stream 2 project, claiming it will marginalize them politically and economically. The project will also provide an enormous new funding stream for the Russian government.

  • Hungarian movie raises awareness of Soviet war crimes: commentary

    Hungarian actress Marina Gera’s winning the International Emmy Award for best female performer is not only a huge victory for Hungarian cinema but also raises awareness of Soviet war crimes that saw millions deported from their countries.

    Gera’s nomination for the award as the first Hungarian actress was in itself a rare moment of grace for Hungarian culture, but actually winning it elevated the event to a whole new level.

    This was a minor miracle because – let us not fool ourselves – the Western world is largely unaware of Soviet war crimes, and the tragic fate of the tens of millions of deported and killed both in the Soviet Union and the occupied countries. They have every reason to be ignorant, as there were no major movies about the topic and in this century.

    When it comes to culture and general public awareness, anything that is not the subject of a major movie may as well have never even happened.

    Anything that is not the subject of a major movie may as well have never even happened.

    Eternal Winter tore down a wall and marked the end of a taboo. The multiple awards gathered by the movie – 31 and counting, including Best European Television Film – signals a paradigm shift which is entirely the movie’s doing.

    We have heard too often that we cannot achieve international success with Hungarian history and many even accepted this as the inevitable fate of small nations.

    But the success of Eternal Winter showed that Hungarian cinema can be successful in continuing the grand tradition of its most notable creations dealing with national history and social drama. We had to wait thirty years for a movie about the hundreds of thousands of Hungarian deported to the Gulag but now that it is here, we can hope that the eternal winter has finally ended, heralding the onset of a new Hungarian spring.

    Title image: Marina Gera with the International Emmy Award for best actress (MTI/EPA/Jason Szenes)

  • Tigers rescued in Poland will find a new home in Spain

    Five of the tigers which were saved from smugglers at the Polish-Belarusian border will find a new home in Spain. The animals were nursed back to health in the Poznań Zoo and readied for transportation over the last few weeks.

    Ewa Zgrabczyńska, the director of the Poznań zoo, said that five of the tigers are currently prepared for delivery to their asylum in Spain.

    She underlined that the transport is possible due to the engagement of the Polish Ministry of the Environment, the state prosecutor’s office and the prosecutor’s office in Lublin, East Poland.

    The director explained that the transportation of the tigers will be financed by animal rights lawyers and will involve specialized vehicles and cages. The tigers will make the trip accompanied by veterinary staff. including Poznań Zoo workers.

    Zgrabczyńska admitted that several of the workers see the tigers as their children and want to ensure they make a safe journey to their new home in Spain.

    Zgrabczyńska also thanked those involved in securing the transport for the tigers, including Poznań’s deputy mayor Mariusz Wiśniewski, Minister Jadwiga Emilewicz, MPs, senators, the prosecutor’s offices, and even the hundreds of people who fought for the tiger’s safety on social media.

    Transport of death

    Seven out of ten tigers from the “transport of death” stopped on the Polish-Belarusian border were living in the Poznań Zoo. The other two tigers stayed in the zoological garden in Człuchów in northern Poland. The last tiger died during the inhumane transport to Russia.

    Officially, the tigers were traveling from Italy to Russia in tight cages stacked in a truck on their way to be delivered to a private zoo in Dagestan. The conditions of their transportation, however, imply that parts of their bodies were meant to be processed into Eastern medicine and aphrodisiacs.

    The transport of the animals to Spain was previously under question, despite the approval from both the municipal veterinarian and the General Veterinary Inspectorate. The main issues had to with administrative regulations and a block on transporting the animals by the local authorities of Terespol, the municipality where the tigers were stopped.

    Owing to the intervention of the ministry and the prosecutor’s office, however, the transport of the tigers was approved.

  • A new chapter in EU-Polish relations after Michel-Morawiecki meeting in Warsaw

    After meeting with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, President-elect of the European Council Charles Michel declared that Poland is an important country for the future of Europe and that the EU will look to reach “meaningful compromise.”

    Michel and Morawiecki held a meeting on Tuesday in Warsaw. During the press conference, the prime minister thanked the EC president-elect for the “good atmosphere of our meeting and for this new approach, which is needed to build compromise.”

    Morawiecki said they discussed a variety of topics, including the EU budget and threats to trade due to trade wars and protectionism. Morawiecki emphasized that Poland wants the EU to be both an economic and political global power.

    Michel proposed they dedicate a significant amount of discussion during the next European Council session towards “strategic debate needed by the heads of different states so we can focus on key issues,” such as climate policy.

    The state secretary also mentioned that the diplomatic situation is much better than it was previously; however, there is always room to improve relationships.

    He praised the exemplary treatment of Hungarians by the Serbian government, mentioning that a Hungarian president was elected to the Provincial Parliament of Vojvodina; and when the national government was formed, they invited the Hungarian party to the coalition despite the fact that the governing parties already had the majority of the seats.

    He also mentioned the unpleasant situation in Ukraine, where new laws on language and education aim to make it impossible for Hungarians to use their mother tongue practically anywhere, except at home.

    “As long as there is no change, Hungary will block all NATO meetings with Ukraine at the highest level,” he said, adding that this kind of international action is unavoidable, as “Ukraine deprives the Hungarians of their already acquired minority rights, and the Hungarian government will not sacrifice Hungarians living beyond its borders on the altar of geopolitics.”

    Touching upon the economic ties with Hungarians living in neighboring countries, Menczer presented the results of the cross-border economic development program. Since launching in 2016, 44,882 tenders have been judged, 121.9 billion forints (€360 million) in government support has been allocated, and accepted tenders have created investments wort 228 billion forints (€680 million).

    Turning to the question of the economy and foreign trade, the state secretary recalled that back in 2010, Hungary faced an unemployment rate of 11.5 percent, which is now around a mere 3 percent.

    “For this rate, international investments have been essential, and the results are getting better year by year,” Menczer said, further detailing the record-breaking number from last year. “In 2018, 98 international projects arrived to Hungary, with a total of €4.3 billion in investments, creating 13,000 jobs. And 2019’s numbers have already surpassed last year’s. In the first ten months of 2019, with €4.7 billion in investments arriving in the country.”

    Answering the critics who say that these investments make Hungary merely an “assembly factory,” he said that from “last year’s 98 investment, 29 were related to R&D and innovation, showing a 40 percent increase compared to the previous year’s numbers.”

    He also added that it is worth keeping in mind that all companies first relocate their assembly capacity to another country before bringing their value-added sectors to the region.

    Turning to Hungary’s foreign policy, Menczer reminded those present that, “It’s in the country’s interest to have good relationships with Berlin, Moscow, and Ankara and make them partners and interested in Hungary’s success as well.”

    He also drew attention to the fact that Western countries are using double standards when it comes to the relationship between Hungary and Russia. The state secretary said that while Hungary is labeled as “Russia friendly,” trade with Russia increased by 56 percent in Germany, 40 percent in France, 37 percent in Italy, and 23 percent in the Netherlands.

    Touching upon the relations with China, Menczer shared a relevant fact with the audience concerning how Huawei will work in cooperation on a 5G network with Deutsch Telekom and British Vodafone in Hungary.

    “The critics don’t mention the 17+1 cooperation and the alleged influence on these countries by the Belt and Road Initiative launched by the Chinese government,” said Menczer. “From the cooperation’s 17 countries, 12 are Member States of the EU, whose trade volume with China amounts to only 10 percent of the EU’s trade with the Eastern giant.”

    Finally, State Secretary Tamás Menczer said that migration is a challenge we in Europe live with, saying that between “30 and 35 million people can make the decision any minute that it’s time to move.”

    He added that these people “have already left their country, their residence, or need aid because of their hopeless situation.”

    “Help must be taken where it is needed,” he concluded, adding that the Hungarian government has already provided $40 million in support to make it possible for 50,000 people to stay where they live. Sadly, this is achieved despite zero help from the political opposition in Hungary.

  • The Von der Leyen Commission, a victory for Poland and Hungary?

    When Ursula von der Leyen’s candidacy was approved by the European Council at the beginning of July, Polish and Hungarian leaders claimed victory. Von der Leyen, who had been Germany’s defence minister since 2013 and who belongs to Angela Merkel’s CDU, was said to be a good candidate from the standpoint of the four countries of the Visegrád Group, and it was suggested that her candidacy had been agreed with Berlin, perhaps with some assurances concerning a different approach to Central Europe by the next European Commission.

    Most importantly though, the candidacy of the Dutch First Vice-President of the European Commission for the rule of law, who was also the Spitzenkandidat (lead candidate) of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, was defeated. Frans Timmermans had been proposed in June by Paris, Berlin and Madrid as a good “compromise”, but he was seen in Central Europe as the worst possible candidate for his numerous interferences in Polish and Hungarian internal affairs, perceived in Warsaw and Budapest as a double-standard approach to the rule of law, an abuse of power and a violation of the European treaties. Timmermans’ candidacy was thus blocked by the Visegrád Four countries and Italy.

    The election of Ursula von der Leyen – a victory for whom?

    In late July, after her candidacy had been approved by a slim margin in the European Parliament with the support of PiS and Fidesz MEPs, Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki played host to the new President-elect of the European Commission in Warsaw. On that occasion he expressed his satisfaction and described his discussions with von der Leyen as having met “Polish expectations in a great number of issues” and as “a chance for a positive future for the EU and Poland as a key country of the EU”, stressing that the question of the rule of law had not been raised by Von der Leyen and that she seemed to agree with Poland on most subjects. After meeting the President-elect in August, Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán also expressed his satisfaction, and said that Ursula von der Leyen “understands what is happening in Central Europe, understands what we say, and understands what is important for the Hungarians.”

    On the question of the rule of law, which has been at the centre of the most bitter conflicts between the Juncker Commission and both Poland and Hungary, Ursula von der Leyen said in July that she sees the proposal to link EU funds to the rule of law as a last resort, preferring to seek dialogue first, adding that “We must all learn that complete rule of law is our goal, but no one is perfect”, and asking everyone “to make the debates more objective”.

    However, the credit for the choice of Von der Leyen and for her subsequent approval by the European Parliament was also claimed by others. In Italy, for example, the leftist Five Star Movement (M5S) boasted that the German candidate had been approved thanks to their 14 MEPs, which was also accurate. It was even a new source of conflict within the first Conte government in Italy, as Matteo Salvini’s Lega, after some hesitation, had voted against Von der Leyen’s candidacy and then criticised her approval by a coalition made up of “Merkel, Macron, Berlusconi, Renzi and M5S”.

    Earlier, when Ursula von der Leyen was announced as the choice of the European Council, this was presented in the French media as a personal success for President Emmanuel Macron, who had managed to unlock the situation in the Council and to have everyone agree on the election of a progressive Euro-federalist candidate.

    Ursula von der Leyen has been in the past a supporter of the LGBT agenda and an advocate of German-style federalism at European level, although she now claims to have changed her mind on the latter. Even if she is sincere, other key posts were assigned to people whose views are also much closer to Macron’s than to Kaczyński’s and Orbán’s: Belgian liberal PM Charles Michel as President-elect of the European Council, Spanish socialist foreign minister Josep Borrell as High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and French liberal Christine Lagarde as President of the European Central Bank. All of them have the same kind of leftist-liberal and Euro-federalist views as Macron.

