Remix News

Tag: Hungary

  • Hungary sends kosher food aid to Belgrade Jews

    The Hungarian government has sent kosher food aid to the Chabad Lubavitch Jewsih community of the Serbian capital of Belgrade through a joint effort of the Hungarian embassy staff in Belgrade and the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s press secretary Bertalan Havasi told Hungarian national news agency MTI on Wedneday.

    In a letter to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Belgrade Lubavitch community rabbi Jehoshua Kaminetzky, Budapest Orthodox Jewish Rabbinate President Báruch Oberlander, and Hungarian Jewish Heritage Foundation President György Szabó, expressed their thanks for the Hungarian diplomats’ efforts who “with a huge effort, disregarding the impossibility” managed to gather and deliver the aid to the community, whose kosher food supplies ran out during the coronavirus pandemic.

    “It was heartwarming to experience this altruistic aid effort along with understanding and cooperation,” Havasi quoted from the letter.

    The Chabad Lubavitch Orthodox Jewish Hasidic movement was founded in 1775 by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi in Russia and is currently one of the world’s best-known Hasidic movements, and one of the largest Jewish religious organizations in the world.

    Of the 82,500 Jews of Yugoslavia alive in 1941, only 14,000 — representing 14 percent — survived the Holocaust, and in 1942, Harald Turner, the SS commander and privy councilor in the German military administration of Serbia, infamously stated that “Serbia is the only country in which the Jewish question and the Gypsy question has been solved.”

    Currently, less than 1,000 Jews live in the Serbian capital of Belgrade.

    In Hungary, the government has done much to foster Jewish life in the country but has still had to contend with hostile press claiming otherwise. For example, in January of this year, Politico made a false claim that “Jews are fleeing Hungary” despite clear data to indicate otherwise. The magazine performed a stealth edit of the article to remove the offending passage when the Hungarian government protested but issued no correction.

    In April, European People’s Party President Donald Tusk claimed that Nazi legal scholar Carl Schmitt would be proud of Orbán for the country’s new coronavirus emergency law. Ádám Petri Lukács, a member of Hungary’s Jewish community, wrote a response to Tusk highlighting how offensive his comment was.

    “The real reason that Tusk’s remark causes such immense pain is that it humiliates and invalidates the suffering and death of the victims of the Shoah,” wrote Lukács.

    He also pointed to the flourishing of Jewish life in Hungary.

    “Jewish life in Hungary is enjoying a renaissance, a fact supported by the testimony of many proud, Hungarian Jews, including me,” wrote Lukács.

    Title: The Chabad Lubativch Jewish community of Belgrade. (source: lubavitch.com)

  • Ruling Hungarian conservatives skeptical about EU’s recovery plan

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s post-coronavirus recovery plan is unfair and in its current form unacceptable for Hungary, MEPs of the ruling conservative Fidesz party said on Wednesday.

    Von der Leyen said the €750 billion fund would be made up of €500 billion in grants and €250 billion in loans. It would be raised by temporarily lifting the EU’s budget ceiling to percent of EU’s gross national income and would be reliant on the EU’s strong (AAA) credit rating.

    Together with the proposed €1.1 trillion budget for 2021-27, the €750 billion recovery fund would raise total funds to €1.85 trillion, which is the amount that the Commission says will “kick-start our economy and ensure Europe bounces forward”. On top of this sum, comes a previously approved €540 billion initial rescue package, making the total for the seven-year budgetary period €2.4 trillion, von der Leyen said.

    Out of the €750 billion recovery fund, €500 billion will be given to member states as a grant, while the remaining €250 billion will serve as long-term loans repayable in 30 years, with a seven-year initial grace period, which would mean in effect repayment of the loans would occur between 2028 and 2058.

    To repay the loan, the EU is planning to introduce a carbon tax based on the Emissions Trading Scheme, a digital tax and a tax on non-recycled plastics.

    Hungarian MEPs, however, said the plan was grossly unfair for Hungary. MEP Tamás Deutsch, member of the Budgetary and Regional Development Committees, said that given Hungary’s 1-percent contribution to the EU’s budget, the country will have to repay 1 percent of the €750 billion loan, meaning €7.5 billion, which is only slightly above the €8.1 billion the country will receive from the recovery fund.

    Italy and Spain are slated to be the biggest recipients with €81.8 billion and €77.3 billion respectively, followed by France with €39 billion and Poland with €38 billion. The Mediterranean states’ initial reaction was positive, which is understandable since Italy, for example, is set to receive an amount equaling 5 percent of its GDP.

    Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Lithuania want to see the fine print before committing to the package, while the so-called “frugal four”, consisting of Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, appear to remain opposed and want repayable loans to be the basis for any funding deal instead of free money for Southern European countries in the form of grants. 

    The Czech government has also voiced concerns over a €500 billion grant proposal from the French and German governments. The Czech Republic argues that such a large sum for countries in the south would be a huge reward for countries like Italy and Spain that have not shown fiscal discipline in the past. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš argues that countries like his own along with others like Hungary and Poland have successfully dealt with the epidemic through smart policies, and they should not be punished for it.

    “It would be unfair to be penalized for being successful in dealing with the epidemic,” the Babiš said.

    Germany, traditionally known for its fiscal discipline, could benefit from a grant proposal. Many of the billions provided to Southern Europe will inevitably go back towards buying German products and services, which in turn will help stimulate the German economy.

    All 27 member states will have to agree on funding, which means negotiations could remain fraught due to deep divisions about how billions in funding should be disbursed.

    Title image: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. (Francois Lenoir, Pool Photo via AP)

  • Hungarian analysts among the world’s best economic fortune tellers

    Orsolya Nyeste, leading macroeconomic analyst of the Hungarian subsidiary of the Erste Bank Group, won the award for the best macroeconomic and interest rate forecast in the country at the 2020 Analyst Forecast Awards of Barcelona-based international economic forecast firm Focus Economics.

    Asked by financial portal napi.hu about the 2021 budget submitted to Parliament on Tuesday by Finance Minister Mihály Varga, the country’s certified best analyst said that while the government was in a particularly difficult position when devising the budget due to the major uncertainties regarding the current coronavirus crisis, she found the budget’s cornerstone 4.8 percent GDP growth assumption “realistic, taking into account existing information and largely in line with market expectations”.

    The one point where she differed from the government’s official position was the economic decline for this year.

    While Varga’s latest forecast was of a 3-percent contraction, Nyeste’s own forecast is 4.2 percent — but even that is significantly more optimistic than the European Commission’s official 7-percent figure.

    Nyeste also considers the government’s 2.8 percent budget deficit for 2021 realistic, adding, however, that the risk factors all without exception are downward ones, so in a sense, the country will only meet that target if the optimistic scenario of a fast, V-shaped recovery materializes.

    Asked about when she expected the Hungarian economy to fully recover from the effects of the pandemic, she declined to give a forecast.

    Incidentally, Nyeste is not the only bright star among Hungary’s financial analysts: Gergely Suppan, lead analyst of Takarékbank last year won the award for the most accurate macroeconomic forecast in the Central European group of Consensus Economics, beating several hundred of his peers.

    Title image: Orsolya Nyeste, leading macroeconomic analyst of Erste Bank Hungary. (source: Erste Bank Zrt.)

  • EU is doing bidding of socialists by targeting Hungary and Poland, says Polish MEP

    The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee (LIBE) is working with socialist politicians to target Hungary and Poland, says Polish MEP Ryszard Czarnecki.

    The Law and Justice party (PiS) politicians says a recent report from the LIBE is one of “smoke and mirrors”. While describing the report, Czarnecki said he cannot find anything remotely sensible inside it and that all it lacks is claims that aliens from outer space came down and landed in Poland.

    Czarnecki believes that the whole report “belongs in the dustbin” and advises the Spanish socialist chairman of LIBE, Lopez Aguilar, to look at the situation in his own country which was woefully late with its intervention on the pandemic and cost tens of thousands of lives.

    The PiS MEP rejects any notion that the payment of EU funds for Poland should be tied with rule of law compliance and pointed out that there are no legal provisions for such a course of action.

    Czarnecki advises the Spanish chairman of the committee to draw conclusions from Brexit, something which the Polish MEP says happened when a key member of the EU began to be ill-treated by the EU mainstream.

    Czarnecki feels that unequal treatment of member states such as that of Poland on the rule of law can lead to destructive tendencies in the EU and fears that the likes of Aguilar could become the undertakers of the European project.

    “Its attempts to bully member states demonstrates to people that Europe is not for everyone but only the chosen few,” he said.

    The LIBE report on the rule of law in Poland claims that the situation regarding judicial reform and compliance with the rule of law is getting worse.

    It cites instances of police actions against demonstrators during the pandemic and journalist protests against management decisions on state radio as evidence.

    Neither example has anything to do with judicial reforms and in neither case has the law been broken by the authorities.

    Pro-migration politicians inside the European Union, many of them with a direct connection with billionaire financier George Soros, have been waging a campaign against Poland and Hungary regarding rule of law issues for years. Hungary and Poland contend that the attacks amount to an effort from liberals to bring down the conservative governments running both countries.

  • Hungarian foreign minister visits Romania to defuse mounting tensions

    Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó paid an impromptu visit to Bucharest on Tuesday in an effort to mend some fences in the recently deteriorating relationship with its eastern neighbor, NATO ally and fellow European Union member state.

    The year 2020 was going to be an auspicious year in bilateral relations anyway, as it marks the 100th anniversary of the June 4, 1920 Trianon Treaty that carved out Transylvania from Hungary and handed it to its eastern neighbor of Romania.

    One of the peace treaties that officially ended World War I, the Trianon Treaty divided more than two-thirds of the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary among its neighbors. This territory included the Kingdom of Romania, the Czechoslovak Republic, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and — most ironically — the First Austrian Republic, which is considered the half of the then Austro-Hungarian Empire that was involved in igniting World War I even if it was not directly responsible for causing the war.

    As a result, Hungary lost 72 percent of its territory and 64 percent of its population to the above-mentioned neighboring countries.

    Just two weeks ago, the Romanian Parliament declared June 4 a national holiday to celebrate the treaty, and the topic featured prominently at Tuesday’s meeting. Both foreign ministers stated their countries’ respective positions at the meeting – showing no real sign of thawing – while both also pointed out that instead of the past, the two neighbors should focus on the future.

    “As a nation over a thousand years old, we expect respect. The cooperation with Romania must be built on understanding. It is better to have a good relationship than a bad one,” Szijjártó said, while his Romanian counterpart Bogdan Aurescu pointed out that “Romania has a vested interest of getting out of the confrontational logic with Hungary and build a modern relationship of mutual trust and respect along the lines of the 21st century.”

    Today, the Romanian Parliament will vote the proposal of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) to make March 15, the day of the Hungarian anti-Habsburg uprising a national holiday for the ethnic Hungarian minority in Romania.

    RMDSZ submitted the bill to the Romanian bi-cameral Parliament back in 2017. At the time, a joint session of the Public Administration and Human Rights Committees of the upper house, the Senate, passed the motion, but a subsequent plenary session of the Senate voted it down. On Wednesday, it will be brought to vote in the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, which is the decisive ballot on the matter.

    Many of the later battles of the 1848-49 Hungarian uprising were fought in Transylvania, where the small revolutionary army waged a losing war against the combined might of Russia and Austria.

    Title image: Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó (L) and Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu (R) bump elbows in Bucharest on May 26, 2020. (MTI/Mátyás Borsos)

  • Hungary plans 4.8% GDP growth, lower public debt in 2021 budget

    Hungary’s 2021 budget is based on a GDP growth expectation of 4.8 percent growth, three percent inflation and 2.9 percent deficit, Finance Minister Mihály Varga said in Parliament on Tuesday when he presented the headline figures of the new budget.

    He added that the budget was based on an average annual forint/euro exchange rate of 356.6 compared with 353.8 this year and a reduction of the country’s public debt to below 70 percent of GDP. At the time of writing, the forint was quoted at 348.122 against the euro.

    Varga also said that key chapters of the budget will all be higher in both nominal and real terms.

    Next year, the government will gradually phase back in the bonus 13th month pensions, with this measure alone accounting for an expense of 77 billion forints while pension premiums — calculated based on inflation rate and average wages — will cost an additional 55 billion forints. Combined with the increase of pensions, the additional total spent on pensions will be 325 billion forints.

    The finance minister also said the budget for education will increase by 80 billion forints, healthcare will receive an additional 186 billion forints while an extra 325 billion forints will go towards public sector wages as part of the country’s effort to save as many jobs as possible from the aftereffects of the coronavirus pandemic.

    Last month, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán pledged that the government will “create as many jobs as were destroyed by the pandemic”.

    Moving away from the headline figures of next year’s budget, Varga also noted that in April the government launched the country’s largest ever economic support plan of 9,000 billion forints (€25.86 billion), amounting to 20 percent of the country’s GDP.

    He also said that next year’s budget will have three reserve funds: one for pandemic measures, one for economic recovery schemes and the general reserve of the budget. Plenary debate of the budget will begin in parliament on June 9 and a vote will probably be called in early July, before the summer recess of the legislation.

    Title image: Finance Minister Mihály Varga (L) hands the 2021 budget to Speaker of the House László Kövér (R) on May 36, 2020. (MTI/Szilárd Koszticsák)

  • Hungary deserves an apology, Justice Minister Varga says at EU videoconference

    Borrowing the refrain from a hit from Sir Elton John, Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga reminded fellow EU affairs ministers on Tuesday that “sorry seems to be the hardest word” and that Hungary was due an apology, especially from all those who accused the government of Viktor Orbán of grabbing excessive power during the coronavirus crisis.

    “It wasn’t the first time that we were the victims of a campaign that had no basis whatsoever. But fortunately, in this case the misleading and false information spread about us had obviously proven wrong,” Varga said. “In an ideal world, Hungary would be entitled to an apology, but we all know from Sir Elton John that ‘sorry seems to be the hardest word’”.

    Left-wing politicians and a wide range of liberal media outlets attacked Hungary’s government after it submitted a motion to parliament in mid-March to give it additional powers for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. Following claims that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would put in place a permanent “dictatorship” and “authoritarian” state, the government has now relinquished the powers a mere two months after they were implemented.

    The half-a-minute video of Varga delivering the above message in English during the conference was posted on her Facebook page on the same day when the Hungarian government submitted a motion to parliament handing back the extra mandate it received during the crisis.

    The previous day, Varga once again refuted liberal allegations that the cabinet of Orbán wanted to keep the powers permanently.

    “Thanks to the special legal order, the Government could make quick and effective decisions in recent weeks to curb the pandemic, so unlike other countries, we have been able to avoid an outbreak, mass illnesses and thousands of deaths,” Varga wrote Monday evening after the cabinet meeting focused on a bill abolishing the special legal order, which will be submitted to parliament today.

    Top European politicians also heaped threats on Hungary. European People’s Party (EPP) President Donald Tusk even said that a leading scholar of the Nazi regime would have been proud of Orbán over his state of emergency law. A number of politicians and press outlets said that Orbán would use the emergency powers to rule Hungary “indefinitely”. Tusk suggested Hungary’s Fidesz party be expelled from the EPP and other top politicians even said Hungary should be expelled from the EU over the law.

    Even before Orban gave up the extraordinary powers, the EU had already found that Hungary’s state of emergency law did not violate any European rules. Legal experts at the European Commission stated that a range of governments had enacted similar emergency laws to deal with the crisis and that Hungary’s own state of emergency law warranted no action from the EU. 

    The meeting of the ministers of EU affairs on Tuesday was otherwise focused on the “coordinated approach to the deescalation of containment measures and the economic recovery” after the coronavirus pandemic as well as building “a more resilient and sustainable Europe”.

    In addition to the main item on the agenda, the European Commission shared information on the latest state of play in the preparation of the first Annual Rule of Law Report in the Union, of which Poland and Hungary are the prime targets. The two countries have become the focus of pro-migration forces within the EU, including George Soros and his network of NGOs, for promoting a union of sovereign nation-states against the federalist drive of Brussels bureaucrats.

    Title image: Hungarian Minister of Justice and EU Affairs Judit Varga during a videoconference with her European Union counterparts on May 26, 2020. (source: Facebook)

  • Hungarian car industry fared better during coronavirus pandemic than most other EU countries

    The Hungarian automotive industry weathered the coronavirus pandemic better than almost any other European country, László György, the state minister of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology, said at a Budapest industry conference.

    György stated that while in March, the average decline in the European car production was slightly over 30 percent, in Hungary it was only 19.8 percent. In mid-March, all four major multinational car producers came to a halt in tandem with stoppages all over the continent.

    While the average industrial downtime in Europe was 29 working days, in Hungary it was only 22 days. The only country where the stoppage was shorter was in Sweden, where the government decided to weather the pandemic with far fewer restrictive measures, resulting in only 15 days lost due to work stoppages in the automotive sector.

    In contrast, however, with a population roughly similar to Hungary (10.2 vs 9.9 million), the coronavirus pandemic in Sweden so far claimed 4,029 casualties compared with 499 in Hungary. Sweden now has one of the highest per capita death rates in Europe.

    György also said that since the Hungarian government introduced its job protection scheme whereby it would cover part of the wages of employees not fired, companies had been granted 17 billion forints (€48.5 million) to maintain 105,000 jobs, most of them in the manufacturing sector, which includes the automotive industry.

    The four major multinational automotive manufacturers present in Hungary are Audi, Mercedes, Opel and Suzuki, with BMW also slated to open a factory in Debrecen in eastern Hungary towards the end of next year or possibly slightly later due to investment delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

    The four major car manufacturers present in Hungary account for just over 10 percent of the total GDP and 29 percent of total manufacturing output.

    Title image: Mercedes assembly line in Kecskemét, Central Hungary. (source: Mercedes/Szilárd Dudar)

  • Hungary’s finance minister references 1848 cholera pandemic while submitting 2021 budget

    Hungarian Finance Minister Mihály Varga submitted to the Hungarian Parliament the country’s budget for the year 2021 and used the occasion to reference the country’s devastating 1848 cholera pandemic, which killed an estimated 100,000 Hungarians.

