Remix News

Tag: Hungary

  • German historian: ‘God save us from the Greens’

    Just when the world is faced with sweeping paradigm changes, the European left, which includes the German Green Party, is determined to use the opportunity to take away all individual choice and freedom from people, German historian and publicist told daily Magyar Nemzet in an interview.

    “We are undergoing a major social paradigm shift. This paradigm shift applies to all areas of our society: politics, education, the economy, culture, and also the way we relate to each other,” Mai said in Budapest on the occasion of the launch of his new book, “We shape the future! How can we finally overcome the crippling spiritual change of our age”.

    “This change of era is comparable to the transition from the late antiquity to the Middle Ages or from the late Middle Ages to the New Age. Now comes the end of the era — the New Age — that began with Martin Luther stating his theses. Different parties and states find different responses to this paradigm shift,” Mai said, adding that various parties offer different solutions, but the left and the Greens see this as an opportunity to implement the changes they desire.

    “Those who are promoting this great transformation — from the Greens in Germany, to the progressive neo-liberals, to those deeply present in the CDU — have in common that they believe that capitalism will result in one crisis after another, and therefore at least need to be reformed or completely discarded. The pandemic and the so-called climate crisis are only used as an excuse to carry out a major transformation. However, all of these perceptions lack the citizen — a citizen interpreted as a subject in the sense of democracy, and consequently freedom.”

    Mai said that the concept of the adult citizen established by the Enlightenment is being swept off the table and the left wants the citizen not to rely on his own intellect, as Immanuel Kant testified, but to blindly trust the leadership of interpretive elites.

    “This is what is expected in Kant’s homeland, the country with such a long tradition of enlightenment. However, trust is required only by dictatorships; the principle of democracy is distrust. Democracies get better by having adult citizen search for things, ask for answers. The key concept of the great transformation is not freedom but the public good, and its most important political body is not the parliament but the public welfare committee — as it was during the French Revolution.”

    Mal said that a Green Party victory in upcoming federal elections in Germany would lead to an acceleration in this ongoing transformation that would crush individual liberty.

    “I trust the power of the facts and reality, hoping that God will save us from the rule of the Greens – otherwise the awakening will be much more expensive and lengthy.” he said.

    Kai said that the implications of the great makeover are that Europe could lose its positions if it doesn’t stick to its own identity.

    “We are in competition with the whole world, and it is up to us to become the engine of the world again, providing ever-increasing prosperity for all, or to fall asleep as a crumbling province at the end of the New Silk Road. It would not be the fault of the Chinese who exploit their chances, but ours because we do not live with them.”

    “Now we are wasting our competitiveness, our prosperity, our future, and in a situation where the world is being re-weighted — we call this history — namely, forces that have a nation-state foundation. This is understood in Hungary, but not in Germany.”

    Kai said the three answers to the current dilemmas are redefining democracy, expanding civil liberties and reinforce subsidiarity in Europe.

    “In Germany, we need, first and foremost, politics to come from the citizen, and this requires a reform of democracy. Secondly, just after the coronavirus epidemic, civil liberties must not only be activated but radically expanded. Thirdly, there is a need for Europe to be organized in a subsidiary way, that is, to unite not as a central state but as a community of free peoples in Europe based on their culture, regions, nationalities, in real diversity and respect.”

    Title image: Klaus-Rüdiger Mai. (photo: Christoph Busse) 

  • EU could start restricting funds to Hungary, Poland, and even Czechia

    The European Commission will not wait for the verdict of the Court of Justice of the European Union and will probably start using the new rules conditioning drawings from EU funds by respecting the rule of law, the vice-president of the Commission, Věra Jourová, stated on Tuesday.

    According to Jourová, the EU executive has provided the member states and the European Parliament with details of the use of the mentioned mechanism and is also working on the evaluation of individual countries.

    The EU agreed to introduce new conditionality at the end of last year after Hungary and Poland blocked the approval of the bloc’s seven-year budget. The new sanctions mechanism is widely seen as a tool that Brussels will primarily deploy against the conservative governments of Hungary and Poland, especially in relation to immigration, LGBT issues, and judicial reform. 

    They did not back down until they were allowed to go to court over the launch of the new system, which they did in March. The EU Court of Justice announced in mid-June that it had set the hearing to begin in October.

    “I hoped that the first hearings would be in the spring, if it is in October, we cannot wait,” Jourová said before a meeting with member state ministers in Luxembourg, where she was discussing the rule of law and European values in Poland and Hungary.