    So who is right? Have some unknown guarantees been given to PiS and Fidesz leaders in Warsaw and Budapest to win the support of the Visegrád Group for Von der Leyen’s candidacy? And what about the other members of the incoming Commission, which is to replace the Juncker Commission on December 1 (instead of November 1, after three Commissioners-designate were rejected by the European Parliament)?

    Three leftist-liberal vice-presidents

    His candidacy for the top post having been rejected by Central Europe, Frans Timmermans has received from Von der Leyen the portfolio of Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal and Climate Action. He will thus have the opportunity to continue fighting the Polish and Hungarian governments, which are opposed to the target of net-zero carbon emissions by the year 2050 set by Ursula von der Leyen, which they see as unrealistic and dangerous for their economies. With Poland relying mainly on coal for its electricity, it can expect to remain at the centre of Timmermans’ attention. Neither the new European Parliament nor the new European Commission will be on Poland’s and Hungary’s side on this issue.

    Two other Vice-Presidents-designate of the Von der Leyen Commission should not be expected to be too favourable to Poland and Hungary either.

    As the European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality in the Juncker Commission, the Czech Commissioner Věra Jourová from PM Andrej Babiš’ ANO party (belonging to the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament) was the first to put forward a proposal to link EU funds to the rule of law and “European values” in order to give the European Commission a new, powerful means of applying pressure to member states.

    In the Von der Leyen Commission, Jourová is to hold the post of “Vice-President for Values and Transparency”. As per her mission letter received from President Von der Leyen, she “will coordinate the Commission’s work on upholding the rule of law, working closely with the Commissioner for Justice” and she “will be responsible for monitoring the application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights”. Věra Jourová is also entrusted with the task of brokering “discussions between the European Parliament and the Council on improving the lead candidate system and on the issue of transnational lists” in European elections, a move advocated by French president Emmanuel Macron and supported by German chancellor Angela Merkel which would constitute a push towards EU federalism and an effort to circumvent the European treaties, according to which the President of the European Commission should be chosen by the European Council, not by the European Parliament.

    Another vice-presidency was given to another member of the centrist-liberal Renew Europe group (called ALDE in the previous European Parliament), to which MEPs from Macron’s LREM party also belong. Danish Commissioner Margrethe Vestager is to keep her current responsibilities as European Commissioner for Competition in spite of having lost a record number of cases against member states in the Court of Justice of the European Union, and in contravention of the usual rule that a commissioner who is designated for a second term should not keep the same portfolio.

    Last summer Vestager appealed the unfavourable decisions of the CJEU in the case of Hungary’s progressive tax on turnover from the broadcasting or publication of advertisements, and in the case of Poland’s progressive retail tax. Apart from keeping the Competition portfolio, Vestager will take on the “Digital Age” portfolio and will become a Commission Vice-President. In the Juncker Commission, she has been supportive of Timmermans’ action against Poland and Hungary, but as Spitzenkandidat (lead candidate) of the ALDE group (the former name of Renew Europe) in the European Parliament she seemed to be more inclined towards a fair and open-minded dialogue with Warsaw and Budapest than was her Dutch counterpart.

    Rule of law

    Next to Věra Jourová, the second commissioner with responsibility for the rule of law will be the Belgian Didier Reynders, as Commissioner-designate for Justice. In his mission letter received from President-elect Von der Leyen, it is stated that he “will lead the Commission’s work on the comprehensive European Rule of Law Mechanism”, that he “should use the full toolbox at [his] disposal to prevent and identify breaches”, and that he should “focus on tighter enforcement, using recent judgments of the Court of Justice showing the impact of rule-of-law breaches on EU law as a basis”.

    Given the number of cases brought to the Court of Justice by the outgoing Juncker Commission and the tendency of the Luxembourg judges to extend the competencies and powers of the EU through a very broad interpretation of the European treaties, such wording is rather indicative of a will to continue on the course taken by Euro-federalist Frans Timmermans.

    Didier Reynders is the minister of defence and a vice-premier in Charles Michel’s government. In the past, he has held other top ministerial functions in several Belgian governments, including in the first government of Guy Verhofstad, a vociferous advocate of European federalism with ultra-progressive views (it was that government which first legalised euthanasia in Belgium in 2002). Reynders’ and Michel’s party, Mouvement réformateur (MR), is affiliated to the progressive and Euro-federalist Renew Europe group in the European Parliament.

    It is also worth noting that the current Michel government is now an interim minority government, because of the split in the coalition after PM Charles Michel, the leader of MR, insisted Belgium would sign the UN Global Compact for Migration in Marrakesh in December 2018. Poland and Hungary, together with other Central European countries, have refused to sign this Global Compact, arguing that it would compel signatory countries to treat illegal immigrants on a par with legal immigrants. And although it is in theory just a common declaration with no legal effect, the Juncker Commission itself seems to think otherwise.

    As has been the case under Timmermans’ tenure, the rule-of-law portfolio held by Reynders could therefore become an instrument against countries such as Poland and Hungary which have refused to take their share of illegal immigrants. At the end of October, the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union published an opinion stating that Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic broke EU laws by refusing compulsory quotas of asylum seekers, and since his opinion is often adopted by the Court of Justice, this issue could soon become one of the “recent judgments of the Court of Justice showing the impact of rule-of-law breaches on EU law”.

    “There will be no compromise when democracy is at stake”, Didier Reynders promised during his hearings in front of the LIBE and JURI committees in the European Parliament. And in an interview with the Belgian daily Le Soir he gave an assurance that he had always been supportive of Frans Timmermans’ action in this area. Therefore, although Reynders promises an approach that will be based more on dialogue (but for how long?), he may be expected to continue the European Commission’s interference in fields which are normally reserved for member states, in its effort to expand the EU’s competencies and powers without revising the European treaties.

    Equality

    Frans Timmermans, who was in favour of the European Commission trying to force member states to legalise “gay marriage”, will no longer be in charge of the rule of law, but the Commissioner-designate for Equality, whom President-elect Ursula von der Leyen has entrusted with the task to “strengthen Europe’s commitment to inclusion and equality, in all of its senses”, to “lead the fight against discrimination (…) and propose new anti-discrimination legislation”, and to “develop a new European Gender Strategy”, is Malta’s Helena Dalli, from the Labour Party.

    In her own country, in 2015 Helena Dali was the author of a new law,the Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act – establishing wide-ranging rights for “transgender” and “intersex” people, the first of its kind in the world for the latter group. In the new European Commission, she will also be in charge of promoting the adoption at EU level of the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, which Slovakia and Bulgaria have refused to ratify, and which bishops from eight Central and Eastern European countries asked their governments to denounce in 2018 on the ground that it is a convention based on gender ideology with a strong anti-family bias.

    Immigration

    In the Juncker Commission, immigration issues were part of the portfolio of the European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos of Greece. Although a member of the centre-right New Democracy party, which has governed Greece under PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis since July with a tougher approach to immigration (while still demanding the relocation of illegal immigrants throughout the EU), Avramopoulos is a strong advocate of mass immigration to Europe.

    In February 2017 at the University of Geneva, Avramopoulos openly declared that the EU-27 would need six million more immigrants in the coming years and that the EU would open immigration offices in all countries on the southern coast of the Mediterranean and in western Africa as a way to fight illegal immigration.

    This sounded very much like the Soros Plan often denounced by Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán. Avramopoulos conceded that “we cannot, however, let everyone in”, as it “would only feed xenophobia, nationalism and populism”, but later, in December 2017, Avramopoulos published an article to explain to his fellow Europeans that illegal “migrants are here to stay”, that “we cannot and will never be able to stop migration” and that we should therefore “collectively change our way of thinking”.

    In the new Von der Leyen Commission, Avramopoulos’ responsibilities will be shared between his fellow Greek and party colleague Margaritis Schinas, Vice-President-designate for Protecting our European Way of Life, in charge of the integration of immigrants, culture and sport, and Sweden’s socialist Ylva Johansson, Commissioner-designate for Home Affairs in charge of immigration and asylum.

    As concerns the first of these areas (integration), Ursula von der Leyen’s approach seems far removed from that of the Eurislam Project, with its goal of finding ways to better integrate Muslim newcomers based on a process of mutual adaptation by immigrants and Europeans. The very name of Schinas’ portfolio has been heavily criticised in the European Parliament, as well as its joint focus on security, the protection of European values and the coordination of work on a New Pact on Migration and Asylum, which would include “creating pathways to legal migration to help us bring in people with the skills and talents our economy and labour market need”.

    Schinas’ mission letter thus seems to indicate a real shift away from mass, uncontrolled immigration towards selective immigration and integration in line with European norms and values. The same can be said of Johansson’s mission letter. The Commissioner-designate for Home Affairs is entrusted with the task of closing “loopholes between asylum and return rules” as “we must honour our values and our responsibilities to those fleeing persecution or conflict, while at the same time ensuring that those not eligible to stay go back”.

    Ursula von der Leyen also wants the Home Affairs Commissioner “to work closely with the High Representative/Vice-President and other Commissioners to develop stronger cooperation with countries of origin and transit” and to “work closely with Member States to step up efforts to develop a more robust system of readmission and return”.

    The fact that a majority of those who have been refused asylum in a European country are not sent back is a major pull factor for illegal immigration according to many, among them Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency. Therefore a common policy aiming to effectively send back most illegal immigrants would be a big step forward for the EU, and would represent a complete reversal of attitude within the European Commission, where Schinas’ and Johansson’s predecessor tried to persuade Europeans that illegal immigrants were here to stay and that many more would soon come to Europe.

    Johansson’s mission letter also mentions the need to find “new forms of solidarity” which would “ensure that all Member States make meaningful contributions to support those countries under the most pressure”, and this suggests that the new Commission will no longer support the case for compulsory relocation of illegal immigrants who have asked for asylum (as do most illegal immigrants in order to avoid deportation).

    In this matter, it is worth noting that a new relocation scheme agreed by Germany, France, Italy and Malta failed to gain the support of the European Council in October, and that a European Parliament resolution on search and rescue in the Mediterranean, demanding that ports be opened to NGO ships and a relocation system be put into place, was also defeated by a slim margin in October. A majority of MEPs now seem to agree with what the Visegrád countries (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) have been claiming since 2015: that opening ports to illegal immigrants and distributing them to other EU countries are pull factors.

    However, although the Frontex European Border and Coast Guard Agency itself has described search and rescue operations by European ships close to the North African coast as a pull factor in past Risk Analysis reports, Ylva Johansson does not agree with that claim. During her hearing in front of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), Johansson stated clearly, in answer to a question from Nicola Procaccini (Fratelli d’Italia) of the ECR group, to which Poland’s PiS also belongs: “I do not share your view that saving lives at sea and helping them to be disembarked in a proper way is a pull factor.”

    Johansson also showed clear support for the failed relocation agreement which was then being pushed forward by France and Germany, and she expressed her commitment to mass immigration in the following terms, saying, “It’s important for economic migrants that we should find better ways for our legal pathways to Europe, both for resettlement and for legal migrants that come to work in Europe. We are an ageing continent. We’re going to need more people to contribute to our economy and I look forward to developing new ways that skilled workers can come and contribute to our economy in the European Union.”