    In a Facebook video., he declared it “the budget aimed at rebooting the country’s economy” following the coronavirus crisis.

    Varga said the budget will contain a special chapter about a health insurance and coronavirus pandemic defense fund of 3,000 billion forints (€8.55 billion). In the video, he had in front of him the budget the 1848 revolutionary government submitted to Hungarian Parliament then led by Finance Minister Lajos Kossuth, a national hero, which was published in separate of volume of the official government bulletin.

    Varga pointed out that that budget at that time also had a 1,500-forint item relating to expenses for that year’s cholera epidemic.

    The cholera epidemics that broke out in the 19th century were devastating across Europe. During Hungary’s first cholera epidemic of 1831, the mounting death toll partially fueled social instability and a rebellion that led peasants to attack people of high standing, including landlords, officials, doctors, and priests. The pandemic also claimed the life of famed Hungarian writer Ferenc Kazinczy.

    While Varga did not go into detail in the video about the 1848 Hungarian budget — only saying that the budget was a “valuable material evidence of the country’s independence and sovereignty” — one of the 12 points of the 1848-49 Hungarian anti-Habsburg uprising was the need for an independent Central Bank, which became both a guarantor and symbol of Budapest’s financial independence from the Vienna Imperial Court.

    “Thanks to the disciplined attitude of the Hungarian people and the government’s measures, we can now carefully restart life in Hungary, and next year’s budget was planned accordingly, and it will be the budget reopening the country’s economy,” Varga said.

    In contrast with the practices of successive governments after the 1990 regime change in Hungary, which more often than not could only pass a given year’s budget in January of the following year, Orbán’s conservative government, which has been continuously in power since 2010, has introduced the practice of submitting and passing the budget for the subsequent year before the summer recess of parliament.

    While Varga did relate what size of economic decline the budget contains, at the beginning of the month in an updated converge program to the European Commission, his ministry forecast a three-percent decline compared with 4.9 percent growth in 2019.

    The European Commission’s official 2020 forecast for Hungary sees a seven-percent GDP contraction. 

    Title image: Cholera hospital ward in Hamburg.

  • Hungarian government hands back special coronavirus mandate to parliament today

    The Hungarian government will today submit to a motion to parliament to hand back the extraordinary powers given for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic, which prompted Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga to make a Facebook post once again refuting liberal allegations that the cabinet of Viktor Orbán wanted to keep the powers permanently.

    “Thanks to the special legal order, the Government could make quick and effective decisions in recent weeks to curb the pandemic, so unlike other countries, we have been able to avoid an outbreak, mass illnesses and thousands of deaths,” Varga wrote Monday evening after the cabinet meeting focused on a bill abolishing the special legal order, which will be submitted to parliament today.

    The successful fight against the pandemic was a reference to the fact that Hungary, unlike some Central and Eastern European countries, and the majority of the Western European countries, was able to avoid mass infections. To date, Hungary, with a population of just under ten million, had 3,771 coronavirus cases and 499 casualties.

    Varga noted that the special legal order was introduced just over two months ago, while giving the government the tools to effectively fight the pandemic, also prompted the opposition to launch attacks against it both at home and abroad, instead of contributing to the national effort.

    Without mentioning any names or organizations, she also reminded those who most vehemently attacked the Orbán cabinet during the special legal order that it was perhaps time to apologize.

    “We continue to expect those who, out of ignorance or malice, joined in spreading fake news when the government worked to save lives, at least to apologize now to the Hungarian people and to draw the appropriate conclusions!,” Varga wrote.

    The European Parliament held a debate questioning Hungary’s state of emergency law on May 14, to which Prime Minister Viktor Orbán delegated Varga to present the Hungarian government’s position, but she was banned from participating or defending her country.

    The session, initiated by the Greens with the support of the Socialists, was meant to examine whether Hungary’s emergency law gave too broad powers to the conservative government.

    Title image: Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga. (source: Facebook)

  • German liberal mainstream is brainwashing population to hate Hungary and love migrants: analyst

    A new movie depicting the 2015 German migration crisis is a good example of how the liberal mainstream is in effect brainwashing the country’s population to embrace liberal pro-migration ideas, Georg Spöttle, a security policy analyst at the Nézőpont Intézet think-tank, told Magyar Nemzet in an interview.

    He was referring to the movie “Die Getriebenen” (The Driven Ones), which aired on German national television channel ARD on April 15, which portrays the crucial autumn of 2015 when German Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to open Germany to an immigration wave of one million people. ARD is publically funded by German taxpayers with a fee they are required to pay every year.

    The film is based on the eponymous 2017 book by journalist Robin Alexander. While the book itself is a strongly critical look at the events as suggested by its title, where the “driven ones” are the politicians caught in the stream of the events, the movie is widely regarded as an ode to Chancellor Angela Merkel. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is also negatively depicted in the film.

    Spöttle said that while strong economic ties — such as the presence of BMW, Audi and Siemens in Hungary — are a potent stabilizing factor in the two countries’ relationship, attacks against the conservative government of Hungary will likely remain a permanent fixture of the liberal media and political circles. 

    “These [attackers] include Die Welt, Spiegel and the young Brusselite elite, most of whom have no appreciable life experience. They have probably only seen migrants in the Homeland TV show, and they still recite a pro-migrant liberal dogma,” Spöttle said in the interview. “[But] overall, bilateral relations between the two countries will remain balanced in the future.”

    Answering a question about how these left-radical ideas are making their way into the liberal mainstream, Spöttle said it was a kind a brainwashing.

    “This is the result of the so-called ‘sensitization’, which in practice equates to brainwashing. The liberal doctrines — from gender theory to refusing the conservative family model — are being pounded into them from middle school to graduating from university and those who voice opinions different from these are being marginalized.”

    The Hungarian analyst pointed to disturbing trends in Germany for those who deviate from accepted opinions or voice dissent.

    “During the so-called ‘Aktionswochenende’ (action weekend), police and secret services can detain people and confiscate their storage media for as little as posting things on social media which do not conform with the democracy concept of the liberal mainstream,” Spöttle said. “Presenting the dark side of immigration has become a very strong taboo and a single such post can break a career. That is why many of my police officer colleagues have deleted their Facebook accounts.”

    He added that traditional expressions of national pride can also be a reason for branding someone.

    “If someone is proud of their national identity, their flag, wants to live in a traditional way or drink beer after the Bavarian fashion, they are immediately branded Nazis.” 

    Title image: German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a May 20, 2020 press conference in Berlin. (Odd Andersen/Pool via AP)

  • Poll: Vast majority of Hungarians approve of government’s handling of coronavirus epidemic

    Even in retrospect, the vast majority of Hungarians approve of the government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, including the timing of the introduction and easing of restrictive measures, think-tank Nézőpont Intézet said in an analysis of a recent poll it conducted.

    Looking at the weekly evolution of public opinion, the institute pointed out that while in mid-March, 94 percent of respondents approved of the extraordinary measures and still 85 percent agreed with them at the end of March, the latest poll conducted last week from Thursday to Saturday indicated that the approval rate dropped to 40 percent.

    “For the first time since March, the number of those opposing the state of emergency became the majority, without this becoming a demand against the government. However, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán initiated an end the state of emergency this week, foregoing the demands of the opposition,” the report states.

    The analysis added that from a political perspective it is even more important that the majority (78 percent) are of the opinion that it was justified for the government to have extraordinary powers for the past two months and only 17 percent disagree. Even among those critical of the government, there was a 50 percent approval rate of the government’s extended powers.

    “All of those crying dictatorship and George Soros, Jean-Claude Juncker, Donald Tusk, the global liberal media and the Hungarian opposition have thus lost a major semantics battle”, the analysis said. “Not then, not now, and not afterwards do the majority of the Hungarian electorate agree with their reading of the state of emergency, as both its introduction and ending has the consensus of the Hungarian society.”

    The poll – conducted on representative sample of 1,000 people over the telephone – showed that overall, 62 percent of Hungarians expect a second infection wave.

    “Should this come true, the Hungarian opposition – in addition to apologizing, as suggested by Viktor Orbán – will also have the opportunity to learn from its mistakes and next time around support the extraordinary defensive measures instead of opposing them.”

    Title image: A technician coordinates the online charity concert of Hungarian band Pannonia All Stars Ska Orchestra, streamed from a warehouse on May 24, 2020. (MTI/Márton Mónus)

  • Hungary’s Orbán is gaining, and Poland’s Kaczyński is in retreat

    According to opinion surveys, at least half of Hungarians support Viktor Orbán and 70 percent believe he will remain in power beyond 2022. As a result, the Hungarian opposition is way behind, fragmented and with low levels of support.

    In Poland, opposition parties and their candidates for president are gaining ground, and this is only happening because the government is in retreat. That retreat is a result of internal divisions and failure to be transparent.

    Despite the fact that the Polish government has been successful in delivering its policies, unlike its Hungarian counterpart, it has failed to communicate that success.  

    Maybe this is because in Hungary, Orbán and Fidesz had a stark example in the shape of the former socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyursani admitting that his government lied to the public to hold onto power.

    They learned from it and have been clear and straight with the people telling it as it is. They have also been honest about explaining how they are under pressure at home and abroad and have shunned manipulation and lies.

    The German Constitutional Court upheld several complaints against the ECB’s bond purchasing program started in 2015 that was meant to boost the economy and stoke inflation toward closer to 2 percent. It did not cover newer ECB policies in response to the coronavirus.

    The court said the program was beyond the mandate of the ECB and that the Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, must quit the scheme within three months unless the ECB can prove its necessity.

    The program is credited with having ended the eurozone debt crisis, however, some critics argue it flooded markets with cheap money and encouraged government overspending.

    The significance of the judgment depends on what other courts can do with it,” said Beck. “Should at some point in the future the Hungarian, Polish or Danish constitutional court follow the [German] example, this German ruling will indeed gain a significance far beyond the subject of the ruling itself or the eurozone, including on issues such as immigration or the internal market” said Beck. “It would strengthen the cause of sovereignty across the European Union.“

    “In my personal opinion, this could also have repercussions on the economic governance of the eurozone,” Beck said. “It is even conceivable that member states will enact retroactive legislation against breaches of the law by the EU, meaning the amendment of existing treaties. This could end up being a paradoxical situation.”

    The European Commission, however, is not giving up the fight and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sided with the Brussels body against her own country.

    “The final word on EU law is always spoken in Luxembourg. Nowhere else,” von der Leyen said.

    The European Commission is even talking about taking legal action against the German government. EU Vice President Věra Jourová said, “We will look into possible next steps, which may include the option of infringement proceedings.”

    Title image: Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) Gunnar Beck. (source: European Parliament)

  • Organized crime in Hungary also hit hard by coronavirus pandemic

    Just like the above-ground economy, organized crime in Hungary is also feeling the brunt of the movement restrictions designed to halt the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, with drug distribution, prostitution, black market betting, and money laundering all taking a major hit.

    Just like in Western Europe, where reports say there is a marked shortage of drugs, there is also a severe lack of marijuana and synthetic drugs on the Hungarian market.

    The reasons are manifold: Total or partial curfews had rendered street distribution all but impossible, stricter border controls mean that fewer shipments reach the country and a significant part of the drug users have simply run out of money.

    The more desperate or enterprising distributors masquerade as couriers of legitimate commercial venues to supply their remaining customers, but the decreased traffic in crime has made the police’s job easier. These couriers are routinely apprehended and many of those channels are also closing down.

    Some of the more innovative criminal groups have since switched to the sale of counterfeit protection equipment such as poor-quality face masks, gloves and disinfectants of dubious origin.

    Hungarian addiction counseling organization Kék Pont (“Blue Dot”) has set up a dedicated internet forum for alcohol and drug addicts, advising them to reduce their usage as much as possible because most drugs in circulation destroy the mucus lining of the lungs and the immune system, the very same parts of the body that are attacked by the virus itself.

    The few synthetic drugs and heroin products still available are predominantly from labs in the Far East with poor quality controls, resulting in a significantly higher risk of lethal overdoses.

    Prostitution has also plummeted in the last two months. Ágnes Földi, president of the Sex Workers’ Union in Hungary, says the overwhelmingly male customers are on the one hand afraid of catching the disease, and as most of them also working from home, it is also much more difficult for them to explain unaccounted absences from home.

    One prostitute said the number of clients has dropped to “a quarter of a quarter”, and while some are making the transition to use webcams for their clients, that activity is far less profitable.

    In the absence of sporting events, Hungary’s once bustling black betting scene has disappeared entirely, and with the lack of illegal revenues, money laundering services are no longer in demand either.   

    Title image: Drug bust in Hungary. (source: Duna TV)

  • Hungary summons ambassadors of 5 Nordic countries, demands they stop spreading fake news

    Hungary is summoning the ambassadors of five Nordic countries after they criticized Hungary over its state of emergency law designed to protect the country during the coronavirus crisis.

    Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó indicated that Hungary is summoning Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden after their respective foreign ministers sent a letter claiming Hungary was violating the “rule of law” to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Marija Pejčinović Burić.

    In the letter, the five Nordic countries assured Burić of their support regarding her concerns over the emergency bill that gave the Hungarian government extended powers for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic.

    The foreign ministers of the five Nordic countries responded to Burić on May 6 that they “share the concerns expressed in that letter. Even in an emergency situation the rule of law must prevail.”

    They were responding to Burić’s original letter, which stated, “An indefinite and uncontrolled state of emergency cannot guarantee that the basic principles of democracy will be observed and that the emergency measures restricting fundamental human rights are strictly proportionate to the threat which they are supposed to counter.”

    EU determined Hungary breached no EU rules

    While the Council of Europe first protested the Hungarian government’s state of emergency law, the EU has since determined that the law violates no EU guidelines and that no action will be pursued against Hungary. In addition, Commissioner for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová officially determined that Hungary is breaching no EU laws or guidelines earlier this month.

    Despite the finding, the five Nordic countries appear to still be protesting the Hungarian law, but it is unclear how the country has violated any “rule of law” principles.

    “This weekend did not pass without the international liberal mainstream continuing to spread fake news” Szijjártó said in a Facebook post Sunday evening.

    “We will move on, but let us make one thing clear now: the Hungarians are a more than a thousand-year-old nation, which does not ask for pathetically hypocritical guardianship,” Szijjártó wrote. “Neither the Danish, the Icelandic, nor the Finnish, nor the Norwegian, nor the Swedish foreign ministers should think that they know better than the Hungarians what is good for the Hungarians. They should feel free to leave these decisions to us, since the Hungarian people can decide what they want and what they don’t. And they should also feel free to deal with their own issues.”

    Szijjártó indicated that all five countries would be summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs over the issue.

    “Of course, the ambassadors of all five countries accredited in Budapest will be called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tomorrow,” the post concludes.

    Szijjártó added that in addition to the letter, several of the five foreign ministers also made individual statements regarding Hungary.

    Title image: Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó.

  • How George Soros tried and failed to punish Hungary during the coronavirus crisis

    Despite billionaire financier George Soros’s network running a months-long campaign attempting to smear Hungary with claims that its leaders “clearly violate international law and threaten European citizens”, these efforts ultimately has failed due to a lack of supporting evidence, a new study the Nézőpont Institute has found.

    The study determined the coordinated campaign began on March 30 after the Hungarian Parliament gave a mandate to the conservative government of Viktor Orbán to rule by decree for the duration and in respect to the coronavirus outbreak, which first appeared in Hungary on March 4.

    Although EU announced on April 29 that it would take no action against Hungary as it broke no European rules with its state of emergency law, this decision was only reached after months of attacks from Soros’s network and the liberal press in what the Nézőpont Institute described as a coordinated campaign to harm the Hungarian government.

    On March 30, the same day parliament enacted the ruling conservative Fidesz party’s motion, Soros’s New York-based Open Society Network issued a press release claiming that the bill “will impose harsh restrictions on media freedoms and citizen mobility”, saying it was “further evidence that Viktor Orban has authoritarian tendencies”. The network also urged the “international community” to condemn Hungary.

    The statement from Soros’s Open Society Foundation also falsely claimed “the bill will also cancel future elections” in Hungary, a claim that had no basis in fact.

    The study shows that a few weeks later the New York-based Human Rights Watch (formerly Helsinki Watch) NGO also joined the campaign, when its CEO Kenneth Roth declared that the ten million people of Hungary live under authoritarian rule and campaigned in a video for the exclusion of Fidesz from the European People’s Party.

    In addition to NGOs, the campaign against Hungary was followed by a coordinated international press campaign, with opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, The Guardian and several other liberal media outlets that Hungary is curtailing civil freedoms.

    The Open Society Foundation had also activated its member network in Hungary, including from the Soros-founded Károly Eötvös Institute, The Hungarian Helsinki Committee, the Society for Freedoms (HCLU), and Amnesty International Hungary. The Open Society Foundation either has a direct or indirect role in their funding.

    On March 23, Lydia Gall, a senior analyst for the Hungarian region at Human Rights Watch (HWR), a New York-based organization funded by Soros’s network, criticized the coronavirus bill before the Hungarian Parliament, claiming it would give Orbán “unlimited” power. In order to protect democracy, the Hungarian parliament must prevent the adoption of the law, otherwise Hungary will have to bear the consequences for years, Gall wrote.
     
    On March 19, Gall also claimed that “Hungary weaponizes coronavirus to stoke xenophobia” in a piece for HWR. Gall has also worked as a human rights lawyer for Roma issues at the European Roma Rights Center, which was founded in 1996 by activists and lawyers of the Open Society Foundation, which still remains its biggest funder.
     
    Civil Liberties Union for Europe, which has direct funding from the Open Society Foundation directly accused the Hungarian prime minister of passing a bill creating a “dictatorship” and authorizing the government to imprison journalists criticizing the cabinet, which is factually incorrect.
     