    Placing the focus on selective immigration does not necessarily imply putting an end to illegal immigration and other forms of uncontrolled or poorly controlled immigration, and Johansson’s views in this area do not actually seem very different from those of Avramopoulos.

    Enlargement and Eastern Partnership

    In the Von der Leyen Commission, the Neighbourhood and Enlargement portfolio is to be assigned to the Hungarian Commissioner. This assignment was maintained after the rejection by the Legal Affairs committee of Hungary’s first candidate, László Trócsányi.

    The main criticism of Trócsányi seemed to be the fact that he had been Hungary’s justice minister in Viktor Orbán’s governments from 2014 until he was elected to the European Parliament in May. Hungary being accused by the European left and part of the centre-right of having weakened democracy and the rule of law with its reforms, some MEPs felt it would be inappropriate to entrust one of the artisans of the Hungarian reforms with the task of monitoring reforms in other countries on their journey towards becoming members of the European Union. Thus, unlike in the case of the rejection of France’s Sylvie Goulard, the rejection of Trócsányi was said in his home country to be politically motivated. Nonetheless, the award of this portfolio to Hungary is seen as a success for Viktor Orbán, Hungary and the Visegrád Group, who attach much importance to the enlargement of the EU in the Western Balkans.

    However, Emmanuel Macron’s decision to block the start of accession talks with Albania and Northern Macedonia at a European Council last October counterbalances Viktor Orbán’s success. This was a bitter reminder of the fact that one single country in the Council could wreck the future work of Olivér Várhelyi, Hungary’s new Commissioner-designate for Neighbourhood and Enlargement.

    Indeed, his mission letter clearly states that “it is imperative” to keep “a credible perspective on future accession” for the Western Balkans and that “the Commission will stand by the proposals made to open enlargement negotiations with the Republic of North Macedonia and the Republic of Albania”. It is worth noting, however, that Várhelyi’s mission will also cover the Eastern Partnership with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

    Transport, Agriculture and Cohesion funds

    Romania’s Commissioner, with the portfolio of Transport, is also of some importance for Central Europe, and in particular Poland, whose road transport sector is very strong. Four candidates were rejected, starting with Labour minister Rovana Plumb, on the basis of a supposed conflict of interest and discrepancies in property statements. However, the rejection of four candidates in succession seems to suggest that the goal of MEPs was to force Romania to name a candidate who would be approved not only by the government of Viorica Dăncilă, which, as in the case of Poland and Hungary, has been accused by the European Parliament of weakening the principles of rule of law, but also by the Europhile liberal president Klaus Johannis. This condition was fulfilled by the fifth candidate proposed by Romania, Adina-Ioana Vălean, who has sat in the European Parliament since 2006.

    It is worth noting that on the question of the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services, she voted last year against a new directive also opposed by the Polish PiS and Hungarian Fidesz, thus rebelling against her own EPP group in this matter. Poland and Hungary later took the case of this directive to the Court of Justice of the EU, where it is still pending.

    The choice of Poland’s Janusz Wojciechowski as the Commissioner-designate for Agriculture can also be seen as a success for Poland. Farming is an important branch of Poland’s economy, and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) still made up 38% of the EU budget in 2018, against 32% for Cohesion Policy. One of Wojciechowski’s goals will be to fulfil the promise made by PiS to bring payments made to Polish and Central European farmers to the same level as those received by their Western counterparts. With the CAP in need of reform, the Commissioner-designate for Agriculture will have an important role to play in the next Commission.

    The Commissioner-designate for Cohesion and Reforms is Portuguese socialist Elisa Ferreira. At a time when EU countries are discussing the next Multiannual Financial Framework in the context of the likely loss of the British contribution (because of Brexit) and of a dispute about whether to reduce the sums allocated to cohesion funds accordingly or to increase contributions paid by the remaining member states, this portfolio will thus be in the hands of a Commissioner from a country which is a net beneficiary of cohesion funds.

    Together with the V4 countries, Portugal is also part of the Friends of Cohesion group, which advocates maintaining the level of cohesion funds in the next Multiannual Financial Framework and introducing more flexibility in the way they can be spent. In the words of Andrey Novakov, a Bulgarian MEP from EPP and the co-rapporteur of the European Parliament on Common Provisions Regulation for Cohesion Policy for 2021–2027, who took part in Ferreira’s hearing in early October, the Commissioner-designate has shown clear support for Cohesion policy and the will “to fight for the maximum budget possible.”

    In Ferreira’s own words, it is important “to ensure that resources remain focused on poorer member states and regions”. However, during her hearing in front of the Regional Development Committee Elisa Ferreira backed the idea of linking EU funds to the rule of law, a move which could bring about new conflicts between EU institutions dominated by pro-mass immigration, progressive socialists and liberals, and countries ruled by conservative, ‘illiberal’, anti-mass immigration governments such as Poland and Hungary. In any case, even if the new rule of law mechanism that is being discussed is designed in such a way as to prevent it from being misused based on political or ideological motives, it will imply a significant transfer of sovereignty from member states to EU institutions. 

    Defence

    Therefore, by and large, the future Commission in its current form does not seem to be very different from the Juncker Commission, as it is again dominated by left-wing progressive Euro-federalists. The fact that France’s Sylvie Goulard’s candidacy was rejected by the European Parliament was due to objective considerations concerning her past actions in that Parliament, with a mixture of conflicts of interests and doubts about the use of funds for parliamentary assistants, for which she is being investigated by prosecutors in her own country. With the portfolio of the Internal Market, Defence and Space, France’s new Commissioner-designate Thierry Breton, although not a vice-president of the Commission, will hold a very powerful position.

    In the defence sector, in 2016 Thierry Breton defended the case for a European security and defence fund for the Euro area – that is, without countries such as Poland and Hungary – which would entail the need for a Eurozone budget, an idea defended by Emmanuel Macron and opposed by the Visegrád Group. On the other hand, Bretton is in favour of raising defence spending to the level of 2% of GDP asked for by NATO, and he considers that defence should rely on sovereign decisions by nation-states within the framework of NATO, which is in line with the positions defended by the V4 countries.

    Conclusion

    Overall, as far as its members are concerned, the Von der Leyen Commission will remain ideologically closer to France’s and Germany’s current leaders than to those of the Visegrád Group. However Ursula von der Leyen herself seems to be willing to have a different approach to Central Europe. Whether her candidacy was a good choice for the Visegrád Four and for the European Union as a whole remains to be seen, but in any case the main source of concern for the V4 at this stage should be the idea of linking EU funds to the rule of law. This would indeed place a very powerful and arbitrary instrument in the hands of the European Commission, and some of the current Commissioner-designates would most probably be willing to use it.

    The full Von der Leyen Commission still has to win the approval of the European Parliament. The vote on the new Commission is planned for November 27, and if it is approved it will succeed the Juncker Commission on December 1.

    Reprinted with permission from the Wacław Felczak Institute.

  • Czech scientist confirms Shakespeare had co-author

    Historians have long assumed that William Shakespeare did not write the play Henry VIII entirely by himself. Now, a study by a Czech linguist suggests that one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries wrote almost half of the work.

    According to an analysis by Petr Plecháč from the Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences, John Fletcher is the author of almost half of the play Henry VIII.

    Compared to Shakespeare’s earlier work, the drama about English King Henry VIII marked a stylistically new direction for the famed author, but researchers have not agreed on who cooperated with him to produce the play.

    In the 19th century, however, British academic James Spedding was the first to identify Fletcher as a possible co-author.

    In his research on the topic, Plecháč combined vocabulary and verses analysis with machine learning methods. He designed an algorithm to examine the play from various angles, including the frequency of certain words or rhythmic patterns.

    Plecháč concluded that the first two scenes of the first act are unmistakably the work of Shakespeare based on the rhythm of the verses, but the next four scenes in the first and second acts are Fletcher’s.

    The two playwrights share credit for a scene in the third act, while most of the fifth act suggests Fletcher was the author, he found.

    Fletcher, together with Shakespeare, worked in the prestigious theater company King’s Men. Shakespeare also collaborated with Philip Messinger, whom some historians also described as co-creator of Henry VIII. Plecháč’s findings, however, do not support this hypothesis.

    On the other hand, the new analysis suggests another unknown author may have contributed to the fourth act, which does not correspond to either Fletcher’s or Shakespeare’s style.

  • US to honor Czech soldier in memoriam

    A Czech military dog handler who was killed during a mission in Afghanistan last year will now receive the United States Armed Forces’ Bronze Star Medal in memoriam.

    Tomáš Procházka will be awarded the Bronze Star medal by a representative of the United States Embassy at the Center for Military Cynologists in Chotyně, Liberec, where Procház served.

    Chief of General Staff Aleš Opata will also attend the ceremony, according to a press release from the Czech Ministry of Defense.

    The Bronze Star medal, created during World War ll, is one of the top ten military honors in the United States. Awarding the medal to the members of the armed forces is conditional on the recipient performing a brave deed in the fight against the enemy or by excellent service in such a fight.

    Procházka is the last of 14 Czech soldiers who died in Afghanistan. He was killed at the Shindand base in Herat Province as an Afghan soldier started to shoot at a vehicle with Czech soldiers. Besides Procházka, two members of the special armed forces were also injured.

    Dog handler Tomáš Procházka was posthumously promoted to the rank of ensign. This year, President Miloš Zeman also awarded him the Medal for Heroism.

  • EU takes action against Islamic State’s online activities

    At the end of November, police and judicial authorities from several European Union countries intervened against the Islamic State and severely disrupted the online operations of the terrorist network.

    The law enforcement operation, which lasted a total of four days, ended on Sunday, Nov. 24. Experts identified over 26,000 cases of content supporting the Islamic State and sent these materials to nine Internet service providers who were asked to block them.

    The operation focused, among other things, on accounts and sites associated with Amaq News Agency, the Islamic State’s propaganda authority.

    “The IS disappeared from a large portion of the Internet,” said Eric Van Der Sypt, a spokesman for Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office, at a Europol press conference. “At the moment, I can’t say it’s 100 percent; we’ll see how things shake out. However, it will cost them a tremendous effort to come back,” he said about the radicals’ presence on the Internet.

    In addition to Europol, the Eurojust agency supported the intervention, in which 12 EU member states took part. Belgian authorities headed the operation, while in Spain, local police arrested a person suspected of having a central role in spreading the propaganda of the Islamic State.

    Tech giants such as Google, Twitter, or Instagram, as well as the Telegram messaging service cooperated with the EU authorities.

    Telegram, which allows encrypted communication, was reportedly the main part of online terrorist activities. Europol, however, highlighted its cooperation with Telegram and stated that its efforts resulted in pushing “a significant proportion of key players of the Islamic State network” off of the Telegram messaging platform.

    “The IS is not just about the battlefield. Through media channels in our countries, they have radicalized and recruited a large number of foreign fighters,” said Van Der Sypt.

    According to him, IS activities, against which the EU authorities intervened, are directly linked to the radicalization of European citizens.

  • Czechia opposes the EU’s plan to prohibit pesticides

    The Czech Republic opposes the European Union’s plan to prohibit the use of certain pesticides by the end of 2020, with the government claiming the controversial chemicals are the only means the country’s forestry authorities have to deal with an ongoing bark beetle infestation.

    Every year, the bark beetle causes more and more damage in Czech forests. To fight the beetle, forestry authorities depend mainly on pesticides. By the end of next year, however, the EU wants to ban the active ingredient used in these chemicals.

    As there is no other effective alternative, the Czech Republic, along with other states, is currently negotiating to extend this deadline so that pyrethroids can be used until 2026.

    “Currently, the relevant committee in Brussels considers extending the deadline not only for the Czech Republic but for everyone,” said Deputy Minister of Agriculture Patrik Mlynář who is in charge of forestry.

    In 2026, according to the ministry’s forecasts, the bark beetle calamity in Central Europe should end or at least weaken. That is why Czechia is asking for an extension to use pyrethroids till that concrete date.

    Chemical spraying and insecticide nets are used in the Czech Republic to fight the bark beetle in more than 50 percent of cases. The main reason is that the only other solution, which involves manually removing the bark of afflicted trees, is demanding work and there are not enough people to perform it.

    “The lack of staff and the large volume of affected sites are crucial, and therefore chemical remediation offers more effective results,” explained Mlynář.

    There is a good chance that the deadline for the pesticide used in forest protection and pest control products will be extended. The bark beetle issue is quite common, and many EU countries such as Germany, are also dealing with infestations. As a result, Germany, a strong player in Europe, could support the extension.

    “Larger states are also interested in the use of chemical spraying, however, some ground rules and conditions for their use have to be set. This means that not all active ingredients will be available to everyone, and some will require training on how to handle them,” added Mlynář.

  • Poland achieves major solar energy milestone

    Poland is now generating over one gigawatt of power through solar energy, a major milestone for the country, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA)

    The Renewables 2019 report from the IEA says that Poland’s rapid growth in its use of clean energy is expected to continue into the future.

    Globally, the power of devices creating electric energy from renewable resources will increase by 50 percent in the next five years.

    The Renewables 2019 report, published at the end of October 2019, notes that after a small slump in 2018, the power produced from renewable resources such as solar power has increased globally in 2019 by 12 percent.

    The IEA forecasts that in the next five years, the power of those devices will increase by close to 50 percent, rising from 2,501 gigawatts in 2018 to 3,721 gigawatts by 2024.

    Poland passed the one-gigawatt threshold of photovoltaic installations in October 2019. This energy is produced from all solar devices, including those installed in homes and for commerical use. The Polish power growth rate is reaching 150 percent annually.

    The IEA estimates that by 2024, the power generated from large photovoltaic devices in Poland will increase to 3 gigawatts.

    According to IEA, the price of constructing solar “power plants” has decreased between 2010 and 2018 by about 60 to 80 percent, which applies to both solar energy plants installed in homes and large commercial projects. 

    The reduction of investment spending, including government subsidies, has also impacted the decrease in prices of electric energy produced through photovoltaic sources.

    The IEA pointed out that this energy is now becoming competitive in terms of price even without financing from government budgets in all countries across the world, which were focusing on solar power to reduce greenhouse gas and pollution particles.

    IEA experts claim that price drops for solar panels and the costs of building solar plants that collect energywill continue along with , with estimates showing a drop of another 15  to 35 percent by 2024.

  • Fabergé serving set star of Hungarian pawnshop auction

    A porcelain Fabergé serving set was the star of this year’s art auction hosted by the state-owned Hungarian pawnshop chain BÁV Zrt.

    The set was eventually sold for 25.2 million forints (€75,000) to a telephone bidder, four times the starting bid. This was also the first time that BÁV accepted online bids, with the highest bid on the web coming in at 20 million forints, which was not enough to secure the serving set.

    This year’s catalog consisted of 451 items, including paintings, statues, stoneware, jewelry, wristwatches, antique swords, and firearms. Besides jewelry, Art Nouveau ceramics were present in the highest number, but the jewelry category also included a Maltese Order of Merit gold medal.

    Among the paintings, the highest price was paid for an untitled landscape by early 20th-century Hungarian painter Lajos Gulácsy, that went for 45.6 million forints (€135,713).

    Title image: Porcelain Fabergé serving set (source: bav.hu) 

  • Polish PM calls for construction of 1920 Battle of Warsaw arch

    Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that a triumphal arch commemorating the 1920 Battle of Warsaw, in which Poland defeated the Red Army, will be erected in Warsaw in a short period of time.

    The plans have liberal Warsaw’s authorities voicing their skepticism over the idea.

    The prime minister referred to the monument’s construction during his online Q&A on Facebook, saying, “The monument of the Battle of Warsaw should’ve been created 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 10 years ago, and should be done next year. It won’t, but I promise that it will be done shortly.”

    Morawiecki added that Poles should ask Warsaw’s authorities as to why the monument still doesn’t exist, as they “have not been cooperative.”

    The statesman believed that the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Warsaw on Aug. 15, 2020, should be commemorated in a special way, in the form of a triumphal arch.

    Morawiecki underlined the importance of the battle on social media:

    “There have been deciding moments in the history of Europe and the world. The 1920 Battle of Warsaw was one of them. Poles saved their homeland and the entire continent. We all owe them a huge debt. Without them, we wouldn’t be here and neither would Europe as we know it today. They deserve a huge commemoration.”

    Warsaw’s authorities hesitant

    Warsaw’s authorities have been hesitant to support the project, especially Deputy Mayor Paweł Rabiej, who criticized Morawiecki’s idea, claiming that Warsaw has more pressing issues to deal with than a triumphal arch.

    “Given the mythomania and ineptitude of PM Morawiecki, I assume that THIS will not be created. But if it were to be Mister PM, then Warsaw has many needs and your government has robbed us and restricted needed investments, I ask you to finance the bypass road or the Sinfonia Varsovia,” Rabiej said on Twitter.

    The Warsaw City Council has supported the project bill to construct a monument to the 1920 Battle of Warsaw. It was pointed out, however, that the project will not be completed in time for the 100th anniversary of the battle on Aug. 15, 2020, and will not be in the shape of a triumphal arch.

    The Battle of Warsaw, also known as the Miracle of the Vistula, was a decisive Polish victory in 1920 during the Polish-Soviet War. Poland on the verge of total defeat, repulsed and defeated the Red Army in what Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, called “an enormous defeat” for his forces.

  • PM Orbán posts video on persecution of Christians

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán posted a one-minute video on his Facebook page about how Hungary helps Christians, the most persecuted religious group in the world.

    The video features footage of Christians being executed by groups like ISIS, including 21 Coptic Christians in 2015, as well as Christian churches being destroyed.

    Part of the soundtrack is narrated, part of it has recordings of previous speeches by Orbán. The bottom line is that Hungary is doing everything in its power to help persecuted Christina communities survive and re-establish normal lives in their homes.

    The video says the following:

    “The world’s most persecuted religion: Christianity. There are 245 million Christians worldwide persecuted because of their faith. In 2018, 11 Christians were killed each day for confessing their faith. While the world listens to their cries of suffering with indifference, Hungary helps. We help our Christian brethren with all our strength. We believe that instead of bringing problems here, help must be taken where it is needed. We bring hope. We help locally and directly. We stand by persecuted Christians.”

    According to a British government report, persecution of Christians had reached near “genocide” levels around the world. The report also determined that Christians are the most persecuted of any religious group.

    The British report had a special focus on the Middle East, stating that Christians are being “wiped out” from the region. Christians once had vibrant communities across the Middle East but persecution from Muslims led them to flee or perish over the centuries.

    In recent times, groups like ISIS have struck terror in the hearts of Christians, often killing them or enslaving them. However, many actual governments in the Middle East have played even a bigger role in persecuting Christians over the decades by restricting the practice of Christianity or even participating in active persecution of Christian worshippers.

    Now, papers like the New York Times are asking if Christianity will even exist in the Middle East in the future.

    Orbán has made protecting Christianity one of the key pillars of his government’s foreign policy by sending aid to Christian groups and raising awareness about their plight.

    However, the persecution of Christians in the Middle East also played a major role in his decision to shut Hungary’s borders to Muslims refugees during the 2015 migrant crisis. 

    Christian bishops living in the Middle East informed the Hungarian prime minister that Europe would regret the decision to open its borders. Orbán told a journalist, “What did [the bishops] say? ‘Don’t let them in. Stop them.’”

    The video featured on Facebook concludes with a quote from the New Testament:

    “Let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:18)

    Title image: Persecution of Christians (capture from Facebook video)

  • 100 tons of Polish gold returns home

    The National Bank of Poland (NBP) has announced the successful completion of its project to import 100 tons of gold to Poland from the United Kingdom.

    Thousands of people were involved in the project, mostly from the banking and security services. The bars of gold, valued at €4.1 billion, were transported to Poland via airplanes which landed in Warszawa and Poznań.

    After the gold landed in Poland, blue trucks escorted by dozens of commandos distributed the gold to vaults around the country.

    The gold in question is the same which Second Polish Republic politicians Adam Koc and Ignacy Matuszewski managed to escort outside of Poland in September 1939. Their operation was designed to save the gold from invading Germans, which they transported through Romania, Turkey, Syria, and then to France and England where it remained until now.

    The head of the NBP, Adam Glapiński, stated that the central bank in England has kept a part of the gold to “carry out current settlements”.

    Journalist Paweł Czurylo posted a video in which Glapiński holds a bar of Polish gold in front of one of the vaults, saying, “The head of the NBP Adam Glapiński with Polish gold – 100 tons returned to Poland.”

    In July, the NBP said that between 2018 and 2019, the bank’s gold reserves had increased by 125.7 tons, up to 228.6 tons.

    Close to half of the total amount of Polish gold will be transported back to the country and held in NBP vaults.

  • Who ended cmmunism?

    Ignoring the element of Soviet domination and its collapse during the end of communism in 1989 leads to a skewed view of that part of history and a misunderstanding about the concept of nation-states in Europe.

    In Washington, they are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the end of communism but while listening to the politicians talking about its demise, one would never know how it actually ended. Was it a fall, an overthrow, or a defeat of communism?

    There are different interpretations of what actually happened to bring about the end of communism and within the political sphere, these interpretations become especially important. And while it is clear communism ended, the question is also what came next?

    Those who are celebrating the 30th anniversary also are not sure what came after communism. They speak of the return of democracy, but not always in a positive light.

    “Poles were the first to come out of the closet and their success encouraged Hungarian communists to swiftly negotiate a handing over of power,” said Daniel Fried, former US ambassador in Warsaw.

    He added that action was what led to the Velvet Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

    However, Fried is not delivering the most politically, sociologically and historically accurate interpretation of events. He ignores not only the facts concerning those five states, which includes the separation of Czechia and Slovakia, but also what occurred beyond them.

    Were the Round Table talks only a Polish-American initiative? Were they kept secret from Moscow? One needs only to look at Wikipedia to find out that there were national movements appearing in every Soviet republic before the Round Table, their aim more often than not to gain autonomy and independence.