    A few days later, on April 9, the same organization formulated a five-point proposal for the European Union to regulate Hungary, “punish” the country, withdraw funding, and continue Article 7 procedures already directed at Hungary.
     
    Soros’s network of Hungarian and international organizations then stepped up their campaign on April 15 in cooperation with 80 politicians from the European Parliament to send a joint open letter to the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council. The signatories called on the two EU institutions to condemn and act against Hungary.
     
    The signatories of the letter, published on Transparency International’s website, another organization funded by the Open Society Network, includes many other foundations funded by Soros, such as HRW, HCLU, Transparency International Hungary, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, and Degree, but also the Open Society European Policy Institute itself and the European Society of Hungary, chaired by István Hegedűs, who has also acted as an expert for the Hungarian Soros Foundation.

    Despite the international efforts of the Soros network, the European Union concluded that the emergency mandate of the government does not violate or contradict any European regulations, as stated by the European Commission’s Vice President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová on Czech TV in April.

    “After a month-long, intensive domestic and international campaign, legal and political facts have confirmed the government [position] and the Soros-network has failed again, although they have deployed all their usual methods, mobilizing the entire network from fake NGOs through journalists and prominent politicians,” the Nézőpont Institute study concludes. 

    For a number of reasons, the EU was unable to take action against Hungary even if it wanted to. Legal experts pointed out that the additional emergency powers granted by the Hungarian government were not unique and that many other EU countries, such as France or Romania, also resulted in varying degrees of restrictions of fundamental rights.

    The study warns that the campaign is just one of many launched against Hungary and is “probably not the last such campaign against Viktor Orbán”.

    Title image: Hungarian-born U.S. billionaire George Soros.

  • PM Orbán: Hungary can expect ‘brutal’ economic data in April due to coronavirus outbreak

    Despite the fact that the government has eased the restrictive measures due to the coronavirus pandemic, further caution is very much needed and on one should act as if the disease has been defeated, said Prime Minister Viktor Orbán during his weekly interview on national channel Kossuth Rádió. He also said that while economic data for April will be “brutal”, that is hope that recovery will begin in June.

    “I will only be satisfied when we have killed the virus, but that can’t happen without a vaccine, which currently isn’t [existent],” Orbán said. “While have achieved nice results in rebooting life, we should not fall on the other side of the horse and act as if the epidemic was over.”

    He also reminded listeners that having had read hundreds of articles about the pandemic, people should realize that still haven’t suddenly all become virologists.

    “The analyses must be performed by the experts, based on which accountable politicians must make the decisions for which they must assume responsibility,” Orbán said, adding that while people would like to have their lives return to normal as soon as possible, caution remained imperative. “I would like to hurry, but the professors say that with regard to Budapest we must wait for a reduction in [new] infections.”

    According to the latest official data, Hungary currently has 3,178 confirmed coronavirus cases, 392 casualties and 11,036 persons in mandatory home isolation.

    With regard to the country’s economy, Orbán said that so far 160,000 people have lost their jobs and data for the month of April are bleak.

    “April’s [macroeconomic] data will be brutal, but there is hope for June,” he said, adding that he considered it his “personal pledge” to create as many jobs as the virus has destroyed. Orbán said he ordered the minister of interior to double the number of those in public employment, whose number is currently just under 100,000.

    He added that the Hungarian Armed Forces — Hungary has a professional army with no conscripts — is stepping up recruitment and state-owned companies will also be offering more jobs.

    Looking further into the future, Orbán said that when it comes to defensive equipment related to epidemics — such as respirators — the country must become self-sufficient.

    “In times of peace this may seem like unnecessary spending, but the morale is that we can only count on ourselves.”

    Title image: Viktor Orbán in the radio studio.

  • Romania shocked by vintage globe in PM Orbán’s office – commentary

    Romanian Prime Minister Ludovic Orban and the better part of the Romanian press are up in arms about a picture posted by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wishing good luck to students attending their high school matriculation exams with the image of a 19th-century globe. On the globe, Hungary is shown with its borders as they were at the time, including Transylvania and parts of Slovakia, Ukraine and Serbia. Hungary lost these territories as a result of the peace treaty that ended World War I.

    Asked about his Hungarian counterpart’s post, Romania’s Orban said “pasărea mălai visează” — or, “a bird dreams of hominy”, the Romanian version of the Hungarian saying “a hungry pig dreams of acorns”.

    Magyar Nemzet columnist Tamás Toót Holló points out that two major Romanian newspapers – Evenimentul Zilei and Adevărul – qualified Orbán’s post as a “bizarre gesture”, while a third one, Jurnalul Național reproduced verbatim the Romanian Prime Minister’s reaction.

    “We would be inclined to appreciate the joke if we were in a funny mood”, the columnist writes. “But this low-level stab is far from being funny.”

    He then reminds that the globe in question is a replica of the famous “Perczel globe”, a 1:10,000,000 scale representation of Earth made by renowned Hungarian cartographer László Perczel in 1862, which won a gold medal at the 1881 Venice International Congress of Geography. The original is kept in the cartography archives of the National Széchenyi Library in Budapest.

    Instead of stooping to the level of the Romanian comments, here we should rather give room to a celebration of the cartographer László Perczel, who devoted nine years of his life to create the magnificent, hand-written globe which was not just state-of-the-art for the period, but in fact ahead of its time, the columnist writes.

    “Anything else is just a bad joke, including Orban and his hominy”, he writes.

    The Romanian PM’s remarks came fresh on the heels of last week’s inflammatory statement by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, accusing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Romanian opposition Social Democratic Party (PSD) of secessionism, plotting to hand over Transylvania to Hungary.


    Title image: The so-called “Perczel globe”. (source: Viktor Orbán’s Facebook page)

  • Hungarian parliament rejects Istanbul Convention over gender ideology and migration concerns

    The Hungarian Parliament passed with overwhelming majority (115 to 35 votes) a political resolution rejecting the Istanbul Convention on the grounds that it promotes gender theory and migration.

    The parliament noted that the elements it agrees with in the document, such as its emphasis on protecting women’s rights and fighting domestic violence, are already built into Hungarian law, which means there was no reason for Hungary to ratify 2011 document.

    The Istanbul Convention, an initiative of the Council of Europe that was adopted by the council’s Committee of Ministers on April 7, 2011, in Istanbul, has long been deemed controversial for its many clauses in support of LGBT causes and pro-migration causes.

    The motion was sponsored by Hungary’s junior coalition partner the Christian Democratic Party (KDNP), which said in the justification that “the document wants to force upon countries the definition of social genders and with it the introduction of the destructive gender theory and also wants to force countries to grant asylum based on gender.”

    While Hungary was among the 45 countries that signed the Istanbul Convention after a three-year delay in 2014, it was never ratified by the Hungarian Parliament, hence is not part of the Hungarian legal system.

    István Hollik, communications director of senior coalition partner Fidesz said “Hungary does not need the Istanbul Convention to effectively fight violence against women”.

    While opposition parties accused Fidesz, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Speaker of the House László Kövér, also from Fidesz, of “waging war against women”, a Fidesz statement said the opposition should desist from misinterpreting Kövér’s words when the situation was the exact opposite of what they claim.

    “Women deserve respect and appreciation, and the entire European culture is based on the equality of women,” the statement said, adding that opposition parties were the ones who did not vote the amendment of the country’s penal code which introduced harsher punishments for violence against women and children.

    KDNP said Hungarians had a sovereign right to reject values that go against traditional, national ones.

    “We have a right to defend our country, our culture, our laws, traditions, and national values, which should not be threatened by either the gender theory that goes against the beliefs of the majority of the population or by immigration without bounds, or preferential immigration based on gender,” KDNP caucus leader Lprinc Nacsa said.

    Title image: Hungarian Parliament debates the motion against the Istanbul Convention. (MTI/Tamás Kovács)

     

  • Hungary rejects Freedom House’s democracy assessment

    Hungarian government officials and the conservative media said the latest Nations in Transit report of the U.S. government-funded Freedom House organization, which claims that Hungary is no longer a “free country,” was clearly biased and didn’t meet even the most elemental objectivity criteria.

    The report concluded that there has been “a stunning democratic breakdown” in countries in Central Europe such as Hungary and Poland: notably, both countries are well-known for being run by conservative governments which share two common traits: they both oppose globalism and illegal immigration and enjoy strong popularity among their electorates.

    In a detailed analysis of the Freedom House report, Hungarian political analyst Attila Palkó said that Freedom House uses questionable methodology: the section covering methodology states that a country’s assessment is based on seven different aspects but fails to explain how points are being awarded in the various categories, nor does it provide clear criteria.

    He adds that in the case of Hungary the report is the work of a single individual, Gábor Filippov, the author of a 2018 study on “hybrid regimes”. With the pertinent elements of his previous study largely incorporated into the study, Filippov now has an “objective” source to refer to when defending his scientifically debatable theory and is halfway to closing the loop of circular arguments.

    Government Spokesman Zoltán Kovács says Freedom House’s consistently negative assessments of Hungary stem from the fact that it “relies year after year on a circle of so-called experts and contributors that come from the same left-liberal circles”.

    “We reached a turning point some time ago with these NGOs. These groups – their leadership, their financial backers, and the so-called experts who write these publications – no longer even attempt to maintain the appearance of objectivity. They no longer try to hide their bias,” Kovács said, adding that an institution founded by Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie could no longer be taken seriously.

    Palkó also points out that far from being an objective assessment of the state of freedom in Hungary, the study Freedom House’s final judgement is based on is essentially an inventory of opposition grievances and the media articles quoted in the attached literature are exclusively sourced from left-liberal publications.


    Title image: Hungarian papers and magazines.

  • Hungary pours another €1.19 billion into economic recovery during coronavirus crisis

    Hungary will add 420 billion forints (€1.19 billion) to the current funds devoted to propping up and restarting the Hungarian economy during and after the coronavirus pandemic, Finance Minister Mihály Varga announced on Wednesday.

    “The government is putting 310 billion forints in non-refundable resources and 110 billion forints into zero-interest loans at the disposal of the economic protection action plan,” Varga said.

    The economic protection action plan (GINOP for its Hungarian acronym), was first established by the conservative government in 2014 and has since become a permanent fixture of the country’s economic policy.

    Varga said that within GINOP, 200 billion forints will be devoted to cover 75 percent of the expenses of those companies which continued to provide full wages to their employees despite working shorter hours.

    An additional 30 billion forints will be available for “kurzarbeit” (German for short-time work), an expression that has made it into the Hungarian language during the pandemic. This latter amount will be a special fund for highly qualified employees such as engineers in research and development departments.

    Additionally, 74 billion forints is earmarked to help companies ramp up production and improve efficiency, and 7 billion forints will be used to improve workers’ digital competencies. The 110 billion forints set aside for zero-interest loans is designed to help companies with cash flow problems.

    Varga noted that these additional resources all came from the national budget and were not EU funds.

    According to the latest official data, Hungary had 3,150 confirmed coronavirus cases, with 383 casualties and 10,956 in mandated home isolation.

    Title image: Finance Minister Mihály Varga. (source: portfolio.hu)

  • Hungary named ‘a country to watch’ after winning 39 awards at UK wine contest

    Hungary has been labeled “a country to watch” after 39 Hungarian wines received awards at this year’s Sommelier Wine Awards (SWA), a prominent commercial wine contest established in the United Kingdom in 2007.

    “The number of golds might not have changed much over the past few years, but the number of entries and medals is growing nicely here. Make no mistake, Hungary is starting to build some serious momentum in SWA,” the wine contest’s website said in praise of Hungarian wines.

    “Though our only two Golds were both Furmints, the story here this year, perhaps, was the reds. Typically, they are very much the poor relation to their white counterparts, but ten medals (six of them silver) this year was a big step up, and suggests that we could be in for a few Golds next year. Definitely a country to watch.”

    The number Hungarian wine successes at the contest shows impressive growth. In 2018, Hungary received only six mentions and only 11 last year. The nearly quadrupling in growth to 39 Hungarian wines winning awards this year is sure to bode well not only for the prestige of Hungarian wines but also for Hungarian wineries looking to sell to an international market.

    The two gold-winner Furmints came from Balassa Bor and Royal Tokaji, both from Hungary’s renowned Tokaj region, of 2018 and 2016 vintage, respectively. While Royal Tokaji’s 2016 Oddity Furmint is still available online from some merchants, Balassa Bor’s 2018 Furmint is sold out.

    Furmint is a white Hungarian wine grape variety that is most widely grown in the Tokaj-Hegyalja wine region where it is used to produce single-varietal dry wines as well as being the principal grape in the better known Tokaji dessert wines.

    Much of the merit for this year’s success of Hungarian wines goes to two Hungarians: Monika Gyenes and her son, Zoltán Kopácsi, both residents of Wales who established their Best of Hungary company in 2016 with a clear focus on importing select foods, beverages and other specialty goods from Hungary.

    The mother-son team were the ones responsible for nominating most of this year’s Hungarian entries.

    Besides the praise, tasters also gave one piece of advice that Hungarian winemakers should perhaps take to heart. The most awarded wines were in the lower price categories — with the two gold winners sell at £13.80 and £10.89 — while those in the higher price brackets had an undesirable trace of oak tainting their taste.

    “The higher up in price we went, the use of oak became too much and was extracted, bitter, unbalanced. Our last white was £30, and honestly the first two at £10 give you more,” wrote Elena Serban, taster from Heritage Restaurant.

    Title image: A selection of Furmints from the Balassa Bor winery in Tokaj. (source: Balassa Bor Facebook page)

  • PM Orbán and President Trump discuss border controls and coronavirus crisis during phone call

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán held a phone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday focusing on the importance of border controls, defense against the coronavirus pandemic and handling the global economic repercussions of the crisis, Orbán’s press secretary Bertalan Havasi told national news agency MTI.

    Havasi said both leaders acknowledged with satisfaction that bilateral political and economic relations remain excellent.

    Orbán also posted a summary of their meeting on his Facebook page.

    The White House said President Trump and Prime Minister Orbán agreed that the American and Hungarian people “are eager to safely open their communities and return to work”.

    The leaders also discussed important bilateral and regional issues, including border security, telecommunications security, and the need to diversify supply chains, and protect critical infrastructure.

    Orbán first met Trump in Washington on May 13, 2019. The two leaders share a common viewpoint on halting illegal immigration, a topic that they have discussed in previous phone calls. Since Trump came into office, he has reversed a number of antagonistic Obama-era policies directed at Hungary.

    Title image: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House on May 13, 2019. (source: MTI)

  • Immigration from Africa can be stopped with the right aid and policies: Hungarian MEP

    Hungary has a clear strategy for Africa based on creating livable conditions in sources countries for immigration, maintaining close contact with local organizations in Africa, and helping devise a credible and consistent European assistance program, MEP György Hölvényi writes in his blog. 

    Hölvényi points out that ever since 2015, the Hungary Helps program has served as an example of how to successfully aid African countries at the source. Through the program, Hungary has delivered effective aid by actively consulting with locals, working with Christian aid groups, and building long-term partnerships to improve lives over the long-term.

    Hölvényi believes that migration is not a foregone conclusion and that many Africans, with the right support, will choose to remain in their homelands.

    “The issue of remaining in place versus pursuing migration is a particularly complex one, but we have managed to achieve progress. This is partly due to our consistent presence and efforts, while also being consistent in the message we convey,” he wrote.

    Many NGOs, politicians, and journalists advocate flying migrants directly to Europe. For example, the European Council on Foreign Relations, writes that “refugees [could] be identified near their country of origin and be flown directly to Europe with a temporary visa” and also claimed that if “Europe wants people to stop drowning, it needs to let them fly” to Europe.

    Countries like Germany have followed that advice and transported thousands of migrants to the country via airplane, including many during the coronavirus crisis.

    This kind of attitude only provides a temporary solution on a small scale and does little to address the reasons people migrate in the first place.

    And while some see migration to wealthier countries in Europe as inevitable, Hungary and other countries in Central Europe have taken a different approach. Instead, they argue that solidarity and aid at the source are better than mass migration.

    “The message – and essence – of the [Hungary Helps] program is that true solidarity with ‘developing’ countries, a term I hate to use, means to improve living conditions on-site instead of handing out one-way airplane tickets,” writes Hölvényi.

    “First we must create security and stability, without which sustainable development is impossible to achieve. In order to provide long-term solutions, we must also invest in education and tuition to help alleviate one of the key problems of African economies: the lack of an educated workforce. An educated workforce in healthcare and other sectors of the economy is instrumental in reinforcing local communities and contribute to building a more stable and sustainable society and economy.”

    Hölvényi believes that the European Union must review its development plans, with a targeted development policy focusing on closely cooperating with local institutions, with a particular focus on churches that best represent African society.

    “The role of these churches is being recognized even by international organizations such as the World Bank, so the EU should be permitted to change its relationship with these churches,” he writes.

    Finally, Hölvényi believes that the fundamental problem of governance in Africa needs to be solved before conditions are truly livable in those countries that serve as sources for migration to Europe.

    With the Visegrád countries serving as success stories following the fall of communism, Hölvényi believes they have insight to offer to overcome the transition to stable market-based economies based on democratic principles.

    “Transition from dictatorships to democracy is a difficult process. Having been on the ground, I am convinced that the Visegrád countries and other central European states have ample experience with which they can lend assistance to the young African states coping with a multitude of post-colonial traumas.”

  • Hungarian’s new coronavirus treatment could save many lives during pandemic

    U.S.-based Hungarian immunologist Lajos Baranyi has developed a treatment that can successfully fight off the human immune system’s excessive reaction to the secondary infections caused by the coronavirus, which is responsible for most the deaths associated with the pandemic, conservative daily Magyar Nemzet reports.

    In an exclusive interview with the paper, Baranyi said that the principal cause of coronavirus-related deaths is not the primary infection itself, but the vehement and uncontrolled reaction of the human immune system triggered by the virus.

    This is the so-called “cytokine storm”, or cytokine release syndrom (CRS), which is a deluge of cell signalling proteins partially responsible for the immune response.