     

    Jędrzejewsk said that Jewish-American lawyer “sharks” will arrive and demand heirless property despite not being the inheritors and not being connected to the victims. What’s more, those who claim this property would be able to spend the money on whatever they wanted as the law makes clear they may use the proceeds awarded to them on “other aims”.

    The Forum also pointed out that although the Polish state was given the benefit of the property unintentionally and against its will, the organizations demanding restitution want to take this “blood” money consciously, which is a huge moral difference.

    Jędrzejewski proposed a solution to the problem, saying that the funds from the heirless property should be offered to educate others about the Holocaust but should be disbursed by Poland and through Polish rules because “the murdered were Polish citizens.”

    He warned that the Polish-Jewish conflict over this property will be “Hitler’s posthumous triumph” and will lead to a permanent worsening of Polish-Jewish relations. He further claimed that today’s youth will associate the Holocaust with a huge, disgusting feud over the money of the murdered.

    “The organizations demanding ‘heirless property’ have opened – cynically and out of greed – a Pandora’s box. The U.S. Senate has mindlessly stamped it with the American bald eagle. It is a huge mistake and even worse, it will lead to ill will,” Jędrzejewski said.

  • Soros lobbied to block Hungarian commissioner candidate: report

    Billionaire financier George Soros reportedly lobbied against Hungary’s candidate for EU commissioner but his efforts were unsuccessful, according to Hungarian national security sources.

    During the process to confirm Olivér Várhelyi, Hungary’s commissioner candidate for the EU’s enlargement and neighborhood policy portfolio, Soros worked behind the scenes to squash Hungary’s candidate.

    As a part of his efforts, Soros made a phone call to Daniela Schwarzer, director of the prestigious German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and attempted to convince Schwarzer to speak with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in an attempt to end Várhelyi’s candidacy.

    During the phone call, Soros said approving Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s candidate for the position would undermine the European Union’s entire enlargement policy due to Orbán’s too-close relationship with Russia and Turkey, with Soros reportedly saying Várhelyi would be detrimental to the EU’s interests.

    According to the unnamed security sources, Schwarzer regularly speaks on the phone with Soros, whose Open Society Foundation is one of the sponsors of DGAF.

    She was, however, surprised by the direct request to sway Merkel into rejecting Várhelyi, reportedly telling Soros that “it was not how things worked.”

    Várhelyi’s candidacy was approved last week by the European Parliament’s (EP) foreign affairs committee with a two-thirds majority and he will become commissioner pending the EP vote this week on European Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen’s whole new committee.

    Title image: George Soros

  • Medical emergency can’t stop elderly woman from watching Dallas

    Even a medical emergency could not separate one elderly Hungarian woman from her beloved Dallas television program.

    Last week an elderly woman from Hungary’s central Pest County called emergency services saying that a wrist injury was causing her “unbearable pain”. The operator bumped up her case to high priority and told her that the nearest rescue vehicle was on its way.

    The woman then changed her mind, asking the operator to delay the rescue team because the latest rerun of U.S. soap opera Dallas just began on television.

    The emergency operator asked the woman to kindly put down the remote control to avoid further strain to her wrist and wait for the arrival of emergency services.

    “Our fellow rescue workers promptly treated the injury and transported the elderly woman –  in a stable condition – to the hospital. We wish her a fast recovery,” emergency service OMSZ said in a Facebook post.

    The American CBS television channel ran the original Dallas show between 1978 to 1991. Despite depicting the life and feuds of a wealthy Texas family, it was allowed to be aired on many Soviet-controlled television channels in Central Europe at the time. Reruns of the show remain a favorite among older generations of Hungarians.

    Title image: Cast of the original Dallas TV show. 

  • Hungarian physicists may have found ‘fifth force’ of nature

    Hungarian physicists may have found the elusive fifth force of nature that could lead to the “holy grail” of science: a unified grand theory that explains all known phenomena, CNN reports.

    Scientists at the Institute for Nuclear Research at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences have published experimental results they registered during the decay of a helium isotope.

    What they found was that while an excited helium isotope emitted light in order to return to its base state, the particles split at an unusual 115 degrees angle, something that could only be explained by a new force in addition to the existing four (gravity, electromagnetism, along with strong and weak nuclear forces).

    The Hungarian team’s lead scientist, Attila Krasznahorkay, told CNN that this was the second time his team had detected a new particle, which they call X17, because they calculated its mass at 17 megaelectronvolts.

    “X17 could be a particle, which connects our visible world with the dark matter,” he said in an email.
     
    The Hungarian team published similar results in the Physical Review Letters while studying the beryllium-8 isotope in 2016. Their findings showed that particles were coming off the isotope at a 140-degree angle, which had not been seen before in science at the time.
     
    The results set off a race to prove the results were either lab error or the product of a strange and new phenomenon in nature. As a result, the Hungarian team set out to replicate their results, which they have now done with a helium isotope.
     
    Jonathan Feng, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California at Irvine, told CNN he’s been following the Hungarian team’s work for years and believes its research is shaping up to be a game-changer. If these results can be replicated, “this would be a no-brainer Nobel Prize,” he said.
     
    Title image: Professor Attila Krashnahorkay and a fellow researcher at the Atomki nuclear research institute (source: Attila Krasznahorkay)

  • Poland wins the Junior Eurovision Song Contest second year in a row

    Poland won the 2019 Junior Eurovision Song Contest on Nov. 24, this time thanks to 12-year-old Wiktoria “Viki” Gabor and her song “Superhero”.

    This is Poland’s second victory in a row and the first time in the contest’s history that the same country had back-to-back wins.

    Due to Roksana Węgiel’s victory in 2018, the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2019 was held in Gliwice in southern Poland. In this year’s edition, another Pole won the competition. Gabor, who came out on top out with her song “Superhero” faced competition from 19 other participants 

    Although Kazakhstan won the jury’s vote, the viewers voted overwhelmingly in favor of Gabor’s song.

    Gabor sang “Superhero” in two languages, both Polish and English, on her path to victory.

    Gabor was bornin Germany on July 24, 2007, and despite being raised in the UK, she now lives in Kraków. She also has Roma roots and her entire family has a musical background. Gabor also collaborates with her family, including writing songs with her older sister Melisa.

    Gabor started her education in the United Kingdom, which is why she speaks fluent English. She shows off her language skills in both her debut song “Time” and the Eurovision song “Superhero”.

    Gabor worked on “Superhero” with the music stars Patryk Kumór and Lanberry, a musical team that also composed the hit song “Anyone I Want to Be”, which helped Roksana Węgiel win the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2018.

    President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki congratulated Gabor on her success on Twitter.

    Last year’s Junior Eurovision in Belarus was also won by Poland’s Roksana Węgiel. Węgiel won the contest after performing her song “Anyone I Want To Be”.

    Both Węgiel and Gabor launched their careers by performing on the “The Voice Kids” talent show.

  • American family embraces Poland after the death of their soldier son

    Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis died on August 28, 2013, during a suicide bomber attack on a U.S. Army military base in Ghanzi, Afghanistan. Ollis selflessly protected Polish Army lieutenant Karol Cierpica during the attack, but unfortunately at the cost of his own life.

    Now, after the heroic death of their son, Ollis’ parents have established a lasting connection with Poland, saying, “God really moves in a mysterious way. He took Michael away but gave us Poland.”

    Ollis was posthumously awarded the Polish Afghanistan Star and the Golden Polish Army Medal.

    “He was my joy and I am a very proud father,” Robert Ollis declared, adding that Michael had chosen a military career very early in his life, as he used to wear his father’s military equipment.

    During the 2013 attack in Afghanistan, Sgt. Ollis and Lt. Cierpica came under fire from rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. Sgt. Ollis put himself between an insurgent and a wounded Lt. Cierpica, incapacitating the insurgent. When Sgt. Ollis approached the insurgent, he detonated a suicide vest, killing Sgt. Ollis.

    Since the tragedy, Michael’s parents, Robert and Linda, have already visited Poland three times. This year they visited Lublin, where they received the “Honorary Ambassador of Poland” award, which is given out to those who contribute to constructing a positive image of Poland in the world.

    “We became ambassadors when we were invited to Poland for this first time,” Robert Ollis explained.

     

    Ollis said that in the past, during their first visit, other Americans used to be surprised that they would travel to Poland. These days, Robert pointed out, their fellow countrymen are happy that they visit Poland.

    The father of the hero emphasized, that along with his wife, they encourage other Americans to visit Poland.

    Linda and Robert also spent a weekend in Kraków, where they met with Karol Cierpica and his family in addition to visiting Legnica, Wrocław and Warszawa.

    “God really moves in a mysterious way. He took Michael away but gave us Poland. It is thanks to Poland and God that we are able to persevere during this difficult time in our life,” Robert told Polskie Radio.

    Linda Ollis added that they treat the Cierpica family and Karol himself like their own, saying, “We love him. We love the Cierpica family and we hope that we will remain close with them for the rest of what’s left of our lives.”

  • Prague’s quality of life better than New York and London

    Thanks to its safety and the number of doctors in the city, Prague ranked 13th out of 113 world cities in terms of quality of life, according to an evaluation from consulting firm D&L Partners.

    Zurich ranked first and was followed by Vienna. These two cities have been at the top of many similar surveys for many years.

    European cities dominate the ranking, occupying 15 positions of the top 20. Four North American cities and only one Asian one, Taipei, made it to the top twenty as well.

    On the other hand, the world’s ten richest cities did not perform well in the evaluation with London placing 33rd and New York 38th. According to the ranking authors, this result suggests that the richest cities may not be the most successful when considering criteria other than economic success.

    London is known for its spiraling crime rate, including an increase in knife crime. New York still features extreme poverty in many areas of the city and its high cost of living.

     

    The consulting company evaluated the quality of life in cities based on the new PICSA index, which assesses three areas.

    The first area concerns income levels, including measuring inequalities that exist in cities and what opportunities people have in accessing key services, such as education.

    The second area deals with how different groups of the population can participate in society and the third area measures the quality of cities’ infrastructure, the availability of housing and the amount of job opportunities.

    Prague gained an exceptionally good position in the ranking, mainly due to the city’s low crime and the number of doctors. According to D&L Partners, the Czech capital has one of the densest networks of doctor’s offices around the world.

    The ranking, commissioned by the Basque Country region of Spain, is designed to give city leaders feedback and help them improve their governance. Based on their ranking, the top 20 cities received a PISCA seal at the Guggenheim Museum building in Bilbao on Nov. 21.


    Picture source: D&L Partners analysis

  • Czech elections: First challenger announces bid for president

    Even though the presidential elections in Czechia are scheduled for 2023, the first candidate has already officially announced his intention to run for the post.

    Senator Marek Hilšer, an unsuccessful presidential candidate from the 2018 elections, wants to run for Czech president as a civic candidate in 2023, as he did in the previous elections.

    In order to run, he will have to collect 50,000 signatures from Czech citizens, a requirement he failed to meet during his last candidacy where he received only 43,850 signatures. However, thanks to the signature of 11 senators, he was able to participate in the first round of presidential elections.

    Although there are still three years left until the elections, Hilšer considers it a short time to meet with all his potential supporters. Despite his ambitions, he does not plan a large-scale campaign.

    “I just wanted to let people know that I am running for the post,” he said. As in the last elections, he is the first one to officially announce his candidacy.