    “This is a self-sustaining, almost irreversible process which ultimately leads to death or irreparable organ damage,” Baranyi said, adding that he has been dealing with the same immune reaction he first had to combat while working on artificial blood in a U.S. military research lab.

    Baranyi said that the treatment devised by him, details of which are still confidential, as the treatment is under licensing, is a compound of active peptides that are effective in dampening the immune response, are cheap to mass-produce, have no harmful side effects, and no toxic byproducts.

    It has so far only been tested on animals, but as soon as the procedure is licensed, he wants to conduct human trials in Hungary.

    “Hungary is my home. That is where I became who I am, where I received my diploma, began my research and, as trivial as it may sound, it still is true that one feels an obligation to their homeland,” Baranyi said.

    Baranyi graduated in biology at the Szeged University in 1982, received his doctorate in immunology there in 1986 and his early research areas were cancer and transplant immunology. Between 1994 and 1997 he was a guest professor of the Nagoya, Japan Medical University and from 1998 to 2005 lead research fellow at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in the United States.

    He currently runs his own biotech company, Kelsius System Group.

    Title image: Medical staff caring for a coronavirus patient at the Budapest Korányi Pulmonology Hospital’s dedicated intensice care unit on May 5. (MTI/Zoltán Balogh)

  • Slovenia’s PM Janša under fire for being PM Orbán’s ‘hardline anti-immigration’ ally

    Ever since being elected as prime minister of Slovenia in mid-March, Janez Janša has been under more or less constant media fire for siding with the two “black sheep” of the European Union, his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

    After the country’s previous prime minister, Marjan Šarec, resigned hoping for early elections, Janša was able to form a coalition with his Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) and three other parties, with his government voted into power with 53 votes to 31 in the 90-strong Slovenian legislature.

    Most of his third term in office so far, after he previously held the position between 2004 and 2008 as well as 2012 and 2013, has been spent on successfully fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

    Slovenia, with a population of just over two million, had 1,445 coronavirus cases and 98 deaths, and so far has been commended much like Hungary and Poland for successfully handling the coronavirus outbreak.

    Despite this, he still came under attack by the liberal media for reinforcing the Morawiecki-Orbán duo, both considered as mavericks within the European Union. The latest such article in the Guardian writes that “he will also be able to act as an additional voice of support inside the EU for Orbán and the Polish government, who want to ensure the union does not lecture member states on democracy and rule of law.”

    Part Trump, part Johnson and a ‘little bit of Orbán’

    Much of the disdain directed at Janša seems to be his support for Hungary’s immigration position, which would see a Europe of strong borders, an emphasis on reversing demographic decline, and a strict immigration policy within his own country.

    Politico also wrote that Janša is an “anti-immigration hardliner and ally of Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán” and referred to him as a “strongman”, a connotation mostly reserved for military dictators and not for those who were brought to power in a democracy such as Slovenia’s. The publication describes Janša as “a little bit of Trump, a little bit of Boris Johnson, a little bit of Orbán.”

    Politico does offer some grudging respect to Janša and his political abilities, writing, “Lionized by the Slovenian right, despised by the left, Janša is nothing if not resilient.”

    The 61-year-old Janša also has promised to boost his country’s birth rates, strengthen the country’s borders and bring back military service, all points that are sure to frustrate publications such as the Guardian, Politico and the New York Times, just to name a few that have taken aim at Slovenia’s new leader.

    With another ally in Slovenia, on top of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, it also harms liberal efforts to isolate Orbán and Morawiecki, who have pursued a conservative agenda in their countries and have sought allies elsewhere across Europe.

    The Guardian is also concerned that Janša could help shield Hungary from rule of law and democracy campaigns being conducted by the EU, especially with Slovenia assuming the rotating EU presidency in 2021.

    Like many liberal members of the press and his enemies in the EU, Orbán’s two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliament and high approval ratings has always been “undemocratic”. The rule of law hearings directed at Hungary and Poland by pro-migration politicians in the EU, many who are aligned with George Soros, have been soundly rejected as politically motivated by those in the Hungarian and Polish governments.

    With Janša at the helm in Slovenia, it could complicate these EU campaigns directed at Hungary and Poland.

    ‘Good luck, my friend!’

    Janša alliance with Orbán is due to their overlapping in interests in a strong Europe that rejects pro-migration orthodoxy and extremist liberal sentiment. In fact, Janša won his last term of prime minister due to his opposition to migrant quotas in 2018.

    Upon his recent election this year, Orbán was among the first to congratulate Janša with the words “Congratulations to Janez Janša! Good luck, my friend!” in a Facebook message. Soon afterwards, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said that with the new leadership in Slovenia it was time to open a “new chapter” in the two countries’ relationship.

    But besides being of the same patriotic conviction as his two colleagues, Janša’s outspoken nature has landed him much of the same situation as Orbán, who was unjustly attacked by Donald Tusk, the Polish president of the European People’s Party for Orbán declaring a state of emergency to fight the coronavirus crisis.

    Despite Orbán’s Fidesz party belonging to the EPP political group, Tusk said prominent Nazi legal scholar Carl Schmitt would be proud of Orbán, a claim that shocked Hungary and led to strong protests from the Hungarian government. Since then, the EU has also determined that the state of emergency does not violate and European guidelines.

    Janša also jumped to Orbán’s defense regarding Tusk’s comments. In a Twitter exchange on April 1, Janša addressed Tusk with the words “Dear @donaldtuskEPP, please send us and countries south of us some personal protective equipment. Ventilators are also very needed and welcome. Thank you.”, to which Tusk replied: “Making use of the pandemic to build a ‘state of a permanent state of emergency’ is politically dangerous, and morally unacceptable.”

    Title image: Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa. (source: MTI)

  • Fake news frenzy targeting Hungary has worsened during the coronavirus crisis

    “Fidesz has shut down the National Assembly!”, “No more elections in Hungary, Orbán in power forever!” are just two examples of the sensationalistic headlines published by the progressive international media outlets that have set their sights on Hungary.

    Apparently, Hungary’s Coronavirus Response Act adopted to tackle the most severe health crisis in a hundred years seems to have given these media outlets license to paint a target on the back of the Hungarian government.

    Most of the “journalists” writing on the subject never took the time to actually read the legislation and none of the critics offered an in-depth analysis of the state of emergency in Hungary.

    But of course, it is much simpler to produce made-to-order talking points, misinformation and the fake news that appears to be so prevalent when it comes to the topic of Hungary and its prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

    The charges being leveled against Hungary are easily refuted, but when you contact these outlets with a request that they publish a rebuttal, the answer, if there is any, is always a resounding “no”, or even worse, they simply censor rebuttals.

    On a more sophisticated level, we find the NGOs masquerading as rights advocates openly financed by the Open Society foundation and its affiliates. These organizations cannot afford to resort to the above-mentioned outright lies while criticizing the actions taken by the Hungarian government to fight the coronavirus crisis out of fear of undermining the professional image they try to project.

    Instead, they resort to opaque arguments and legal attacks to undermine Hungary’s international standing. Refuting these arguments doesn’t necessarily mean you need to bother yourself with the arcane language of legalese. Instead, it’s simply a matter of breaking down their accusations one by one and showing exactly why they’re unfounded, starting with claims that the Coronavirus Response Act restricts freedom of expression and keeps journalists from doing their job.

    No journalist has ever been punished under Hungary’s law on spreading false information

    First, the Coronavirus Response Act does indeed punish false statements in relation to an emergency, but this is meant strictly to be in relation to those purposely promoting false information that could jeopardize the country’s response or falsely spread fear among the public.

    In fact, punishments related to scaremongering and spreading false information were codified into law in 2013, but the behavior itself had already been punishable already before that, including publishing or uttering a statement before the public at large one knows to be false or with a reckless disregard for its truth. This law also included punishments for saying or writing false statements at the scene of an emergency, which can lead to a violation of public order or disturb the public peace.

    The Hungarian legislation is not materially different from its European equivalents, and to the extent that it is vague, so are similar laws across Europe.

    Strangely enough, this regulation had never been criticized prior to the recent amendment during the coronavirus crisis, which seems to imply that it was generally acceptable to all before the crisis broke out. And how does it relate to journalists? Not a single one was ever charged under the above statute.

    So, what changed in late March? The statute was amended to include a provision that if the above defined conduct happened during a state of emergency and could result in undermining or subverting the efforts to counter the coronavirus emergency, that would become a crime punishable by one to five years imprisonment.

    This amendment was necessary because the previous statute was tied to the location of the public danger and could not be applied to the entire country. It is self-evident that in the digital age, deliberate misinformation can cause grievous harm during a pandemic wherever it originates.

    It is worth mentioning that although the new passage will remain in the Hungarian legal framework beyond the COVID-19 crisis, it can only be activated during a state of emergency and nobody will be punishable under it unless another state of emergency is declared.

    There are also many safeguards in the new statute. The criminal conduct has to be both intentional and detrimental to the effort to counter the crisis. That means that a harmless lie is not punishable. At the same time, accurate information published in the press isn’t punishable even if it hinders the emergency efforts.

    The law also requires that the perpetrator be aware that the information they are publishing is false in nature at the time of publishing — a journalist acting in good faith on bad information, therefore, cannot be punished provided he or she acted with due diligence and according to the standards required from them even under normal circumstances.

    This, in short, is the so-called nefarious Hungarian legislation that is supposed to “silence” Hungary’s press.

    The double standards at work across Europe

    Now, if we look around Europe, we can start to see some of the double standards in place. Let’s start with the German Criminal Code. Article 126 defines punishable conduct in a way similar to Hungary’s Code, and yet, it is actually broader in scope than its Hungarian counterpart as it does not require the misinformation to be published before the public at large. It merely states that the false information must be produced in a manner that could disturb the public peace.

    The French Penal Code makes room for even looser interpretation. Article 322-14 states that “The communication or revelation of any false information with a view to inducing a belief that any destruction, defacement or damage dangerous to other persons will be or has been committed is punished by two years’ imprisonment and a fine of €30,000.”

    As one can see, the punishable conduct is not tied to the location of a public danger, unlike the Hungarian regulation which existed before the state of emergency, and there is no requirement of disseminating the false information to the public at large, which is present in the Hungarian equivalent even during an emergency.

    According to Article 357 of the Czech Criminal Code, a person who “intentionally causes a threat of serious concerment of at least a portion of population of a certain area by spreading alarming news that is untrue, shall be sentenced to imprisonment for up to two years or to prohibition of activity.”

    “Serious concernment” is a rather abstract concept which allows for wide-ranging interpretations, and given that serious concernment is the result of the conduct, it can pose a serious challenge to establish the cause and effect context.

    The requirement for misinformation to be published to the public at large appears only in the Swiss Penal Code, which punishes those causing “fear and alarm among the general public”. Criminal conduct is defined as “threatening or feigning a danger to life, limb or property”.

    Several countries state that punishable conduct must result in measures taken by the authorities, but Hungary is not alone in not defining a result at all. Such countries also include Germany, France and Malta.

    There are a few critics who allege that scaremongering or spreading public alarm is punished too severely in Hungary. 

    In addressing this point, first it is worth nothing that it did not seem to cause any concern when, in connection to the pandemic, Denmark doubled sentencing guidelines. In general, it is noteworthy that the severity or leniency of punishment are subjective concepts.

    In my opinion, if somebody during the worst pandemic in living memory spreads misinformation with the intent to hinder efforts to contain the outbreak, such behavior represents such a grave crime that even the maximum 5-year punishment might seem too lenient to the majority of society. But of course, the Hungarian public’s sense of justice matters not at all to the critics of Hungary.

    Let me make this very clear again: The Hungarian regulation in the crosshairs of progressive criticism does not deviate at all from European practice. And while different countries approach the matter differently almost every element of the Hungarian legislation is mirrored in one European country’s similar regulation or another’s.

  • PM Orbán demands apology from spreaders of fake news in letter to EPP

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán demanded an apology from all who spread fake news about his government having been granted extraordinary powers last month for the duration of the coronavirus emergency in a letter sent to the presidents of all 54 member parties of the European People’s Party (EPP).

    “From those who have engaged themselves in spreading disinformation, whether it was unknowingly or on purpose, I expect an apology on behalf of Hungarians and that they draw the proper conclusions from their actions,” Orbán wrote. The letter was reproduced in its entirety on State Secretary for Family and Youth Affairs Katalin Novák’s Twitter page.

    “At a time when we are concentrating on meeting the challenges of the coronavirus epidemic worldwide, when human lives are at stake, a coordinated attack was launched against us – with no genuine basis,” Orbán wrote. “Me and my country have been attacked unjustly and based on biased ideological propaganda already before but this one was the most cruel and cynical I experienced because it deliberately disregarded that the government which was targeted was desperately fighting for saving human lives.”

    The letter also indicated that Hungary faced a concentrated political attack that involved those hostile to the country spreading disinformation and lies. Among the false claims was that Hungary’s parliament was closed even though it remained in session as well as a claim that Orbán had unlimited power.

    “On the contrary, the authority of the Parliament was extended to the detriment of powers of the Government. The competence to terminate the state of danger or any decree taken by the Government was handed over to the Parliament,” wrote Orbán in explaining that there were severe limits placed on his powers during the crisis, including parliament’s ability to revoke his powers at any time of its choosing.

    The Hungarian prime minister also lamented that members of the EPP, which Orbán’s Fidesz party belongs to, were actively engaged in spreading fake news about his government during the crisis.

    Orbán even singled out EPP President Donald Tusk, writing “he went as far as drawing a parallel between the measures taken in Hungary and Carl Schmitt, supporter and ideologue of Nazi Germany.”

    Despite a campaign by liberal politicians and the media to label Hungary a “dictatorship” over its state of emergency, legal experts of the European Commission have confirmed that they currently see no reason to act against the allegedly excessive powers parliament gave to Viktor Orbán’s government. 

  • Hungary’s Orbán is not the villain, says German director of controversial pro-migration movie

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is the opponent, rather than the “Shakespearean villain” as many critics have described him, Stephan Wagner, director of German television movie “Die Getriebenen” (The Driven Ones) told conservative Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet in an interview.

    The film aired on national television channel ARD on April 15 and portrays the crucial autumn of 2015 when German Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to open Germany to an immigration wave of one million people.

    The film is based on the eponymous 2017 book by journalist Robin Alexander. While the book itself is a strongly critical look at the events as suggested by its title, where the “driven ones” are the politicians caught in the stream of the events, the movie is widely regarded as an ode to Merkel.

    Besides the main character of Merkel, played by Imogen Kogge, the movie also features two Hungarian politicians: Orbán, portrayed by Romanian actor Radu Bânzaru, and then cabinet minister János Lázár played by Hungarian actor Zsolt Bács.

    Answering to Magyar Nemzet’s question why Orbán was portrayed as a Shakespearean villain, Wagner says he does not see it that way.

    “Viktor Orbán is rather the opponent in the tragedy,” Wagner said. “From his perspective, his decisions are even understandable. At the same time, his perspective is the Hungarian, not the European one. This hasn’t changed to this day.”

    Wagner said his decision to cast Orbán’s role to a Romanian actor, whose voiced was dubbed in post-production by a native Hungarian actor, was based on both Bânzaru’s physical similarity to the Hungarian prime minister and also a necessity as no Hungarian actor wanted to accept the role.

    Wagner, while maintaining that the movie is far from the “beatification of Merkel” as some critics saw it, but says it is an objective account of what he thinks was ultimately a good decision.

    “The city of Berlin alone took in more people fleeing the Syrian conflict and other migrants than the country previously regarded as the classical immigrant country, the United States. I experienced this as a gain,” he said.

    Wagner does not address the downsides of mass migration to Germany in his interview, including migrants’ disproportionate role in Germany’s crime statistics as well as the enormous taxpayer burden migrants have had on Germany’s generous welfare system.

    The influx of migrants to Germany also coincided with the rise of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) and loss of power for Germany’s mainstream parties.

    Title image: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Romanian actor Radu Bânzaru portraying him in the movie Die Getriebenen. 

  • Hungary’s family minister: Solution to Europe’s demographic decline is not migration, but increased support for families

    Europe can solve its demographic decline by promoting strong families and higher birthrates instead of mass immigration, and Hungary’s pro-family policies are helping show the way for others, State Minister for Family and Youth Affairs Katalin Novák said in an interview with national channel Kossuth Rádió.

    During the interview, Novák highlighted that the Hungarian government’s ambition to reverse negative demographic trends with domestic resources is showing its success.

    Novák said it was good to see that those who warned the Hungarian government about spending taxpayers’ money on raising the number of births in Hungary was a futile exercise have been proven wrong, as there is an increasing number of couples who are willing to assume the sacrifices involved in having children.

    “The number of marriages hasn’t been this high in 40 years and the number of divorces is a 60-year low,” Novák said. “Couple relations also seems to stabilize, probably also as a result of better material conditions.”

    Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s conservative government entered an uphill battle against a then 38-year trend of falling population in the spring of 2018 when he promised “family-oriented governance”.

    “In all of Europe there are fewer and fewer children, and the answer of the West to this is migration,” said Orbán in 2018. “They want as many migrants to enter as there are missing kids, so that the numbers will add up. We Hungarians have a different way of thinking. Instead of just numbers, we want Hungarian children. Migration for us is surrender.”

    Novák said to Kossuth Rádió that since 2018, many tangible initiatives have been implemented, such as family tax breaks, housing loans for couples wanting children and the development of Hungary’s kindergarten system.

    She added, however, that probably the biggest single change was that since it came to power in 2010, the conservative government managed to reduce unemployment from 12 percent to under four percent.

    “People can have an honest work that is not only nominal but has merits, and they feel that they are contributing to the advancement of the country with their efforts,” Novák said. She reminded that at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is threatening livelihoods, Orbán has made a promise to create “as many jobs as the virus will destroy”.

    The European Commission believes that migration is part of the solution, which Hungary firmly rejects. On the European Commission website, it states, “Countries with low fertility rates such as Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland could require a significant number of immigrants over the coming decades if they want to maintain the existing number of people of working age.”

    As previously reported by Remix News, Hungary has also managed to increase births 9.4 percent year-on-year, a figure touted as further proof of the government’s successful family policies.

    Unlike many Western countries, which are attempting to solve their demographic problems of an aging population and the decline of births through encouraging immigration, Hungary has chosen the path of solving the problem in-country and after some initial skepticism in international circles, the initiative is now gaining respect. Some countries are now even sending demographic experts to study the successful “Hungarian model”.

     

  • Ethnic Hungarians’ party asks EPP to take action against Romanian president’s nationalist speech

    The Transylvanian Hungarians’ Alliance (EMSZ) has sent a letter to European People’s Party (EPP) President Donald Tusk asking the EPP to take a stand against the inflammatory and nationalist statement made by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis that was released on Thursday.

    “It is our conviction that the European People’s Party should make a clear stand in defense of European values and should not tolerate hate speech by a member of a party belonging to their political family,” the EMSZ wrote in a letter signed by its co-chairs. “The EPP should firmly and without delay act against the hate speech propagated by Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.”

    Last Thursday, Iohannis accused the ethnic Hungarian minority in Transylvania, the Social Democratic Party and the prime minister himself of plotting to give Transylvania to Hungary in a two-minute video statement released by the Romanian president’s office.

    “It is incredible what kind of agreements are being reached in the Romanian Parliament,” Iohannis said. “While we, myself, the government and the other authorities are fighting the coronavirus outbreak, the Romanian Social Democrat Party, the big Romanian Social Democrat Party, is fighting in secret parliamentary offices to give Transylvania to the Hungarians.”

    In his opening of his statement, he even addressed the PSD in Hungarian, saying “Jó napot kívánok, PSD!” which translates to “Good day, PSD” in Hungarian.

    Part of the message was directed at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

    “Good day Ciolacu!” Iohannis said again in Hungarian, “What did the leader from Budapest, Viktor Orbán, promise you in exchange for this agreement?”

    Orbán, however, in his weekly radio interview on Friday called for calm and said he refused to pick up the gauntlet thrown at him by Iohannis.

    “I wouldn’t suggest that we change our current policy,” Orbán said. “If forced, we will of course pick up the gauntlet, but I don’t suggest we pick up the gauntlet now thrown at our feet.”

    Title image: Romanian President Klaus Iohannis delivering his inflammatory speech. (source: presidency.ro)

  • Coronavirus: Hungary’s most influential industrialist expects U-shaped recovery chart

    The economic recovery in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic will be a U-shaped graph, the country’s most prominent banker and industrialist Sándor Csányi said in a rare interview encompassing most of his activities from banking to food production to football.

    The 67-year-old Csányi, an economist by training, serves as the president-CEO of Hungary’s largest commercial bank, OTP, and while at the helm he grew the OTP Group into a regional player with subsidiaries in a dozen regional countries. He is also owner of several major food production companies and the president of the Hungarian Football Association.

    With a fortune of HUF 368 billion ($1.13 billion), he is also one of only three billionaires based in dollars in Hungary.

    In an online interview with conference organizer Brain Bar, Csányi said that in contrast with many Western economies where output is expected to show an L-shape, meaning that lower performance is likely to persist, he expects a U-shaped graph in the case of Hungary.

    In view of the current, rapidly changing and fluent situation, he refused to speculate on when the Hungarian economy will begin its actual recovery.

    “When I play cards late into the evening with my friends, and they ask me at what time will we get up in the morning, I always say, ‘Tell me when we are going to bed and then I can tell you when will we get up,’” he said. Csányi added that the current crisis could me more extended in case of a second infection wave.

    With regard to the safety of Hungary’s food supply, he said the country’s food production covers 150 percent of domestic needs, so there is no danger in that sense, adding, however, that the whole supply chain from farm to consumer must be secured in the future.

    “It would be good to have the entire production range of strategic foods secured, from packaging through logistics to production,” Csényi said, adding that the plastic bottle caps for Mizo, a dairy brand in Hungary, are currently being sourced from Italy.

    He also expects tourism will take at least a year to recover from the crisis.

    “Hospitality and tourism will need at least a year to recover (as) tourists won’t be coming until there is a vaccine or a treatment.”

    He also said that since the onset of the pandemic, international organizations have shown to be ineffective, with the WHO “not at top of its game” and the European Union having had “virtually disappeared from our lives”.

    Title image: Suzuki car plant in Hungary. (suzuki.hu)

  • PM Orbán praises V4 success in coronavirus fight on Poland’s Constitution Day

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán sent a letter to his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawieczki on May 3, Poland’s Constitution Day, stressing the importance of cooperation within the Visegrád Four group, Orbán’s press secretary Bertalan Havasi told national news agency MTI on Sunday.

    “The global pandemic is posing severe challenges for all of us and for that reason cooperation and solidarity between our nations is more important than ever,” Orbán wrote. “I am glad that the Visegrád cooperation is also proving successful at this difficult time.”

    The Visegrád countries of Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic have some of the lowest rates of infections and deaths per million people in all the EU. These countries also took some of the earliest and strictest counter-measures to combat the virus and keep it from spreading among their population.

    The Hungarian Prime Minister also praised the work of his other Visegrád allies in upholding traditional European values.

    “I am convinced that with our joint efforts we have made a contribution to preserving the traditional Christian values in Europe, reinforcing the security and competitiveness of the continent and in rebooting our economies,” Orbán wrote, also expressing his hope that “Hungarians and Poles can count on each other in the future when facing hypocritical European debates.”

    May 3, 1791, was the day the constitution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was signed and some historians consider it the world’s second oldest constitution. The May 3 anniversary of its adoption has been observed as Poland’s most important civil holiday since Poland regained independence in 1918, and its importance for the Polish people has been compared to that of 4th of July to Americans.

    Title image: Adoption of the Polish-Lithuanian Constitution of May 3, 1791. (painting by Jan Matejko)

  • Hungary is first in the world to launch this groundbreaking coronavirus screening project

    Four Hungarian medical universities launched over the weekend a nationwide screening program that is like no other in the world and which will help the country obtain a more accurate picture of the number of coronavirus cases nationwide, conservative daily Magyar Nemzet reports.

    Béla Merkely, rector of Budapest Semmelweis University, said on Sunday that research conducted by the universities of Budapest, Debrecen Szeged and Pécs is a nationwide scientific research project based on a representative samples, and as such, is the first of its kind in the world.

    He added that based on age, sex and regional distribution, 17,780 test subjects have been chosen at random within their respective groups and the results should provide a fairly accurate image of the coronavirus infection rate among various social and regional groups. This data will also help global efforts to better understand the coronavirus and its effect on different demographics.

    In addition to being tested for the presence of the virus, blood is also drawn from the subjects to look for antibodies and each subject will also be asked 50 questions to more exactly gauge the risk factors.

    Merkely called on all those who have been notified to take part in the research to actually show up at the designated screening stations because each of them is in fact representing several of their fellow citizens. He added that current scientific data suggest that the O blood group offers a measure of resistance to infection while those having A blood types are more likely to infected. But the research is also looking at a variety of other factors, he said.

    Merkely said that current data shows that the first wave of coronavirus infections seems to have peaked and the number of new infections is likely to slow down further.

    So far, 83,958 coronavirus tests have been administered in Hungary since the outbreak hit the country in early March, but those have been centered around the ill and their immediate contacts, so those tested so far cannot be considered a representative sample.

    According to the latest official data, from Sunday to Monday, the number of confirmed cases has passed the 3,000 mark and reached 3,035, with 351 casualties and 10,459 persons in mandatory home isolation.  

    Title image: A voluntary test subject being screened at the Debrecen University Clinic in eastern Hungary on May 3, 2020. (MTI/Zsolt Czeglédi)

  • Time to apologize, Hungarian justice minister tells EU and domestic opposition

    It is time for both the European Union and the domestic opposition to apologize to Hungary for wrongfully accusing the government of grabbing unconstitutional powers under the pretext of the coronavirus emergency, Justice Minister Judit Varga told state television channel M1 in an interview on Thursday.

    Varga said that after even European Commission Vice President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová admitted that Hungary’s state of emergency does not violate or contradict any European regulations, someone finally openly admitted that those who attacked the government could not prove their accusations.

    Die Welt also reported this week that European Commission legal experts have examined Hungary’s law and have not found any violations of democratic principles. European Commission sources also told Die Welt that Brussels is unlikely to pursue any legal action against Hungary, especially during a time when countries across Europe are invoking emergency powers to handle the coronavirus crisis.

    After the passage of Hungary’s so-called coronavirus law, which establish the state of emergency, European People’s Party (EPP) President Donald Tusk has also called for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party to be expelled from the EPP while former Italian Prime Minister and Florence Senator Matteo Renzi demanded that Hungary be removed from the EU itself.

    According to Reuters, the EU warned Hungary that the “emergency powers [Orbán] has assumed to combat the coronavirus outbreak risk upending democracy and must be subject to proper parliamentary and media scrutiny.”

    “The truth, on the other hand, is that the National Assembly operates in the normal way and Hungarian MPs have stronger powers to withdraw the emergency than many of their European colleagues,” Varga said in a Facebook post. “Opposition MEPs compete with each other to spread fake news in Brussels, and they lament every day that the European institutions are not taking firmer steps against Hungary. Yesterday’s statement by the Vice-President of the European Commission completely discredited the opposition’s campaign against our country.”

    “We have already known that the political witch-hunt against Hungary in recent weeks has been completely unfounded,” she wrote.

    In the television interview, she pointed out that while most European countries are busy protecting the lives of their citizens and are interested in pragmatic cooperation, a small number of politicians took the time to create an imaginary foe in order to gain political capital and that was clearly just a tactical maneuver.

    Title image: Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga. (Origo/Gergely Botár)

  • Romanian president’s statement about Hungary ‘uncivilized and inciting hatred’: Hungarian FM Szijjártó

    Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has made a “decidedly uncivilized statement suitable to incite hatred”, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in a short statement posted on his Facebook page.

    He was referring to Iohannis’s video statement released by his office on April 29, in which he accused the ethnic Hungarian minority in Transylvania, the Social Democratic Party there and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of plotting to give Transylvania to Hungary.

    “It is incredible what kind of agreements are being reached in the Romanian Parliament,” Iohannis said, “While we, myself, the government and the other authorities are fighting the coronavirus outbreak, the Romanian Social Democrat Party, the big Romanian Social Democrat Party, is fighting in secret parliamentary offices to give Transylvania to the Hungarians.”

    In the opening of his statement, he even addressed the PSD in Hungarian, saying “Jó napot kívánok, PSD!” which translates in Hungarian to, “Good day, PSD.”

    He also named Prime Minister Viktor Orbán directly in his statement.

    “Good day Ciolacu!” Iohannis said again in Hungarian, “What did the leader from Budapest, Viktor Orbán, promise you in exchange for this agreement?”

    In his response, Szijjártó said that while Hungary and the Hungarian minority in Romania was interested in good bilateral relations between the two countries, “statements made by Romanian officials in recent days make maintaining good neighborly relations very difficult”.

    Hunor Kelemen, president of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (otherwise known by its Hungarian acronym of RMDSZ) and PSD President Marius Ciolacu both vehemently denounced Iohannis’ baseless accusation and stated that the president was inciting hatred. They also asked him to apologize.

    The background of Iohannis’ statement is that RMDSZ introduced an autonomy bill for Transylvania to parliament for the fourth time. Romanian legislators have already struck down such a bill three times, but this time around, the lower chamber of parliament allowed the bill to pass tacitly without voting on it.

    However, on the same day that Iohannis made his statement, the Romanian Senate then voted the bill down, which Iohannis was already aware of.

    Title image: Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó reacting to Romanian President Klaus Iohannis’ statement on Wednesday, April 29. (source: Facebook)

  • Hungary begins gradual lifting of coronavirus restrictions outside Budapest

    Hungary will begin gradually easing its restrictive measures first introduced on March 12 due to the coronavirus outbreak, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced in a video message posted on Facebook.

    Orbán said that the first phase of the coronavirus defense was over, and the Hungarian healthcare system is now fully prepared for the handling of even mass infections. He thanked all those involved for their hard work, saying that “there is no reason for concern that anyone would remain without treatment”.

    He added, however, that in the initial stage of returning to normal life the measures will only apply outside Budapest. Almost two-thirds of all 2,775 coronavirus cases have been registered in and around Budapest.

    “Together with you, we will try to restart life in Hungary, but we must act gradually and according to a strict schedule,” Orbán said. “This means that we must continue to maintain tight defensive measures for the elderly and our compatriots living in the most infected areas. As you know, infections are mainly concentrated in the capital and in the surrounding areas and surrounding settlements. Therefore, for the protection of the people living here, in and around Budapest, curfew restrictions will remain in place.”

    Outside of the capital, all shops can now reopen, as well as outdoors sections of cafes, restaurants and baths.

    In the capital, the restrictions remain in force, meaning that only those commuting to work, procuring essentials or visiting a doctor can leave their homes and commerce is restricted to food shops, drugstores, pharmacies, petrol stations, and tobacconists.

    The new measures will apply from Monday, May 4.

    Those shops that can operate have to close by 3:00 p.m. and the period between 9:00 a.m. and 12 p.m. is reserved for those above the age of 65 to shops in grocery stores.

    For the upcoming long May 1 weekend, municipalities will still be allowed to implement measures stricter than the national ones if they deem it necessary.

    Orbán also said the government, in consultation with epidemiologists, will continue to monitor the situation and review the restrictions every second week.

    Title image: Car dealership Porsche Hungária puts a Skoda car at the disposal of the Szent János hospital in Budapest. (MTI/Zsolt Szigetváry)

  • Despite media claims of ‘dictatorship’, EU finds no grounds to act against Hungary’s emergency law

    Despite a campaign by liberal politicians and the media to label Hungary a “dictatorship” over its state of emergency, legal experts of the European Commission have now confirmed that they currently see no reason to act against the allegedly excessive powers parliament gave to Viktor Orbán’s government, reported German daily Die Welt quoting high-ranking sources within the Commission.

    Die Welt indicated that after evaluating the pandemic emergency laws in the affected EU countries, the legal experts of the European Commission came to the conclusion — for now just in-house — that in the case of Hungary there are currently no concrete sticking points regarding the alleged violation of fundamental democratic rights and therefore no immediate countermeasures from Brussels are required.

    “We are concerned about the emergency legislation in Hungary and will closely monitor how the Hungarian government will apply the measures in practice in the coming months,” one unnamed high-ranking EU official told Die Welt.

    It also pointed out that the additional powers bestowed upon the government by parliament were not unique, as the emergency laws of several other EU countries, such as France or Romania, also resulted in varying degrees of restrictions of fundamental rights.

    Commission sources, however, also pointed out that parts of the Hungarian emergency legislation, such as exceptionally high prison sentences for spreading false news or the role of Hungarian parliament in ending the emergency legislation, are “very vague” and therefore require close monitoring by the Commission.

    Politicians, NGOs and liberal media launched politically-motivated attacks on Hungary

    The news that the European Commission has found no wrongdoing from Hungary comes after prominent EU politicians have called for Hungary to be punished for its state of emergency law even before any EU legal experts examined it.

    For example, European People’s Party (EPP) President Donald Tusk called for Orbán’s Fidesz party to be expelled from the EPP over Hungary’s state of emergency law. Tusk even suggested that prominent Nazi legal scholar Carl Schmitt would be proud of Orbán, sparking outrage from the Hungarian government and members of the country’s Jewish community.
     
    Other leading politicians and diplomats, including former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who served under the presidency of Barack Obama, along with Italian prime minister and current Senator of Florence Matteo Renzi, both called for Hungary to be removed from the EU.
     
    Publications like the Economist have claimed that Hungary’s emergency powers mean that “Mr. Orban has in effect become a dictator—in the heart of Europe”.
     
    The Guardian ranted that “the world must not let Hungary get away with this power grab” and wrote the law was enacted for “authoritarian ends”.
     
    Human Rights Watch CEO Kenneth Roth claimed that Hungary is a “dictatorship” in a piece for the EUobserver. When the Hungarian government tried to refute those claims, the EUobserver even censored an entire section of the government’s response.
     
    Now that the EU has refuted these polemical and sensationalist claims, it is unclear how these publications will react to the EU’s findings or whether they will simply ignore them.
     
    With civil liberties restricted across Europe and countries like France, Great Britain and Spain all resorting to extraordinary powers to combat the crisis, the political motivations of those politicians and media outlets targeting Hungary have now come into question.
     
    Legal experts from the European Commission are not the only ones who have essentially said Hungary is violating no laws or EU rules through its state of emergency. Already last week, European Commission Vice President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová admitted on Czech public television that, “So far, Hungary has not adopted any such decree that would contradict European regulations.”

    EU Commission expresses concerns over how Hungary collects taxes

    According to Die Welt, the EU Commission is also currently concerned about short-term changes in Hungarian tax revenue distribution due to the coronavirus crisis, which have resulted in significantly lower tax revenues for some municipalities.
     
    This was a reference to the government’s decision to divert the local industry tax, normally going to the municipality, to the central budget, thereby cutting in half the municipality budget.
     
    South Korea’s Samsung has a production facility in Göd, central Hungary, whose local industry tax was a major revenue source for the municipality.
    Title image: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

  • Hungarian watchdog slaps €7 million fine on Booking.com

    Netherlands-based travel lodging reservation site Booking.com was fined to HUF 2.5 billion (€7 million) by Hungary’s competition watchdog GHV after a years-long investigation.

    GVH began an investigation into the business practices of Booking.com in 2018, after being prompted by consumers that it falsely advertised free cancellation of bookings and was applying an “aggressive marketing strategy” by displaying red warning signs about alleged limited availability of free lodgings even when it was not the case.