    Hilšer plans to attract potential voters with a vision of a self-confident republic built on fearless people.

    “They are not afraid of the problems of today’s world because they perceive them not as a threat but as an opportunity. They are not afraid to insist that the state and its institutions should serve people, not vice versa. And they are not afraid to defend their right to freedom, no matter how strong the opponent is,” said Hilšer.

    Other candidates from the 2018 elections, such as Jiří Drahoš and Pavel Fischer, have been mentioned in recent days about their potential palsn to run in the 2023 elections. Former Chairman of the NATO Military Committee Petr Pavel, Chairman of the Czech-Moravian Confederation of Trade Unions (CMKOS) Josef Středula, and musician and former politician, Michael Kocáb, have also not ruled their potential candidacies.

    Besides Středula, President Miloš Zeman stated that the head of the Czech Chamber of Commerce, Vladimír Dlouhý, would make a good president. If he had to choose, though, President Zeman would give his vote to the current Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, who, so far, refuses to say he is interested in the post.

  • V4 to jointly buy police equipment

    Visegrad Four (V4) countries want to cooperate in buying security forces equipment and improve intelligence sharing within the European Union, Czech Interior Minister Jan Hamáček said after meeting his counterparts from the V4 and Austria.

    According to Hamáček, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia also want to maintain the current level of security cooperation with the United Kingdom after Brexit.

    Slovak Interior Minister Denisa Saková pointed out that the first step is to set minimum technical standards for security forces in the V4 countries. Finding common ground in this area would enable the joint purchase of security forces equipment.

    Hungarian Minister Sándor Pintér added that a coordinated approach to buying police equipment would also benefit the joint operation of V4 police forces in areas related to securing the European Border and performing missions for Europe’s coast guard agency (Frontex).

    The V4 Interior Ministers also discussed the consequences of Brexit in regards to EU security cooperation.

    “Our goal is to maintain security cooperation with the United Kingdom at the highest level possible. Security is a matter we cannot gamble with. We cannot jeopardize the exchange of information and cooperation in combating crime,” said Hamáček.

    Saková then expressed her belief that the UK will continue to provide data to the Schengen Information System, which supports police cooperation within the EU, even after Brexit.

    At Thursday’s meeting, the V4 countries also reiterated their opposition to mandatory quotas for the redistribution of migrants across the EU.

    V4 governments stressed again that EU countries have to deal with the migration issue together, but at the same time, the solution to this problem cannot be a point of division among the EU member states. The priority for Europe should be safeguarding the external borders of the EU.

  • Experts warn young Czechs over love of e-cigarettes

    While the US media reports several cases of young people dying due to the use of electronic cigarettes, the Czech Republic has not experienced a similar case yet but health risks are increasing due to rising addiction rates.

    “Almost five percent of adults use electronic cigarettes in the Czech Republic. Their popularity is especially growing among young people,” says Adam Kulhánek, head of the Center for Research and Prevention of Tobacco Use.

    Research shows that 40 percent of Czechs have tried smoking electronic cigarettes by age 16, and 17 percent smoke of these teens smoke them regularly.

    E-cigarettes produce an aerosol that contains significantly less harmful substances than cigarette smoke. However, according to experts, they can also cause health complications as well as addiction to nicotine fillings.

    Another alternative is heated tobacco, which chemically decomposes in the cigarette. This process produces tar as in conventional cigarettes, but at a much lower concentration.

    According to the Ministry of Finance, about 600,000 heat-not-burn tobacco devices were imported into the Czech Republic last year. This year, the total number is estimated to double.

    “Researchers point out that these devices have been on the market for too short a time to assess the health effects of long-term use accurately. However, the presence of tar makes it reasonable to assume the risks of heated tobacco devices will be higher than of electronic cigarettes, but lower compared to classic cigarettes,” said Lukáš Kohoutek, president of the Czech Coalition Against Tobacco.

    According to experts, e-cigarettes or heated tobacco are a solution for smokers who want to get rid of the risks of classic cigarettes, but cannot completely give up their addiction.

    In the Czech Republic, cigarettes are behind 15,000 to 16,000 deaths each year.

    On average, smokers shorten their lives by at least ten years. The most common causes of smoking-related deaths are cardiovascular diseases, cancer and respiratory diseases.

    Quitting without the help of doctors or addiction specialists usually has a low chance of success. In Czechia, medications that can alleviate withdrawal symptoms are not covered by public health insurance. However, private health insurance companies contribute up to 4,000 Czech korunas (€150) per year for treatment.

  • Hungarian Paralympian wins three medals in Dubai World Championship

    Hungarian paralympian Luca Ekler returned from the 2019 World Para Athletics World Championships in Dubai with three medals: one gold in distance jumping and two silver medals in the 100- and 200-meter running competitions.

    In the running competitions, she scored her all-time personal best times as well.

    The 20-year-old Ekler suffered a stroke at the age of 10 which completely paralyzed her left side.

    “I celebrated my 11th birthday in a wheelchair. In my case, the struggle wasn’t for additional centimeters or seconds. I had to fight hard to simply be able to walk again,” she said. “But after half a year, I was already running again.”

    She was classified in the mildest disability group 38 of paralympic athletes due to a diagnosis of mild neurological disability, but she now also competes among those without disabilities, including for a bronze medal she won in distance jumping this year at the under-23 National Athletics Championship.

    Her Dubai result also qualifies her for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics where she will compete in distance jumping and 100-meter running.

    Ekler also runs an Instagram page documenting her successes and struggles.

    Title image: Luca Ekler in training in her hoeóme town of Szombathely, western Hungary (youtube capture)

  • Photos: Hungarian beauty queen on her way to Miss World 2019

    Hungarian beauty queen Krisztina Nagypál is on her way to the biggest event of her career, the Miss World 2019 final.

    She is not being shy about celebrating either after she posted a photo on Instagram at the departure gate of Budapest Airport.

    Crowned Miss Hungary in June, she is also the previous winner of Miss Balaton (Hungary’s summer resort lake, the closest thing the landlocked country has to a sea) and Miss Bikini. She is 23, has been a competitive acrobatic rock and Latin dancer for twelve years, just finished HR studies at the Budapest Metropolitan University and likes spending time with her pet cat and guinea pig.

    “I’m very excited, happy and scared a little bit. I can’t wait to get to know the girls and their cultures. I think I’ll learn a lot during this journey,” she wrote on Instagram.

    After being recognized as one of the most beautiful women in Hungary, her Instagram page – where she shares selfies and photos of her latest outfits – has gone viral.

    The Miss World 2019 final will be held in London on December 14.

    Title image: Krisztina Nagypál during the final of the Miss World Hungary 2019 contest (MTI/Balázs Mohai)

  • Civic Platform’s toxicity is Polish democracy’s main problem

    The true issue with Polish democracy is the toxicity of the Civic Platform (PO), but with the arrival of a strong left in the Sejm and PiS’ proposal to create better relations between political parties, there is a chance to end this toxicity.

    At times, small, seemingly unimportant events encapsulate an issue better than elaborate analysis. Such an event took place last week when Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced his exposé and plans for the government during a ceremony introducing Poland’s new government.

    A young leftist MP, Paulina Matysiak, posted a short message on Twitter regarding her experience during Morawiecki’s speech:

    “I have the questionable pleasure to be seated near Civic Platform MPs, who keep on booing, screaming and insulting. I would have expected a higher level of propriety from our MPs.”

    Although this comment may seem minor, it is not unimportant. While not the only piece of evidence, it along with other factors supports a thesis that the largest problem of Polish democracy is not a division into PiS and anti-PiS, the left and right, believers and atheists, post-communists and post-Solidarity, or rural and urban – instead the largest problem is the toxicity of one of Poland’s largest parties, the PO.

    It is the same party which is responsible for starting the “Polish-Polish war” between 2005 and 2007, a war that never really ended in 2007 because the PO never ceased waging it.

    This used to be an efficient strategy for PO, but thankfully it is reaching the end of its usefulness. Due to its failure to swiftly destroy PiS, the opposition is ending its military-like mobilization against conservatives and exploring more pluralist methods.

    The other reason is the appearance of the left in the Sejm, which is speaking with its own voice this time and is pointing out PO’s dramatically weak program. One just needs to compare the speeches of PO leader Grzegorz Schetyna to that of Adrian Zandberg of the left-wing Razem party. The former shouted out his old, empty phrases, while the latter tried to refer to reality even if he sometimes took shortcuts.

    Both PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński and Morawiecki put forward a reasonable proposal to open a new stage in relations between political forces. It’s a stage which will not end conflicts and create fictional unity, but which can bring an end to this toxic total warfare which PO has been practicing for over a decade.

    The chances for real change are now larger than they have been since 2005.

  • OECD improves Poland’s GDP growth forecast but warns of general slowdown

    The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has raised its forecast for Poland’s GDP growth from 3.5 percent to 3.8 percent in 2020. OECD predicts GDP growth will slow to 3 percent in 2021.

    The spokesman of the Ministry of Finance, Paweł Jurek, explained that Poland’s GDP growth in 2019 will be 4.3 percent (up from 4.2 percent in the previous forecast) and 3.8 percent in 2020, an increase from a previously forecasted 3.5 percent.

    Jurek also stated that the OECD has lowered the forecast of Poland’s budget deficit and the general government debt.

    The OECD forecasts a slowdown in Poland’s GDP growth in 2021, claiming it will drop to 3 percent with an inflation rate expected at 3 percent as well. OECD economists recommend Poland implement fiscal tightening and earlier increases in interest rates to limit inflation pressure.

    “Both private and public investments will slow down and the low growth of global trade will limit export dynamic. The private consumption increase will gradually slow down, along with the atrophy of the influence of new social transfers and tax cuts,” the report reads.

    No one was running against Tusk, so it was clear from the beginning that he would win the position.

    “I am honored and deeply moved, this is a very important moment for me,” Tusk stated in his speech in Zagreb, Croatia, after being chosen as the leader of the EPP.

    Tusk told the press that he did not feel “relieved” after winning as there had not been any tough competition due to him being the only candidate.

    Tusk’s three-year term as the EPP’s leader will officially start on Dec. 1, 2019, just as his current term as the president of the European Council ends.

    According to “Super Express”, during his five years as president of the EC, Tusk earned almost €1.63 million.

    As the new leader of the EPP, he will also have access to a private limousine with a driver, an office with a secretary and a sizeable fund to use for political purposes.

    Tusk has already been criticized for his previous spending habits while president of the EC, spending over €100,000 on champagne in 2018 and €98,000 on a luxury recliner in 2017.

  • Presidents of Poland and Lithuania: sanctions on Russia should remain

    Polish President Andrzej Duda declared from Lithuania that sanctions on Russia should remain due to the Russian government’s actions in Ukraine.

    Duda was in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, to attend a symbolic funeral ceremony for the participants of the 1863 January Uprising in partitioned Poland against Tsarist Russia.

    Duda emphasized that the ceremony is meant to honor the heroes of several Central European nations who had opposed the Tsarist Russia “oppressor”. He added that the event is also important for strengthening Polish-Lithuanian friendship.

    The Polish president underlined that, along with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, they believe that the sanctions imposed on Russia due to their occupying of territories in Ukraine should be maintained.

    “This is a situation which no one in Europe can accept and which we should never accept, as there is nothing worse in modern Europe than changing borders by force. This is something that has been happening in Europe again following 2008, and we cannot permit that or even silently approve it,” Duda declared.

    He commended the good relations between Poland and Lithuania, and pointed to the funeral ceremony of the 1863 uprising fighters as proof that Polish-Lithuanian relations are “as good as they have been in a long, long time.”

    Duda also invited Nauseda to Poland to celebrate the 610th anniversary of the 1410 Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg) in which Polish-Lithuanian forces defeated the German Teutonic Order next year.

    The Polish president said he and Nauseda also discussed the Polish minority in Lithuania and the Lithuanian minority in Poland, as well as common infrastructure investments, energy cooperation, security issues, military cooperation, and the situation in Ukraine.

  • Al Jazeera vs. Poland: Qatari media asks why Poland doesn’t take in any Muslims

    Al Jazeera is on the attack over Poland’s immigration policies, accusing a Polish Law and Justice MP during a television interview of being “racist” over his defense of Poland’s Christian and European culture.

    Following Law and Justice’s election victory, MP Dominik Tarczynski was invited on to Al Jazeera’s Upfront news program, where he launched a strong defense of Poland’s policies, saying the country has a right to decide who gets to enter its borders.

    “So we have a right to think about our future in the way we want to,” Tarczynski told Mehdi Hasan. “So, Christian culture, Roman law, Greek philosophers. These are the virtues for us. That’s number one. Number two: we do not want sharia law in Europe.”

    Al Jazeera is owned and funded by the government of Qatar, an absolute monarchy ruled by the Al Thani dynasty since the 19th century. The country and many others in the Middle East adhere to repressive sharia law, which guides Qatar’s constitution and all of its legislation.

    During the interview, Tarczynski directed his criticism of countries like Qatar who failed to take in migrants of the same religion and culture from neighboring countries.

    “It has nothing to do with your color,” said Tarczynski. “It is a problem mainly of Muslims coming to Europe, I am surprised they are not going to Saudi Arabia, Qatar or any other rich Muslim countries.”

    Richest Middle Eastern countries turn their backs on refugees

    Tarczynski is not the only one raising criticisms over the richest Muslim countries refusing to take in refugees.

    The executive director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, publically embarrassed Gulf states in 2015 when he captioned a Twitter post with a photo of two crowded migrant boats, saying, “Guess how many of these Syrian refugees Saudi Arabia & other Gulf states offered to take? Zero.”

    While some Gulf countries have provided funding for Syrian refugees, including for their efforts to reach Europe, these countries have been far less accommodating to refugees who want to settle on their soil. Amnesty International, echoing criticisms from Human Rights Watch, issued a report that said:

    “Gulf countries including Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees.”

    Arabs from countries like Syria have also openly criticized countries like Qatar. After 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach in 2015 after drowning while trying to reach Europe, his death sparked global sympathy for refugees making the perilous journey. Kurdi’s Syrian father said that he blamed Arab countries for his boy’s death over their refusal to take in Syrian refugees, which he said led them to make the dangerous journey to Europe.

    “I want Arab governments – not European countries – to see [what happened to] my children, and because of them to help people,” Abdullah Kurdi said after he buried Aylan, his 5-year-old brother and their mother, who also drowned on the same journey.

    The Polish MP echoed these sentiments during his Al Jazeera interview, saying:

    “The whole migration crisis, it’s a global thing. Europe is not responsible for what is happening in Syria. Poland is not responsible for what is happening in Iraq, in Syria, in other places. We never had any colonies. So if this problem is a global problem, where is Saudi Arabia, where is Qatar, where are the other Arab countries, the rich Arab countries which should help?”

    A clash of cultures

    The Al Jazeera interviewer called Tarczynski a racist before he even had a chance to speak, but Tarczynski emphasized that Poland is a homogenous Christian nation and wishes to remain so.

    “For me, multicultural society, it’s not a value … it’s not a virtue,” the Polish MP said, citing his time living in the United States and London, where he said he saw the perils that multiculturalism has brought.

    The U.S. continues to struggle with poor race relations, with polarization growing and the topic of identity politics and racism dominating public discourse and journalism.

    In London, where Tarczynski also lived, the city is beset with rising knife crimes and an increasingly balkanized and segregated population living around ethnic lines. Polling shows that immigration was the number one issue driving the country’s electorate to choose Brexit in the lead up to the 2016 vote.

    In Austria, the government indicated in a 2016 report that of the 500,000 criminal offenses recorded in Austria, 40 percent were committed by foreigners despite this demographic making up a small fraction of the Austrian population. 

    In France, a survey showed that nearly half of Muslims support sharia law in the country, indicating strong support within the Muslim community to do away with European values and human rights in countries like France.

    Despite Al Jazeera’s attack on Tarczynski and Poland’s Law and Justice party, growing distrust of the entire concept of immigration and multiculturalism is growing across Europe. In 2016, a survey conducted by Pew Research found that 59 percent of Europeans believed immigrants were a burden to their countries. Strikingly, less than a third said that immigration improves their countries.

    Multiculturalism also has a poor track record in the Middle East itself, with countries like Syria facing internal civil wars featuring Kurdish groups, Alawites, Shiites, and Sunnis fighting along religious and ethnic lines. In countries like Germany, these rivalries do not die, with Turkish and Kurdish residents often brawling and attacking each other with machetes.

    Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that multiculturalism has “utterly failed” in Germany as early as 2010, citing the lack of integration from the immigrant community. Her statement underlines how if even one of Europe’s most welcoming leaders has little faith in the grand experiment of multiculturalism, countries like Poland will likely avoid implementing similar policies.

    Al Jazeera is owned by authoritarian Qatar

    In a subsequent article following the televised interview of Tarczynski, Al Jazeera claimed that the Law and Justice party’s recent second term in office could “accelerate the country’s slide towards authoritarianism.”

    With its claims of authoritarianism, Al Jazeera’s funding from Qatar becomes highly relevant. The country’s media empire is owned by the country’s absolute monarchy who rule with virtual impunity.

    In contrast, Poland’s Law and Justice party participated in fair and competitive democratic elections where they received nearly 44 percent of the vote, earning them the privilege of ruling the country for a fixed term, a far cry from “authoritarianism”. Poland’s ruling party had to compete in the marketplace of ideas and sell its values and ideas to voters, an idea foreign to the monarchs that own Al Jazeera.

    The article also accused Tarczynski’s PiS party of being “ultraconservative”, which raises the question of how Al Jazeera would describe the sharia-run country that funds it.

    Qatar’s adherence to sharia law has also led the country to be accused of numerous human rights violations. The law has led many women to be subject to public whippings for adultery. Married men and women who commit adultery can even be punished by death. Women who have a child out of wedlock are often imprisoned. It is also a country where a rape victim can be imprisoned over adultery charges while her rapist walks free.

    There have been a number of critics in Europe of Poland’s stance on LGBT issues, but in Qatar the punishment for homosexuality between consenting males is five years in prison. Technically under sharia law, the punishment for homosexuality is death. The U.S. State Department has this to say about Qatar’s stance on homosexuality.

    “Homosexual activity is considered to be a criminal offense, and those convicted may be sentenced to lashings, a prison sentence, and/or deportation.”

    Qatar’s ultraconservative stance on a variety of issues and its lack of democracy has not stopped Al Jazeera from attacking democratic countries in Europe that are not accommodating to Muslims immigrants. The interview of Tarczynski was hardly Al Jazeera’s only negative piece decrying the Polish government, with the media arm of Qatar writing articles claiming the country is squelching press freedom and “fomenting homophobia“.

    Given Poland’s stance on Muslim immigration, Al Jazeera is likely to continue its negative coverage of the nation, and with ample government funding from oil-rich Qatar, it remains in a strong position to do so.

    Poland emphasizes security for its citizens

    For Tarczynski, security is just as important as culture. Countries that have pursued multiculturalism like the U.S., the United Kingdom, France, and Germany are beset with Islamic terrorist attacks that have killed hundreds in addition to dozens of attacks that have been foiled.

    “If you want to be a refugee, you have to flee to the first safe country, neighbor country. Then, you have to apply, you have to prove who you are and now we are having people in Europe,” said Tarczynski. “Poland is not a neighbor of Syria. We have documents or passports with the same picture and different names. That’s just a fact from our interior minister. So, it’s all about safety.”

    Tarczynski pointed to the disproportionate amount of terrorist attacks in Europe committed by Muslims as a major factor behind Poland’s immigration policies.

    Poland has remained virtually free of terrorist attacks, which Tarczynski attributes to the country’s decision to not let any Muslim immigrants settle there. Unlike France and Germany, which deal with frequent attacks despite having spent millions of euros combating Islamic terrorism, Poland has remained remarkably secure in modern Europe.

    Regardless of negative coverage from networks like Al Jazeera, Tarczynski indicates the current Polish government will not be swayed from changing its policies, which are based on promises it made to voters during democratic elections.

    “In 2015, we promised that we would never agree to the [migrant] quota system and our promises are kept.”

     

  • Czechs living longer: Family and economy contribute healthier life

    Over the past ten years, the mortality rate dropped by more than 13 percent in the Czech Republic. People are dying later in life and family life, better medical care, and an improving economy may all be all major factors behind the drop in mortality rate, the Czech Statistical Office announced.

    The Czech Republic has less than 11 million inhabitants. Last year, 113,000 of them died.

    The most frequent cause of death of Czechs is cardiovascular disease and cancer, contributing to nearly three-fifths of deaths last year. Despite their role in many Czech deaths, cancer and heart disease deaths are dropping as well

    As for cardiovascular diseases, according to experts, it is difficult to prove the influence of preventive measures. Therefore, experts suppose that a healthier lifestyle for Czechs, as well as more effective treatment and monitoring of the diseases, are behind improving statistics.

    For women and men, the three most common causes of death – cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and strokes – are the same. However, the fourth most common cause of death differs between genders.

    In the case of men, accidents are the fourth most common cause of death but eighth for women. Conversely, women are more likely to die from Alzheimer’s disease, other dementias and diabetes.

    Czechs die at a higher age

    Between 2009 and 2018, the mortality of men decreased by 13 percent and by 14 percent for women. According to statistics, the decline is mainly due to a decrease in deaths caused by heart diseases, malignant tumors, and strokes.

    Statistics also show that Czechs are dying later. Middle-age mortality is decreasing, and deaths are gradually concentrated to the highest age groups around 85 years, especially among women.

    Experts also speculate about the role of the Czech Republic’s improving economy over the last ten years as contributing to lower mortality rates. Studies have shown that unemployment and difficult economic circumstances contribute to higher mortality rates.

    Czechs most often die in the winter months and in March, at least between May and September.

    Is marriage the recipe for a long life?

    In general, married men and women have lower mortality in the Czech Republic. On the contrary, it is the highest among singles.

    Psychotherapist Vladislav Chvála points out that only marriages that last and with people that care for each other have a positive impact on human health. Other marriages, however, can have a very detrimental impact on human health.