    “In its television and internet advertising, the company prominently highlighted its ‘free cancellation’ policy… whereas free cancellation was only available to customers for a limited time period and free cancellation reservations also came at a higher price, thus the price of the ‘free cancellation” was already built in,” the watchdog said in a press release about the decision.

    By displaying the number of other people looking for similar offers on its website and showing the decreasing number of availabilities in large and contrasting color fonts, the company used “a practice that was leading to psychological pressure and interfered with customers’ decision-making process,” GVH said.

    The watchdog added that the size of the fine was commensurate with the company’s revenues derived from the Hungarian market and the ruling also forbids the company to continue the above-mentioned practices.

    Last year, Booking.com had a net profit of $4.865 billion on revenues of $15.066 billion. The size of its revenues from Hungary was not disclosed.

    Title image: Booking.com headquarters in Amsterdam.

  • Hungary will carefully weigh lifting coronavirus restrictions, cabinet minister says

    Hungary will soon begin easing coronavirus restrictions, but it will proceed carefully and most measures will remain in place where they are warranted, minister in charge of the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyás said on Tuesday in an interview with Budapest news station InfoRádió.

    The interview was conducted just one day before the cabinet meeting scheduled for Wednesday where the government, as announced by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán last week, will decide on lifting some of the existing restrictions in an attempt to gradually reboot the economy after the May 1 weekend.

    Gulyás said that in deciding on the extent of the easing, the government will consider the state of the economy, the population’s endurance threshold and the dynamics of the disease.

    “All of Europe is working on exit strategies and releasing timetables, but these must be taken with a grain of salt as not all measures will actually be implemented,” Gulyás said. “We [in the government] also think that the best we can do is define directions or approximate dates, but we must keep assessing the actual situation. One-third of Hungary’s population is currently living under conditions that they can’t even go out in the garden and being locked up under such conditions is an enormous challenge.”

    Gulyás said that where the economy can be restarted without endangering people’s health and lives, the government will do so.

    He added that taking into account that almost two-thirds of the coronavirus cases in Hungary are in and around Budapest, the decisions to lift some restrictions will be made accordingly and probably in a differentiated manner.

    The measures decided at today’s cabinet meeting are expected to be made public on Thursday, ahead of the May 1 holiday on Friday.

    According to the latest official count, Hungary has 2,727 coronavirus cases, 300 casualties and 10,071 people in mandatory home isolation.

    Title image: Nurses at a coronavirus-ready intensive care unit at the Budapest Szent László Hospital for Infectious Diseases. (MTI/Zoltán Balogh)

  • Budapest opposition mayor’s speed limit reduction sparks outcry

    Opposition Budapest mayor Gergely Karácsony’s plan to reduce the speed limit in the capital has drawn widespread criticism from both municipal council members of the ruling conservative Fidesz party and some transport experts, daily Magyar Nemzet writes.

    According to the paper, Karácsony plans to reduce the speed limit on the capital’s major arteries to 50 kilometers per hour (31 miles per hour) where most of those now have a 70 kilometers per hour speed limit.

    The mayor justified the plan by pointing to the rise of bicycle traffic in the city and extreme difficulty of safely separating cyclists from motor vehicles. He says that reducing the speed limit would significantly cut the number of accidents in which highly vulnerable cyclists are involved.

    Critics say, however, that Karácsony plans to introduce the new limits without running the proposal through the city council, and no preliminary studies have been conducted on the effect of the change.

    Zsolt Láng, caucus leader of the Fidesz group in the city assembly (in a minority there), called on Karácsony to prove the rationality of the measure, show preliminary studies and consult the capital’s citizens on it.

    “If involvement is really important for Karácsony, it would be time to ask Budapest residents what they want. We ask the mayor to take the issue seriously and consult the people of Budapest before making such a decision that will have a major impact on their lives,” Láng said.

    Dávid Vitézy, head of the Budapest Development Center and previous head of the Budapest Transport Center, said that while on many Budapest roads it is indeed unfeasible to entirely separate bicycle and motor vehicle traffic, the solution should rather be sought in improving overall visibility by redesigning road junctions, introduce road features that prevent speeding, and increase drivers’ responsibility.

    He also is a supporter of the “Vision Zero” policy of several western metropolises which want to eliminate road accident deaths altogether.  

    Title image: Traffic in downtown Budapest. (MTI/Zoltán Máthé)

  • Hungary, Poland and other Eastern European countries are faring better with coronavirus for these reasons

    Central and Eastern European countries are faring better in containing the coronavirus pandemic despite being poorer than their Western European counterparts, the Wall Street Journal writes in an article datelined from Warsaw.

    The article says that the region’s countries moved “quickly and decisively” and implemented strict measures ahead of many Western countries, with the report citing deaths per million inhabitants as the main measurement.

    “The difference is stark. By Sunday, Spain had lost 350 people per million of its population to Covid-19, Italy 322, Belgium 314, France 202 and Britain 145, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

    “Romania, in contrast, had lost 15 per million, the Czech Republic 12, Poland 5 and Slovakia 0.4,” the Wall Street Journal writes.

    Remix News has also reported on the vastly lower amount of coronavirus infections among Eastern European countries, with countries like Hungary, Poland and Slovakia ranking the lowest in the EU in terms of infections per million inhabitants.

    The Wall Street Journal noted the lax attitude of many Western nations at the beginning of the outbreak:

    “As the new coronavirus spread, Germans celebrated Carnival, Italians flocked to soccer games and Britons packed concert stadiums. In the U.S., spring breakers partied and filled Gulf Coast beaches well into March. Those events later proved to have had a so-called super-spreader effect, disseminating the virus widely. Britain didn’t go into full lockdown until March 24, after confirming more than 8,000 cases and losing 422 lives.”

    To contrast the speed of reaction of the Eastern European governments, the article points out that on March 12, when the Czech Republic implemented a coronavirus lockdown, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told citizens they could continue attending mass sporting events.

    Two days earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump said, “We’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away.”

    The Wall Street Journal writes that a major reason Eastern European countries acted so quickly was out for fear that their “relatively weak healthcare system” would not be able to cope with the large number of infections if the disease reaches a stage of exponential growth. 

    It also quotes Czech Health Minister Adam Vojtěch as saying “We were sure our hospitals were not able to withstand the situation. We had to react.”

    Another factor in Eastern Europe’s success compared to Western Europe could be that Western nations feared economic fallout from restrictive measures and the potential that their populations would not follow lockdown measures.

    Former Chief of the Czech General Staff Petr Pavel, who helpd the Czech government draft its containment plans, said citizens in former communist countries in the east can better accept inconvenience and “more tolerant of state-mandated restrictions”.

    Sławomir Dębski, director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, said, “In the West, people believe that high-tech societies with very good health care could deal with anything, and that created an illusion that they would have the time and tools to fight a sudden pandemic.” 

    He also added that weaker ex-communist European countries that situations “where the state can be left unable to manage a situation is not stuff for novelists. It is ingrained in living memory.”

    Wall Street Journal article lacking in some areas

    While the death toll data and the speed at which Central and Eastern Europe responded to the outbreak certainly support the Wall Street Journal’s point, there is one aspect in the article that is not entirely accurate.

    The Western view, also promoted in the Wall Street Journal article, that Central and Eastern European healthcare is inferior to the systems in the West is contradicted by probably the most important healthcare system measurement in general and one that is certainly poignant in the current crisis: the number of hospital beds per 1,000 people.

    According to the latest data available from 2017, Russia (3rd), Hungary (6th), the Czech Republic, Poland and Lithuania (7th to 9th) all are in the top ten of the world’s countries with most hospital beds per thousand inhabitants and Slovakia (11th) is just outside the top ten.

    By contrast, with the notable exception of Germany (4th) and Austria (5th), most Western European countries have mediocre to poor numbers. France is 10th, Italy 26th, Spain 29th and the UK in 35th place.

    Another point quickly glossed over by the Wall Street Journal was how early Central and Eastern European countries closed their borders and restricted international travel from coronavirus hotspots. 

    As previously reported by Remix News, on March 13, both the Czech Republic and Slovakia closed their border to foreigners. Slovakia had only 21 cases at the time.

    The Czech Republic also banned travelers from Germany and Austria, and most of the other countries most affected by the virus, including France, Italy, Norway, Britain, and a number of others on March 13, as well as China, South Korea, and Iran. At the time, the Czech Republic had 120 cases.

    Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis also said Czech citizens were restricted from traveling to countries most affected by the coronavirus.

    Hungary also banned flights from Italy, China, South Korea, and Iran on March 11 before expanding travel bans to other countries in the following days.

    Italy, which receives an annual volume of 5 million passengers from China, where the coronavirus originated, did not restrict travel to and from China until Jan. 30. The first reported case of coronavirus in the country was actually a Chinese couple traveling from Wuhan that landed at Milan’s airport on Jan. 23.

    The second possibility is one currently being researched in several countries. The BCG vaccine (Bacille Calmette-Guérin) has been mandatory in the Soviet Union and all satellite states and still is in most of them, including Hungary and Romania.

    While studies have yet to prove the empirical evidence that the BCG vaccine, used to protect against tuberculosis, somehow prepares the immune system to fight the coronavirus, several South Asian countries have already enlisted it in their fight against the disease.

    The few Western European countries that did for some time have BCG inoculation programs, have phased them out around the turn of the millennium. The United States never had one.

    Title image: Coronavirus screening in a home for the elderly in the village of Gyékényes, southern Hungary. (MTI/György Varga)

  • Coronavirus: Hungarian economic confidence plummets to 11-year low

    After an already declining trend last month, economic research institute GKI’s confidence index dropped to an 11-year low in April, the think-tank said in its latest survey.

    The compounded business and consumer index dropped by 33.1 points from March to April from zero to minus 33.1.

    “Although during the global economic crisis, in the first half of 2009, expectations were already much more pessimistic, the GKI economic sentiment index has never fallen by more than 10 points in a single month,” the GKI report said.

    “The assessment of the Hungarian economy’s prospects fell to a much greater extent than the assessment of employment, approaching the level typical of the most pessimistic months of 2009. Pessimism of households intensified to the greatest extent in connection with the expected unemployment, and the assessment of the future of the Hungarian economy also worsened dramatically.”

    Intentions to raise prices have decreased in all sectors, with the exception of trade, where they remained unchanged, though the share of firms expecting price increases or price reductions went up significantly as well.

    At the same time, inflationary expectations by consumers have jumped. In addition, households’ assessment of their own expected financial situation has become significantly more unfavorable.

    The fall is largely in line with the overall European picture, where the consumer confidence index dropped to minus 22 points in the whole of the European Union and minus 22.7 points in the eurozone, close to the record lows registered during the 2009 global financial and economic crisis, the Directorate‑General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) said in its April flash estimate.

    It is worth noting that both the GKI and the DG ECFIN confidence indices are compiled using the same methodology of assessing business and consumer confidence.

    Title image: Medical and protective equipment is unloaded at the Budapest Airport on Monday, April 28. (MTI/Károly Árvai)

  • PM Orbán promises jobs to all Hungarians

    Hungary will restore all jobs lost during the coronavirus epidemic and continue making strategic investments to ensure that goal is realized, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in parliament on Monday.

    Answering the question of opposition MP László Lóránt Keresztes whether the government will suspend the construction of the Budapest-Belgrade rail line, Orbán said that “I am convinced that if ever, now is the time to make strategic investments.”

    “Anyone losing their job is entitled to jobless benefits for three months, and by the time that is over, everyone will have a job,” Orbán said. “There will be nobody who will not receive a job offer from the private or government sector.”

    Hungary has already redirected 20 percent of GDP towards the economic recovery, but Hungary, as all nations in Europe, face significant challenges. The World Trade Organization said global trade could fall by 32 percent and the OECD said GDP could decline up to 25 percent in some countries.

    Despite the slow down in the global economy, Hungary is expected to fare far better than other European economies, according to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

    “The goal is to create as many jobs as the virus will destroy,” Orbán previously said about the government’s goal. “We live in difficult times, but no Hungarian is left alone.”

    While Hungary’s Central Statistics Office releases unemployment data monthly, these always reflect the situation two months back and the first data for the critical month of March is scheduled to be released today. The latest available data shows an unemployment rate of 3.3 percent.

    Also in the questions and answers section in Hungary’s parliament, Orbán said that protective and other equipment was available in sufficient numbers in all hospitals and there are reserve stores for another ten days, adding that he was receiving daily reports from the hospital commanders.

    Last month, Hungary appointed military commanders for the administration of hospitals and companies of strategic importance for the duration of the emergency rule, including public utilities.

    Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said during the same parliamentary session that last week alone, seven airplanes and five lorries have brought necessary protective equipment. He added that Hungary, with a population of 9.9 million, currently has 86 million face masks and contracts for another 64 million.

    He said last week Hungary received one million coronavirus test kits and another million is already on order.

    According to the latest official data, Hungary had 2,649 coronavirus cases, with 291 casualties and 9,889 in mandatory home isolation.

    Title image: Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén (L) and Prime Minister Orbán Viktor arrive at Monday’s session in parliament. (MTI/Tamás Kovács)

  • Hungarian justice minister shows surprising violin skills

    At a time when a little light entertainment is especially welcome, Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga shared just that with her fellow citizens by posting a video of her performing violin in a studio recording of world-famous Hungarian song “Gloomy Sunday” performed by Flora Tandi.

    “Playing the violin means harmony for me. Both cheerful and bittersweet melodies help to achieve peace for my mind even in difficult moments,” Varga wrote in her Facebook post.

    “Gloomy Sunday” by Rezső Seress is one of the few Hungarian hits that has become world-famous. It was featured on the repertoire of Billie Holiday, Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra, among others.

     

    Watch the video and you will understand why western media has dubbed the 39-year-old mother of three and career politician “the charm cannon of Viktor Orbán”.

    Varga, in an op-ed in Germany’s Die Welt, warned that the demonization of Hungary needs to end in response to an op-ed also published in Die Welt where a key German minister called for sanctions on Hungary.

    Title image: Singer Flora Tandi (L) and Justice Minister Judit Varga (R) recording “Gloomy Sunday” by Rezső Seress. (source: Facebook)

  • ‘Demonizing Hungary is wrong’, writes Justice Minister Varga after German minister calls for sanctions

    After a top German government official called for sanctions on Hungary, Justice Minister Judit Varga wrote for Die Welt in response that demonizing Hungary at a time when all European governments are doing what they think is best to combat the coronavirus pandemic is simply wrong.

    Varga’s guest column on the portal of German national daily Die Welt was directed at a guest column of Michael Roth, the minister of state for Europe at the German Federal Foreign Office in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who called for sanctions against Hungary for “going against democratic principles and the rule of law” and claimed that the government has taken on unjustified powers.

    “I am very tempted to explain in detail once more how wrong the statement of the German politician is, but I have already done it many times and in many places and it seems that Michael Roth neither wants to hear nor see these arguments,” Varga wrote. “The question is what are his reasons and where this is supposed to lead.”

    She said Roth’s attack against Hungary was clearly designed to discredit Hungary as much as possible at a pivotal time when a decision about the European Union’s budget for the next seven years is set to be made and consequently reduce the country’s bargaining position.

    Varga says Roth is attacking Hungary exactly a time when all member states should strive for consensus, without which there can be no agreement.

    “It is quite inconceivable that money should be taken away from emerging states and that money given to the richer states. This strategy requires the demonization of the countries concerned,” Varga said, adding that just two months before Germany is scheduled to assume the revolving residency of the European Union that this is clearly not the way to go.

    As Remix News has previously reported, a number of other countries have implemented similar measures as Hungary to combat the coronavirus crisis. Furthermore, many of Hungary’s restrictive measures have made pains to ensure certain elements of civil liberties remain in place for Hungarian citizens. Italy has canceled elections and Spain is using drones to warn violators of the country’s curfew and social distancing rules. Nobody is claiming that these countries are dictatorships or deserve sanctions.

    Despite Roth’s polemical attack on Hungary during a time when all countries are seeking to combat the coronavirus outbreak, Varga still wants to maintain a strong relationship with Germany.

    “Germany, as neutral mediator, has often managed to forge consensus regarding sensitive issues at critical times. [Germany] can continue to count on Hungary as a reliable partner with shared interests and basic values,” Varga wrote.   

  • Liberal Dutch MEP: Hungary should be ‘condemned’ even if country’s coronavirus measures are lawful

    Liberal MEPs keep spreading false information about the Hungarian government’s additional mandates for the duration of the coronavirus epidemic, including a Dutch MEP who called for Hungary to be condemned even after admitting the country’s measures are lawful, wrote MEP Balázs Hidvéghi of the ruling Hungarian conservative Fidesz party in a Facebook post.

    “Leftist and liberal MEPs have again demonstrated that they haven’t the slightest idea of what is in the Hungarian coronavirus law, but they don’t really care either. They in Brussels keep attacking the measures taken by the Hungarian government,” Hidvéghi wrote. “Hungarian measures are fully compliant with constitutional requirements while the European institutions continuously apply double standards.”

    Hidvéghi singled out Dutch MEP Sophie in’t Veld of the Democrats 66 party, saying that she “discarded the most tenets of democracy and rule of law. She said that even if individual measures of the Hungarian government are lawful, Hungary should be condemned nevertheless.”

    On Thursday, the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) held a session looking into the member states’ coronavirus measures and their effects on the rule of law, democracy and human rights, with a specific focus on Hungary.  whose government has been liberal media says received a right to rule by decree indefinitely.

    Dutch MEP Sophie in’t Veld is not the only member at the EU-level who has admitted that Hungary’s coronavirus measures are lawful, with European Commission Vice President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová also noting that Hungary’s emergency measures are in accordance with EU standards.

    “So far, Hungary has not adopted any such decree that would contradict European regulations,” Jourová said on Czech TV.

    Hidvéghi said there are several other EU member states whose governments have broader and more restrictive powers during the coronavirus crisis, yet Hungary remains in the crosshairs of these attacks.

    “There are many countries where the government has identical or broader powers than the Hungarian,” the Hungarian MEP said. “For example, in Italy, Slovakia and Estonia the government can single-handedly institute a state of emergency, while in Hungary the Parliament can end it at any time.”