    According to Chvála, a divorce or break-up trauma, including a worsening relationship with children and living alone, have a major impact on the physical condition of a person. Statistics, however, are not able to capture this aspect of human life because they do not cover the subjectivity of patients, which only an intense relationship with a therapist can reveal.

    In countries like the United States, life expectancy is actually falling. Labeled as “deaths of despair”, the U.S.’s white majority has greatly contributed to this worsening statistic through deaths from suicide, overdoses, and alcohol-related diseases.

  • Czech company to revolutionize food deliveries in Hungary

    Czech online food retailer Rohlík.cz is set to start delivering groceries in Budapest from December. It plans to compete with established companies by offering faster delivery as well as products previously unavailable in Budapest, such as Marks & Spencer.

    It will be the first time Rohlík.cz enters a foreign market, seen as a major step for the Czech company.

    The Hungarian metropolis will present some major challenges, as it is slightly larger than Prague and faces frequent traffic congestion known to be worse than Prague’s.

    There are currently several food distributors operating in the Hungarian market, such as CBA, SPAR, Auchan, and Tesco.

    “Local competitors do not deliver groceries until the next day. We will deliver the purchase within three hours. In the Czech Republic, our maximum delivery time is two hours, but Budapest is bigger and deals with much worse traffic congestion,” explained Jana Posseltová, manager of the company.

    The Czech e-shop is registered on the Hungarian domain kifli.hu, with “kifli” being the Hungarian version of the Czech “rohlík”, which translates into a type of roll popular in countries in Central Europe. Kifli.hu will also offer groceries from Marks & Spencer, which is not currently present in the Hungarian market.

    This year, Rohlík.cz expects revenues of roughly 4.5 billion korunas (€180 million), about 80 percent more compared to the previous year. Next year, the company aims to expand to Vienna and Bucharest with Germany on its list of long-term goals.

  • Czech Army plans major changes

    The Czech army is implementing the biggest internal reforms since it joined NATO, including record purchases of military equipment, the recruitment of 5,000 new soldiers and significant changes to its command structure.

    The Czech Army’s most urgent changes are focused on its need to replace equipment, primarily helicopters, radars and armored fighting vehicles.

    “We still have Russian helicopters and radars 30 years after the revolution. It is a shame,” said Prime Minister Andrej Babiš as he explained why the army needs investments worth nearly 100 billion korunas (€4 billion).

    Furthermore, the army contracts will benefit Czech armor manufacturers. At an annual meeting with military commanders, President Miloš Zeman stressed that at least one-third of the army purchases should be made in the Czech Republic.

    In many cases, the army already prefers buying Czech products like armored fighting vehicles. However, President Zeman is not opposed to purchasing certain technology from abroad, such as drones.

    “The Czech army will establish a drone unit, and I welcome the fact that the drones will be purchased from Israel, which is a technological superpower with cutting-edge technology,” said Zeman.

    Another major change in the army will be at the personnel level. About 25,000 men and women currently serve in the army but there are plans to recruit another 5,000 soldiers in the coming years.

    “More than 99 percent of our recruited personnel operate in the field, while the remaining one percent includes cyber specialists, doctors, and lawyers,” said Chief of the General Staff Aleš Opata.

    Nowadays, the Czech army is much smaller than in the past. It is a professional army, meaning it only employs people with proper military training.

    Despite its small size, the Czech Army earns praise from abroad. For example, its successes in Mali secured the Czechs the responsibility of supervising the local military mission over a six-month period.

  • NATO should go on the offensive against terrorism: Czech president

    NATO should focus on fighting terrorism and a key part of that strategy is making sure allied troops remain in Afghanistan, President Miloš Zeman said at a Czech military command meeting on Nov. 20.

    Zeman recalled the words of French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently talked about NATO experiencing “brain death”. According to Zeman, the alliance’s focus on deterring opponents in a conventional conflict is to blame for its state of clinical death.

    “If NATO is not to be in a state of clinical death, it should become more offensive and realize what its real role in the contemporary world is,” the Czech president said.

    Zeman called for the deployment of NATO troops against terrorists. “International terrorism is a major, if not the only enemy of civilized countries,” he said.

    Zeman also rejected proposals to withdraw NATO forces from Afghanistan in order to keep the country from turning into a terrorist base again. He said he would repeat his viewpoint with allies during the December NATO summit in London.

    According to him, leaving Afghanistan would devalue the sacrifices of alliance troops, including Czech ones. Zeman also worries about the effects of a possible NATO withdrawal on the situation in Afghanistan and global security.

    “The Taliban would take over the entire territory of Afghanistan, eliminate the current Afghan government, and make Afghanistan the terrorist base that it was before 2001. And since Afghanistan is the largest opium producer in the world, this terrorist base would have enough money to carry out a variety of diverse actions,” Zeman said.

    Zeman has long been a supporter of the NATO deployment in Afghanistan and has repeatedly called for greater engagement of the armed forces in the fight against international terrorism.

    At the Czech military command meeting, he reiterated a statement he has made in previous instances that one does not negotiate with terrorists, but fights them.

    Czech Defense Minister Lubomír Metnar shares Zeman’s views on the matter and for the time being refuses to leave Afghanistan.

    “The situation in the country is still difficult; peace talks have been interrupted. Sooner or later a political solution will have to be found, but in the meantime, we remain in the country in the spirit of the principle ‘we came together, we will leave together,’” the minister said.

  • Franciscan monk receives award for his orphanage work

    Franciscan monk Csaba Böjte received the prestigious Makovecz award for his decades-long work to raise orphaned children in Transylvania, news portal Origo reports.

    The award, named after one of Hungary’s most famous architects, Imre Makovecz (1935-2011), one of the most prominent proponents of organic architecture, recognizes “persistent work carried out in the spirituality of Imre Makovecz” and is jointly awarded by the Makovecz Imre Foundation, the Hungarian Academy of Arts and Kós Károly Association.

    In recognizing Böjte’s work, the awarding committee said that “during his mission in caring for orphaned children, [Böjte] is carrying out exactly the kind of program that best corresponds with Makovecz’s [idea] of active spirituality.”

    Böjte, 60, is an ethnic Hungarian Franciscan monk who established the St. Francis Foundation and its adjacent orphanage in Déva in central Romania in 1992 when he illegally occupied a Franciscan monastery there which has been abandoned for decades.

    He continued to stay there despite repeated eviction attempts by the Romanian authorities. His orphanage has since grown into a nationwide network that currently cares for 2,500 orphaned children or for children with parents living in deep poverty who cannot support their families. Another several hundred children are also part of a foster parent scheme.

    Title image: Csaba Böjte in September 2019 (photo: Dénes Albert)

  • Poles are positive on Duda’s presidency and previous Sejm

    Poles have a favorable view of President Andrzej Duda and the previous term’s Sejm, according to a November poll by the CBOS institute.

    The polling agency indicates that approval has risen compared to October, with 65 percent of those polled claiming that they are pleased with Duda’s presidency, a 3-percent increase compared to October. Another 29 percent saw his work negatively and 6 percent did not have an opinion.

    Almost half of those surveyed positively evaluated the work of the previous Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s parliament, with 45 percent approving of it, a 13 percentage point increase compared to October. Another 39 percent were dissatisfied, a 12 percentage point decrease since October. Sixteen percent did not have an opinion.

    CBOS pointed out that it is incredibly rare for more people to be favorable of a previous Sejm than critical. They also noted that this is the best evaluation for a Sejm’s term since the parliament that served between 1993 and 1997.

    The poll found that 39 percent of respondents also favorably viewed the work of the previous term’s Senate, with 39 percent approving of its work and 35 percent holding an unfavorable view. A large number of people, 26 percent, said they had no opinion on the Polish Senate.

    This was the best polling result for the work of senators since 2008, CBOS reported.

    The majority of people surveyed, 73 percent, also positively evaluated the work of the National Electoral Commission (PKW). Only 6 percent viewed it poorly.

    According to CBOS, the results showed a record high favorability rating for the PKW.

  • Hungarian theatrical director Gothár admits harassment

    One day after Budapest’s prominent Katona József theater announced the sacking of an employee for “repeated inappropriate conduct”, well-known Hungarian film and theatrical director Péter Gothár, 72, admitted in a statement that he was responsible for one case and had apologized to the actress in question.

    “One year ago I approached a female colleague in a morally unacceptable way. A few days later, I apologized and she accepted the apology,” the award-winning Gothár wrote in the statement. “Now that the case became public in both the theater and the country, I would like to publicly apologize again. I am very sorry for what happened. I am also sorry if I have offended anyone with my brusque style, bad manners or morally objectionable behavior.”

    On Tuesday, the theater released a statement saying that “the management of the Katona József theater has learned that one of its contract staff has repeatedly displayed behavior transgressing moral boundaries on several occasions.”

    The statement also added that the offended staff member wished to remain anonymous.

    While the offender was not originally named, sources told Origo that it was one of the theatrical directors who sexually harassed a number of actresses.

    A number of actors and actresses who have previously worked with Gothár were asked about the case by news portal Origo. They either said they did not even know of the case or simply refused to comment.

    One actor, Andor Lukáts, who has been a member of the Katona ensemble for nine years, made a general comment, saying, “Where there is power, there are also forms of coercion. If you don’t like what is on offer, you can leave. This is just my presumption, but I can imagine anything happened. I think it has been like this since antiquity.”

    Back in 2017, at the peak of the #MeToo scandals, Katona even featured a theatrical production on the topic of sexual harassment.

    Title image: Theatrical and film director Péter Gothár (source: Katona József theater homepage) 

  • Nanny state: Man sentenced for burning wood and coal in Poland

    a Kraków district court sentenced a Polish citizen to one month in prison for burning coal and wood in his central heating stove, a violation of the city’s new anti-smog laws. Although the sentence has since been reduced to a fine and community service, the case is adding controversy to Kraków’s government to forbid the burning of wood and coal in September.

    After the ruling, the unidentified man will carry out 20 hours of supervised and unpaid community service.

    The sentenced man was originally accused of burning wood and coal in his central heating stove in October. His use of wood and coal was discovered after air quality tests conducted by Kraków municipal police.

    Since Sep. 1, 2019, when the new anti-smog laws were passed in Kraków, only gas fuels are permitted to be used in heating installations, such as methane, natural gas or light heating oil.

    People who ignore the new regulations can be reprimanded or punished with a fine ranging from €4 to €1,164, but each case will be examined individually. Some cases may be referred for criminal prosecution depending on the circumstances.

    The new anti-smog laws introduced a city-wide ban on burning coal, wood and other solid fuels in all fireplaces, stoves and boilers.

    The ban not only applies to household stoves, but also to heavy, stationary grills (excluding seasonal grills and spits). The regulations have also affected restaurants that rely on materials like wood and coal to cook with.

    Officials have struggled to control air pollution in Kraków, which features thousands of older heating hearths. Kraków escaped much of the destruction of World War ll, leaving the city with an older housing stock that relies on wood- and coal-fired hearths for heating.

    Many of Kraków’s poorest households rely on coal and wood for fuel in the winter, meaning the law will have a disproporionate impact on these citizens.

    To enforce the new law, police are reportedly using drones and heat sensors to find suspects that violate the ban on illegal burning.