    Title image: MEP Balázs Hidvéghi in the European Parliament (source: Facebook)

  • CNN’s fake news about Hungary leads to embarrassing moment for Christine Amanpour

    After CNN’s Christiane Amanpour asked Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó why parliament is closed during the coronavirus outbreak, he calmly told her that he had spoken to parliament five times in that very week alone.

    Apparently believing CNN’s own inaccurate news about Hungary’s state of emergency, Amanpour could only say, “Ok, that’s news to us.”

    Szijjártó noted during the interview that many of the claims about Hungary’s state of emergency are simply not true, including the idea that parliament is suspended.

    “I read these reports and I have to tell you that these reports never speak about the truth… given the fact that there are four countries in the European Union applying a similar kind of solution: Poland, Malta, Croatia, and us,” Szijjártó said in the interview. “And there are four other [European] countries in which the government can go along with the state of emergency or state of danger without any kind of decision made by the parliament.”

    Global media outlets have been accused of misrepresenting the new state of emergency law in Hungary to fight the coronavirus, with many claiming Orbán has been granted unlimited powers for an indefinite period of time. These outlets have failed to mention that parliament can vote to end the state of emergency at any time and that Orbán’s decrees must be narrowly tailored towards fighting the coronavirus crisis.

    Furthermore, the law does not dissolve parliament but instead requires the government to remain in constant consultation with parliament members, which means parliament continues to meet in-person and work with the government in the fight against the coronavirus. Many other countries have also enacted similar measures to help governments respond quickly to the crisis.

    Amanpour also asked whether it is conceivable that parliament, in which the ruling conservative Fidesz party has a two-thirds majority, would ever go against its own government and end the state of emergency.

    Szijjártó rssponed by saying, “First of all, the composition of the Parliament is not an outcome of a lottery, but elections. So, I think it is kind of natural that in a parliament there is majority and there is a minority, and the majority is definitely for the government… Many media outlets have spread lies and fake news around this law,” Szijjártó said, adding that the additional powers of the government are not unlimited.

    “One of these fake news items is that it says that the government has an uncontrolled and unlimited possibility to make decrees, which is not true,” Szijjártó said. “The law says very clearly that we can make decrees only in accordance with protecting the people, the country and the economy from the challenges related to the virus.”

  • EUobserver censors Hungarian government letter

    In a serious breach of journalistic integrity, the EUobserver has censored a major portion of Hungarian government spokesman Zoltán Kovács’ letter he wrote in response to an op-ed penned by Human Rights Watch CEO Kenneth Roth

    Roth’s op-ed, featuring the sensational title “Stopping the authoritarian rot in Europe”, was an attack piece that the Hungarian government felt deserved a response given the amount of misinformation contained within it. Human Rights Watch, funded by billionaire financier George Soros, has been critical of Hungary in the past.

    Kovács wrote that Roth’s op-ed for EUobserver was essentially a “copy-paste adaptation of every other editorial you’ve read about Hungary over the last few weeks, regurgitating claims that the government’s extraordinary measures to fight COVID-19 amount to “dictatorship.’”

    Kovács’ letter addressing the Human Rights Watch article outlines how Hungary has, through decisive action, flattened the curve in the country and saved lives. The Hungarian government’s policies have enabled it to be included in the top three countries in the EU for the lowest amount of coronavirus cases per million inhabitants in the EU, a fact that proves just how effective the government has been during the crisis.

    Writing on behalf of the Hungarian government, Kovacs also points out the numerous other countries that have implemented a state of emergency and given extraordinary powers to their governments.

    Kovács writes that the following section was censored from his letter to EUobserver:

    “What we have here is a cabal of politically motivated groups – more than a few of them, like Human Rights Watch, funded by the ‘philanthropist’ George Soros – creating a political problem. They oppose the Orbán Government because we are proponents of national sovereignty, Judeo-Christian culture and identity and a strong EU based on strong nation states, and an obstacle to their globalist agenda.”

    The Hungarian government spokesman says that the censorship reflects the general attitude of “politically motivated groups who exploit Hungary” and in line with their policy of ignoring and dismissing “fact-based and rational arguments”.

    Kovacs said he had requested an explanation for the change but had received no response from EUobserver.

    Remix News has also previously reported on a number of falsehoods and areas of misinformation being reported by the media about Hungary’s state of emergency. Many media reports fail to mention fact that the law is constitutional, can be revoked at any, and narrowly tailored to ensure it is targeted at combating coronavirus.

    Despite Roth’s claims of a Hungarian “dictatorship”, European Commission Vice President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová recently admitted on Czech public television that Hungary’s law does not violate any European guidelines.

  • VIDEO: Hungary subjected to double-standard as governments across EU granted extraordinary powers

    NGOs, liberal politicians, and journalists are claiming that the state of emergency in Hungary designed to combat the coronavirus crisis is undemocratic and gives Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán too much power. They also claim that these measures go against trends in Europe.

    This is not the reality of the situation though. Most European countries have implemented extraordinary legislation and empowered their governments, often at the expense of parliament, to take quick and decisive action against the coronavirus crisis, says István Kovács, the strategic director of the Center for Fundamental Rights, in a new video.

    Kovács relates a number of examples of this phenomenon in other countries, starting with France and Spain, which like Hungary, have enacted extraordinary measures have been taken in accordance with the countries’ constitutions.

     

    In Germany and the United Kingdom, both countries have passed laws transferring rights from legislative bodies, including parliaments, to the government. 

    For example, in Germany, the health minister may issue extraordinary directives even when there are concerns that those directives may go against the German constitution, according to Kovács.

    In Switzerland, the federal government currently rules by directive as well in a system that entirely bypasses the legislative process.

    Kovács says that the Swiss parliament is still better off democratically than Spain’s parliament. Spain’s parliament may still be in session but representatives are not able to question any of government’s actions, leaving parliament unable to supervise the government during the crisis.

    Parliament is still in session in Hungary and the government still consults with its members on a regular basis. As Remix News previously reported, claims from both politicians and journalists about Hungary’s state of emergency have been full of misinformation and falsehoods, which have used to attack the country.

    Kovács points out that Hungary is being singled out for its actions not due to an objective assessment of Hungary’s state of emergency. Instead, the country is being subjected to a political attack even as it struggles to deal with the coronavirus crisis that is ravaging Europe.

  • PM Orbán: Life can gradually restart in Hungary, but we should prepare for ‘surprises’

    Hungary will end the first phase of its coronavirus defense next week, with movement restrictions replaced with new measures to help life in the country gradually restart, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in his weekly interview on national channel Kossuth Rádió on Friday.

    “The first phase of defense will end next week, with other rules instead of movement restrictions,” Orbán said. “The second phase of the defense begins and life can gradually restart.”

    He added that while in the second phase rural and urban regions will need different measures, the protection of the elderly will remain the main priority. While stressing that Hungary will not “give up the life of anyone,” Orbán said that a gradual return to normal life may not be without surprises.

    “If we don’t want to live a secluded bunker-like life until the discovery of a vaccine, we have two choices: We could succeed in rebooting life, but there will be surprises. Should the coronavirus become rampant during the reboot of life, we will need tens of thousands of hospital beds and several thousand respirators,” he said.

    Orbán said that in order to allow the healthcare system to gear up for the epidemic, Hungary has succeeded in flattening the infection curve and the country will “not give up a single life”.

    He added that going forward, the government will have to concentrate on preserving existing jobs and creating new ones instead of those lost.

    “If there is no work, there is nothing,” he said, adding that Hungary was continuing to look at the example of Austria and its reboot attempts, as it is a neighboring country where the epidemic is more advanced. The prime minister said his country will be likely be “more cautious” due to Hungary’s belief that the Austrian measures to loosen restrictions have gone too fast.

    According to the latest official count, Hungary had 2,383 confirmed coronavirus cases, 250 casualties and 10,942 in mandatory home isolation.

    Title image: Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in the Kossuth Rádió studio. (archive image)

  • Hungarian MEPs slam Donald Tusk in open letter for his Nazi slander against PM Orbán

    A group of MEPs from Hungary’s ruling conservative Fidesz party sent an open letter to the president of the European People’s Party (EPP), Donald Tusk, condemning him for his Nazi slander of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

    The letter, signed by Fidesz members and MEPs Tamás Deutsch, György Hölvényi and Balázs Hidvéghi, said “calling our political enemy a Nazi without any basis has so far only been a well-known tool of the left against conservative politicians and parties. The disappointment is all the greater when it is done by the leader of a conservative party.”

    They were referring to Tusk’s interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine where he said that after seeing the recent developments in Hungary, that Carl Schmitt, who served as prominent legal scholar for the Nazis, would be “proud of him” in reference to Orbán.

    In the Spiegel interview, Tusk was commenting on the Hungarian parliament’s decision to extend the country’s state of emergency during the coronavirus crisis.

    “Viktor Orbán has never said or done anything that would warrant such a parallel,” the Hungarian MEPs wrote. “Such a shameful statement also desecrates the memories of the millions of victims of Nazi terror, Jews and non-Jews alike. It is cynical and morally unacceptable.”

    The measure in question passed with a two-thirds majority in parliament and was fully in line with the country’s constitution. Furthermore, parliament can revoke the state of emergency at any time and Orbán’s actions must be narrowly tailored to fighting the coronavirus outbreak.

    Tusk, who previously served as European Council president, currently leads the center-right EPP coalition in the European Parliament, of which Orbán’s Fidesz party is a member. Tusk has recently called for Fidesz to be expelled from the EPP.

    Other prominent members of the Hungarian government have also condemned Tusk, including Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó and government spokesman Zoltán Kovács.

    “Terrific. Good to know that even at times of crisis (when surely there are other things to keep us all busy), Orbánophobes like @donaldtusk still find the time and place to take swipes at Hungary,” Kovács tweeted last weekend.

    Szijjártó said in a Facebook post that until Tusk does something to help the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, he should be more modest.

    “As I read the sly Nazi slander statement of Donald Tusk, it occurred to me: What did the president of Europe’s largest family of political parties do to help the European people (Hungarians among them) to assist in the fight against the pandemic? How many masks, respirators or protective suits did he provide to Europe? So far, the answer to these questions is ‘zero’. Mr. president would be well advised to be more modest,” Szijjártó wrote.

    Members of the Jewish community have also sharply criticized Tusk’s remarks. Hungarian Jew Ádám Petri Lukács wrote that Tusk’s statements were an insult to his grandmother who survived Auschwitz and his other Jewish relatives who perished due to persecution.

    Title image: Donald Tusk, President of the European People’s Party.

  • 12 migrants escape coronavirus quarantine in Romania

    Romanian police have issued a citywide alert after discovering twelve migrants held in a quarantine center at the edge of western Romanian town of Temesvár had escaped their place of confinement, local news portal Timiș online reported.

    The migrants were under coronavirus lockdown at the village museum just outside the city and guarded by the local police, who reported the escape after they discovered them missing.

    Nine of them are Turkish nationals and one each from Morocco, Libya and Algeria. Police and gendarmerie were dispatched to the area and formed a search grid in the forest where the museum is located and in the adjacent suburbs. Their search efforts were unsuccessful.

    Two days earlier, police also found an unspecified number of migrants hiding in two downtown apartments in Timișoara.

    The western Romanian city now has over 400 confirmed coronavirus cases out of a national total of 10,096. With the Hungarian-Serbian border tightly controlled, migrants from the Middle East normally using the south Balkans route through Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Serbia have increasingly changed their route to Romania and are attempting to enter Hungary from the east.

    As a result, western Romania now also has a burgeoning people smuggling business, with Romanian and Serbian nationals assisting migrants in their attempt to enter the border-free Schengen area of the European Union.

    Unlike Hungary, Romania is not yet part of the Schengen zone.

    Title image: Temesvár police on patrol. (archive image)

  • EU leaders agree on €540 billion rescue package, clash over recovery financing

    The leaders of European Union member states agreed on Thursday on a previously discussed €540 billion rescue package but clear divisions remain over the best way forward to help Europe’s struggling economies.

    A more crucial economic recovery fund involving around a trillion euros or more was agreed upon in principle, with the exact size unclear. Now,  the European Commission will be left work out a proposal that all member states can get behind.

    As the number of coronavirus cases in Europe was approaching 1.2 million and the number of casualties exceeded the 110,000 mark, EU leaders were set on showing the continent that despite their many differences, the group could still function as a whole.

    Inasmuch as there was none of the usual verbal sparring and the meeting did not end with an angry Italy walking out, it could in some ways be considered a success. But seen from the perspective of the crucial economic recovery fund, neither its size nor its financing was agreed upon.

    Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte told the group that the health emergency has already grown into an economic and social emergency, “but now we are facing a political emergency as well”.

    Italy backed Spain’s €1.5 trillion plan for grants for the hardest-hit countries, funded by so-called perpetual (non-maturing) bonds. French president Emmanuel Macron also got behind it, saying that “Europe has no future if we cannot find a response to this exceptional shock.” He said the scale of the crisis demanded financial transfers to the hardest-hit states, and not just loans.

    But Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, and other northern countries are wary of financial transfers, preferring loans. The divide between grants and loans has now replaced the previous debate between countries proposing coronavirus bonds and those against it, with the two groups loosely divided along a north-south line.

    Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that “arguments have been exchanged tonight but in a very constructive manner”, adding that “there will certainly be a sound balance between grants and loans, and this is a matter of negotiation within the group of member states.”

    Von der Leyen also warned that the “health situation is not yet fully under control and many member states have not yet reached the peak”. Her economic rescue plan is based on a €2 trillion proposal put forward by her office, including an €323 billion recovery fund, which will somehow be tied into the EU’s next seven-year budget (2021-2028).

    Perhaps the best news to come out of the meeting was announced by German Chancellor Angela Merkel right before it started, which saw her reluctantly agreeing on higher contributions to the EU.

    “In the spirit of solidarity, we should be prepared to make completely different, that is to say significantly higher, contributions to the European budget over a set period,” Merkel told the Bundestag before the summit.

    Also attending the video conference, Christine Lagarde, the head of the European Central Bank, warned leaders of the risks of doing too little too late, as she forecast that in a worst-case scenario eurozone economic output could drop by as much as 15 percent in 2020.

    Title image: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at a video conference before the summit. (MTI/Zoltán Fischer)

  • Suzuki reboots production in Hungary, offering a glimmer of hope amid coronavirus

    Magyar Suzuki Zrt, one of the four major multinational carmakers present in Hungary, announced on Wednesday it will resume production on April 29, offering some hope that the manufacturing industry is regaining some footing in the country after a similar announcement made by Audi a week ago.

    In a press release to national news agency MTI, Magyar Suzuki said production will restart gradually, with only one shift per day in the beginning and alterations to its production process to ensure complete safety of the workers.

    The company announced on March 18 that it will suspend production from March 23. In the month that has passed since, Suzuki kept paying its employees, using a combination of working hours rescheduling, home office and paid leave.

    The four major car manufacturers present in Hungary, Audi, Mercedes, Opel and Suzuki, account for just over 10 percent of the total GDP and 29 percent of total manufacturing output. All of them stopped production once the pandemic hit Hungary. Mercedes and Opel have yet to make an announcement about restarting production.

    According to the latest available data, Magyar Suzuki posted sales of €1.953 billion in 2018, making it the country’s ninth largest company. Suzuki set up shop in Hungary first among the major automotive groups in 1991, just one year after the regime change in the country. Its Hungarian plant is also the Japanese carmakers’ only European production facility.

    Title image: A train of Suzuki cars on their way to dealerships. (source: portfolio.hu)

  • Hungary, Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia to present united front at stormy EU summit

    Ahead of today’s video summit of European heads of government and state, the Visegrád Four (V4) countries of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia compared notes on Wednesday in order to present a united front, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán conferring both with his V4 counterparts and European Council President Charles Michel.

    “The unity of the V4 is especially important at this point, so the prime ministers of the Visegrád countries will present a united, coordinated position,”  Orbán said, as quoted by his press secretary, Bertalan Havasi.

    It is unclear how much progress the summit will be able to achieve, but there are at least three major issues on the table.

    First and foremost is the issue of how to pay for a recovery fund to dig the continent out of an economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, expected to be the worst financial crisis in a century. The issue highlights deep philosophical differences between member states, and was left unresolved when finance ministers agreed to a €540 billion package of funding measures earlier this month.

    The latest data show that Europe had a total 1,168,485 coronavirus cases and 111,217 casualties, and while a few countries seem to be over the crest, most are not.

    Second, there is the just as thorny matter of the bloc’s seven-year budget, which they had failed to agree on prior to the pandemic due to a split over whether funding to it should increase or not.

    Third, but by no means the least thorny issue, is the matter of the insolvency Italy might be facing, an issue that predates the coronavirus pandemic. Its debt stood at 135 percent of GDP last year, the highest levels in Europe after Greece, and there have been warnings this could rise close to 160 percent by the end of this year.

    The European Commission has proposed a compromise that makes the recovery plan part of the budget. States would front extra funding into a pot, and the commission would borrow against this to raise additional money on financial markets. German chancellor Angela Merkel has indicated her support.

    The summit, however, is unlikely to bring a major breakthrough. Most likely there will be an agreement consisting of a list of principles, which will then be passed to the technical experts of the commission to be fleshed out in detail, then referred to the finance ministers for amendment and approval, with at least one more summit needed before national leaders can come to a final compromise.

    Title image: Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán pictured during a teleconference of the V4 leaders on April 22 (MTI/Zoltán Fischer)  

  • Hungarian-Serbian border crossings open for seasonal migrant workers

    Hungary has opened three border crossings with Serbia to facilitate the movement of workers to support the spring agricultural season, which is currently in full swing, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced on his Facebook page.

    In order to slow down the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, both Hungary and Serbia restricted private cross-border traffic last month, with Serbia opting for a full lockdown, as did all other countries neighboring Hungary.

    The onset of the spring agricultural season has already led to workforce shortages in many European countries, with seasonal workers moving as far west as the United Kingdom, Spain and Germany as well as Italy to the south. The exodus of workers has left Romania, Hungary and Serbia with even less available farmhands.

    Responding to the appeal of two Fidesz MPs from southern Hungary, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced early on Thursday on his Facebook page that he managed to secure an agreement with Serbia after discussing the matter with Minister of Interior Nebojša Stefanović and Minister for EU Integration Jadranka Joksimović.

    “As of six o’clock this morning, Hungarian and Serbian citizens working or farming on the other side of the border can cross at the Röszke, Tompa and Hercegszántó checkpoints,” Szijjártó wrote at 6 a.m.

    Just one week ago, Hungary secured a similar agreement with its eastern neighbor, Romania, to increase the number of checkpoints for workers commuting between the countries to eight from a previous three.

    Title image: A tractor sprays pesticides on a field in Pest county, central Hungary. (MTI/Balázs Mohai)

  • Survey: Czechs support government’s travel ban but want hairdressers reopened

    The vast majority of Czechs believe country’s current coronavirus-related travel ban is necessary even if it is a strict measure that most other European countries did not opt for, according to the National Pandemic Alarm survey 

    At the same time, many Czechs believe the restriction against travel within the Czech Republic are now unnecessary, and most people would lift this measure as soon as possible.

    The survey examines people’s attitudes to the coronavirus crisis in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria. The poll shows that, compared to other participating countries, Czechs are the most optimistic and panic the least.

    On March 16, the Czech government banned traveling abroad as well as foreigners arriving in the Czech Republic. Currently, the Czech Republic and Belgium are the only European countries that put in place general travel bans for citizens leaving the country.

    According to government officials, the borders are most likely not to open soon, and President Miloš Zeman supports a one-year travel ban.

    Opposition politicians and some legal experts, however, fear that the ban on traveling abroad is contrary to Czech legislation and plan to file a constitutional complaint.

    The Czech public has a different opinion. According to the survey, the travel ban has great support among Czech citizens, with 70 percent of Czechs considering it necessary to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

    Only six percent of respondents believe the ban is unnecessary, and about a quarter of people would like it to be lifted as soon as possible.

    Restrictions on movement within the republic bother Czechs the most

    From March 16, the government also banned the free movement of people throughout the Czech Republic. The ban does not only apply to trips to work, doctor visits, necessary purchases, and urgent family visits.

    However, a fifth of respondents considers banning domestic tourism unnecessary, while another two-fifths of people would lift the restriction as soon as possible.

    Restrictions on domestic tourism bother the Czechs most of all measures. At the same time, more than half of the respondents agree with the closure of hotels and pensions.

    According to the survey, Czechs generally agree that most government measures against coronavirus should be maintained, at least temporarily.

    The obligatory wearing of face masks has the highest public support. According to about three-quarters of Czechs, it is necessary as long as the virus continues to spread.

    In addition to the ban on free movement in the Czech Republic, the closure of schools is another measure that has lower support. About a tenth of Czechs already considers the restriction unnecessary, and another 36 percent want schools to reopen as soon as possible.

    More than half of Czechs would like hairdressing and beauty salons to be opened as soon as possible.

    However, the government wants to reopen hairdressing and beauty salons in one of the last phases of its plan in late May.

    Within the V4, Czechs are the most optimistic

    The National Pandemic Alarm survey also looked at the moods of the Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria’s population in connection with the coronavirus crisis.

    In the Czech Republic, panic and pessimism indexes are at their lowest.

    On the contrary, people in Poland and Hungary are most concerned about the coronavirus and associated economic problems.

    Of the inhabitants of all the mentioned countries, the Czechs have the highest confidence in the state’s measures due to coronavirus. On the other hand, the Bulgarians have the least confidence in the government.

    More than 100,000 people in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Slovakia are taking part in the National Pandemic Alarm survey.

  • Lifesaver: Hungarian firm develops coronavirus-specific portable respirator

    A team of Hungarians have developed a new, coronavirus-specific portable respirator that is currently undergoing expedited licensing and will soon enter series production, national news agency MTI reported.

    The respirator, developed by technical equipment firm Femtonics Kft and the Semmelweis Medical University, is tailored to the treatment needs of coronavirus patients, can be operated both from the electrical grid or with batteries, and has a self-contained gas recycling system, meaning that its operation does not place any strain on a hospital’s gas network.

    The project was one of 20 similar medical projects financed by Hungary’s Information and Technology Ministry and selected from 500 grant applicants.

    Femtonics CEO Balázs Rózsa said that the new respirator, which is currently being patented, will be easy to operate even by doctors with less experience.

    During development, their engineers also took into account parts availability, selecting the 400 to 500 components so that those meet all relevant medical standards and are readily available, thus once the licensing procedure is completed, production will remain uninterrupted.

    Anesthesiologist Dr. András Lorx, from the medical side of the development team, said that the appliance has a very efficient gas circulation system and because the breathing gas mix is recycled it does not need to be connected to a hospital gas network. It was also designed to thoroughly filter gases vented by the respirator, which will ensure the safety of the medical staff operating them.

    According to the latest official count, Hungary has 2,168 coronavirus cases, 225 casualties and 11,049 people in mandatory home isolation. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said over the weekend that based on experts’ advice, he expects the epidemic to peak around May 3 in Hungary.

    Title image: Isolation bed at the Semmelweis Hospital in Kiskunhalas, southern Hungary. (MTI/Csaba Bús)

  • Hungary thanks Estonia for support amid EU attacks

    Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó thanked his Estonian counterpart, Urmas Reinsalu, in a telephone call on Tuesday for Estonian support for his country in the face of attacks from the European Union.

    Following the phone call, Szijjártó posted a Facebook post saying that Reinsalu is “a true friend and reliable ally”.

    In recent weeks, Hungary has been subject to several attacks after parliament gave the conservative government led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán extraordinary powers for the duration of the coronavirus state of emergency, including the right to rule by government decree.

    “He [Reinsalu] was unyielding in the face of pressure and did not criticize our country, even if being branded for it by the liberal mainstream,” Szijjártó wrote. “We both reject double standards, fake news and ostracizing countries.”

    Global media outlets have been accused of misrepresenting the new state of emergency law in Hungary to fight the coronavirus, with many claiming Orbán has been granted unlimited powers for an indefinite period of time. These outlets have failed to mention that parliament can vote to end the state of emergency at any time and that Orbán’s decrees must be narrowly tailored towards fighting the coronavirus crisis.

    Furthermore, the law does not dissolve parliament but instead requires the government to remain in constant consultation with parliament members. Many other countries have also enacted similar measures to help governments respond quickly to the crisis.

    In a related post, Szijjártó said that European Council President Charles Michel and EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders, both from Belgium, were leading a “revenge campaign” against Hungary for its firm anti-immigration stance.

    He said that in 2018, when the United Nations was drafting its Migration Pact, Hungary was one of the most vocal opponents, warning about the dangers of such an agreement. Eventually, both Michel, who then prime minister of Belgium and Reynders serving as his foreign minister lost that fight when Michel’s government had to resign after signing the U.N. document.

    “This failure has been frustrating both Charles Michel and Didier Reynders, therefore their attack against Hungary is of a personal nature and based on that frustration,” Szijjártó wrote.

    The EU recently warned Hungary that the “emergency powers [Orbán} has assumed to combat the coronavirus outbreak risk upending democracy and must be subject to proper parliamentary and media scrutiny.”

    Despite EU threats against Hungary, European Commission Vice President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová admitted during a Sunday debate program on Czech TV that Hungary had not violated any European regulations when it enacted its state of emergency.

    “So far, Hungary has not adopted any such decree that would contradict European regulations,” Jourová said.

    Title image: Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu (L) and Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó (R) during a previous meeting.

  • Hungarian-led team of scientists identifies most promising coronavirus medicines

    Northeastern University researchers have identified 40 new potential drugs that could treat coronavirus. The findings, reported via Northeastern University’s Center for Complex Network Science Research on Wednesday, come from a modeling tool for infection dynamics based on network science consisting of complex math, physics, and computing.

    The leader of the team, Romanian-born ethnic Hungarian Albert-László Barabási, a physicist best known for his work on network theory, announced the findings in a tweet.

    “We have prioritized many more drugs, but there are 40 that we are actually trying to move forward,” Barabási said. His team modeled the role of the 332 proteins targeted by the coronavirus and predicted other mechanisms those proteins could trigger within the cell to lead to the symptoms of COVID-19.

    “By simply identifying what neighborhood the virus hits, we can identify what are the potential drugs that are hitting in the same neighborhood, and therefore could be effective against the virus,” Barabási says.

    Barabási, an author of several popular books on network theory, including Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do, was one of the first to warn about the dangers of a potential coronavirus pandemic back in February.

    By March, he was of the opinion that the spread of the coronavirus cannot be stopped anymore and the best the world could do was to slow its spread. He emphasized the importance of temporary school closures and believes the slowdown of the global economy is not a huge price to pay when the most important goal is saving lives.

    He was also among the first to warn that all the models predict that half of the population will become infected within one year and that in the absence of measures to fight the spread, there would not be enough hospital beds to treat all infected once the virus peaked.

    Title image: Albert-László Barabási in Budapest. (source:portfolio.hu)

  • Hungary’s economic contraction will be among least severe in Europe, says EBRD president

    Hungary is one of two European countries where the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic will be the least severe, President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Sir Sumatra Chakrabarti said during a telephone conversation with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

    The discussion between the two leaders was focused on the global economic crisis sparked by the coronavirus pandemic, Bertalan Havasi, Orbán’s press secretary told national news agency MTI.

    Orbán gave Chakrabarti a detailed account of Hungarian measures taken by the government to prop up the economy. These measures involve redirecting as much as 20 percent of the country’s GDP to safeguard as many jobs as possible, but when Orbán announced the measures two weeks ago, he also promised that for every job lost due to the coronavirus, another one will be created.

    Chakrabarti said the EBRD was constantly monitoring the economies of the countries where it has active projects and feedback indicates that Hungary is handling the crisis in a capable and effective manner.

    On April 9, the EBRD announced that it will provide immediate support for companies affected by the coronavirus in the countries it was involved in to the tune $1 billion, including short-term capital, refinancing, trade finance, and restructuring support.

    Hungary, however, is no longer among the EBRD’s largest clients, with the bank’s current primary focus on Central Asia and North Africa.

    Title image: Workers erect a 30,000 cubic meters gas tank in Budapest for the storage of medical oxigen in support of the capital’s coronavirus fight. (MTI/Tamás Kovács)

  • Coronavirus: Hungarian army ready to increase troop presence to ensure public safety

    The Hungarian Armed Forces currently have 1,500 personnel performing coronavirus epidemic-related duties, but they are ready to increase that number by another thousand should the need arise, Defense Minister Tibor Benkő told news portal Origo in an interview on Monday.

    “Soldiers are already present in the cities, helping enforce the movement restrictions in place,” Benkő said in the interview. “Should the need arise, more soldiers will patrol in more cities.”

    Hungary introduced emergency measures on March 28 that have been extended indefinitely on April 9, subject to weekly review by the government

    Since then, the number of troops helping border police patrol the southern and eastern borders of the country most exposed to the pressure of illegal immigration has been doubled.

    In addition, army personnel are now also involved in the protection of the western and northern borders and in some cases are even manning border crossings.

    The armed forces are also patrolling roads and military commanders have taken over the administrative leadership role at 51 hospitals, ensuring personnel availability, assisting in disinfection, setting up and manning triage tents, and providing critical transport when needed.

    Military personnel have also been deployed to guard warehouses with medical and protective equipment and military commanders are also in charge of over 100 companies critical for the normal functioning of the country — mostly public utilities and energy suppliers.

    Benkő added that the armed forces are performing these extra duties on top of their regular jobs of training and participation in allied missions overseas.

    The Hungarian Armed Forces currently have a headcount of 31,000.

    Title image: Mounted police patrolling past a farm on the Great Hungarian Plain. (MTI/Attila Balázs)

  • PM Orbán: Hungary to draft coronavirus recovery plan by May 3

    By the time the coronavirus epidemic will peak in Hungary around May 3, the government will already have drafted a recovery plan, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Monday in an interview with Catholic station Mária Rádió.

    “There is no guarantee that the epidemic can be kept under control, so the question is what the country must be prepared for,” Orbán said in the interview. “This is a Christian scenario, meaning hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.”

    He said that by the time the number of infections peak around May 3 as expected, the country will be well-prepared, even for a case when the spread of the disease cannot be kept under control.

    “We must evaluate that, should that happen, how many patients we will have, how many hospital beds, intensive care stations and respirators will be needed,” Orbán said. “We must draft a battle plan on how to achieve this. This is what takes up my time these days.”

    He said that taking into account that “no one can be wise on their own”, he was consulting with a wide range of experts on the epidemic, its duration and the recovery afterwards. He said his own position was a moderate one and expects that a full recovery of the economy could take up to a year.

    “I see the [economic] decline smaller than most and a recovery that will be slower than most expect,” he said. “By this time next year, we will be able to speak about an economy whose performance is where it was two months ago.”

    He said that while the recovery plan was being drafted, it was too early to talk about it.

    “I will be able to speak about it around May 3 to May 4 at the earliest, but I hope that by that time I can present the country with a calm, composed and credible plan.”

    According to the latest official data, Hungary, with a population of 9.9 million had 2,098 confirmed coronavirus cases, 213 casualties and 11,172 persons in mandatory home quarantine.

    Title image: Tamás Szabó (L), President of Mária Rádió greets Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in front the studio on April 20, 2020. (MTI/Zoltán Fischer)

  • Hungary’s state of emergency doesn’t violate European regulations, admits EC Vice President Jourová

    Hungary’s state of emergency does not violate or contradict any European regulations, stated European Commission Vice President for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová during a Sunday debate program on Czech TV.

    During the show, both she and MEP Alexandr Vondra discussed the state of Hungarian democracy, with Jourová saying that although the European Commission has previously expressed concerns about the possible threat to democracy in Hungary, she had to admit that there is little basis to do so during the coronavirus crisis.

    Jourová explained that a state of emergency is a sovereign decision of the country, which inevitably leads to the restriction of individual freedoms and the strengthening of the power of the state, which has also occurred in other European countries during this crisis period.

    Her admission that Hungary’s state of emergency law is in accordance with Europe’s regulations comes at the same time that a number of European politicians have called for Hungary to be removed from the European Union often based on misleading media reports.

    After the passage of Hungary’s so-called coronavirus law, which establish the state of emergency, European People’s Party (EPP) President Donald Tusk has also called for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party to be expelled from the EPP while former Italian Prime Minister and Florence Senator Matteo Renzi demanded that Hungary be removed from the EU itself.

    According to Reuters, the EU warned Hungary that the “emergency powers [Orbán} has assumed to combat the coronavirus outbreak risk upending democracy and must be subject to proper parliamentary and media scrutiny.”

    Jourová’s new take on the topic appears to show the EU has little choice but to acknowledge that Orbán’s state of emergency is in full compliance with European rules.

    Two weeks ago, Jourová also warned that coronavirus must not kill the democratic order in an interview with Die Welt.

    Currently, the European Commission is analyzing member states’ emergency regimes to make sure that democratic values and European rules are not violated.

    During the Czech TV program, Jourová said that she and the European Commission are still questioning when and how the emergency powers will end.

    Jourová said she discussed this topic with the Hungarian Minister of Justice Judit Varga before the Hungarian Parliament passed the emergency law, which enables Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to rule by decree.

    “I have tried to explain to Varga that the EC and other institutions are particularly concerned about the unclear end of the emergency regime and the weakened role of the Hungarian Parliament,” said Jourová.

    However, Varga assured the Commission’s vice president that the Hungarian parliament could terminate the emergency powers at any time. They are also narrowly tailored to fight the coronavirus crisis.

    When asked if Hungary could face prosecution for violating the EU treaties, Jourová said on Czech TV: “Not yet given that so far, Hungary has not adopted any such decree that would contradict European regulations”.

    Czech MEP considers attacks on Hungarian government unfair

    Responding to Jourová’s statements, MEP and former Czech Foreign Minister Alexandr Vondra said that he appreciates that the European Commission finally read the Hungarian emergency law before judging it.

    Vondra pointed out that some left-wing media outlets published footage of the Hungarian army taking control of companies that Viktor Orbán’s government described as strategic.

    But, as Vondra emphasized, such pictures were biased. The army did not enter the companies to take over production but to offer security for buildings and aid in transporting goods. Similarly, the military does not control the Hungarian central bank or local hospitals.

    Vondra compared the Hungarian and Czech emergency laws. The rules differ, such as requiring the army in Hungary to do what firefighters are doing in the Czech Republic. However, there’s nothing wrong with that measure, said Vondra.

    Vondra concluded that in a situation of coronavirus crisis where human lives are at stake, the European Commission should address more critical issues than Hungarian democracy.

    Moreover, in several countries, such as France, the current restrictive measures are much stricter than in Hungary. Therefore, Vondra considers the attacks on the Hungarian government to be disproportionate.

  • Hungary and Poland’s paths are set to cross once again

    The tension between the European People’s Party (EPP) and Hungary’s Fidesz party is much more than a spat or the end of the political alliance between EPP President Donald Tusk and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

    The EPP, often described as a center-right party, has become the embodiment of the left-wing consensus in the EU. The once-mighty Christian democratic force has now swallowed cultural Marxism hook, line and sinker. The results have been disastrous as the parties within the European Parliament coalition continue to hemorrhage support from voters.

    Hungary’s Fidesz has taken a different, conservative approach, and has been rewarded at the voting booth with a two-thirds majority in parliament.

    Cooperation with the German CDU/CSU, participation in the EPP and close relations between Orbán and Tusk played a key role in securing Hungary’s independent course within the EU.

    Hungary was already charting a different course when it received the Polish Catholic right in Budapest with full honors in 2012 after we expressed solidarity with Hungary.