    According to Jourová, it is probable that Brussels will start using the rules earlier and will only take the court’s verdict into account later.

    Pressure from MEPs

    The Commission is now under pressure from MEPs, who have given it a deadline this week to present a clear plan for when and how to start using the new conditionality. Otherwise, MEPs want to sue the EU executive for inaction, according to the Czech News Agency.

    MEPs insist that the European Commission already assess the distribution of money from the emergency recovery fund under the new rules. The unprecedented crisis package contains €750 billion (19 trillion korunas), of which states can use 13 percent this year.

    According to Jourová, the Commission has already submitted an implementing regulation to the said regulation to the European Parliament and the states, but it is still fine-tuning the details. The mechanism makes it possible to stop part of the Union’s funding for countries whose authorities do not effectively investigate, for example, corruption or conflicts of interest.

    An extremely powerful tool

    “It’s an extremely powerful tool that could hit the Member States hard, so we want to be absolutely clear about what the procedure will look like,” said Jourová.

    Among the countries to which Brussels could restrict access to the funds are, in addition to Hungary and Poland, the Czech Republic as the Prime Minister Andrej Babiš is, according to the Commission’s audit, in conflict of interest.

    According to its vice-president, the Commission is now assessing each country against the criteria of the new regulation.

    “This will apply to countries where we can be sure that any systemic problems in the area of the rule of law can damage the European budget,” Jourová added.

    Title image: European Commissioner for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova, left, speaks next to Portugal’s European Affairs Secretary and President of Council Ana Paula Zacarias during a news conference at the end of a European general affairs ministers meeting at the European Council building in Luxembourg, Tuesday, June 22, 2021. The European Union’s executive branch warned Hungary and Poland Tuesday that it will take action if they continue to violate the 27-nation bloc’s democratic standards, amid signs that both countries have little intention to change their ways. (John Thys/Pool Photo via AP)

  • Hungary remains defiant after 13 EU nations condemn Hungarian child protection law

    In a move the Hungarian justice minister characterized as a “war of worlds”, 13 members of the European Union’s General Affairs Council passed on Tuesday a resolution condemning the country for its recently passed children protection law, which opponents characterized as anti-LGBT.

    “[The law] represents a flagrant form of discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and hence deserves to be condemned. Inclusion, human dignity and equality are core values of our European Union, and we cannot compromise on these principles,” the countries said.

    “Stigmatizing LGBTIQ persons constitute a clear breach of their fundamental right to dignity, as provided for in the EU Charter and international law.”

    The motion — submitted to the council by the Benelux states — was eventually endorsed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Spain, Sweden, and Latvia.

    Although the Hungarian child protection law was discussed at the meeting, the Hungarian government has a legitimate opinion that it is a duty to protect families and ensure the undisturbed development of children, Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga told journalists afterwards.

    “This is a war of worlds, it’s not about the law anymore,” Varga said. “I am sorry that Europe is under pressure from the liberal steamroller today. The Hungarian government has a legitimate opinion that protecting families and ensuring the undisturbed development of children is a duty. This cannot be taken out of the hands of families, it cannot be subjected to the influence of lobby groups.”

    Varga said she also presented the text of the law in English to EU colleagues at the meeting, so the law is now “only those don’t understand it who don’t want to.”

    Speaking about the Article 7 procedure against Hungary which has been dragging on for three years now, Varga said, “We’ve been in this procedure for almost three years now the cat has really gotten out of the bag. Disputes of a legal nature that have previously arisen between the Union and Hungary have already been resolved through fair procedures. On the other hand, political and ideological differences disguised as legal will never come to a standstill, as this is their nature.”

    Title image: Hungary’s Justice Minister Judit Varga speaks to journalists during a European general affairs ministers meeting at the European Council building in Luxembourg, Tuesday, June 22, 2021. 

  • Fighting inflation: Hungary’s central bank hikes base rate for first time in 10 years

    The Hungarian National Bank (MNB) increased its base rate by 30 basis points to 0.9 percent on Tuesday, pointing out that this but the first in a “series of monthly rate increases” designed to rein in inflation.

    The rate hike did not come as a surprise, as Central Bank Governor György Matolcsy published an article on Monday warning that the 2022 budget — among other things — will lead to an increase in inflation. Explaining the MNB’s decision, which was unanimous, Matolcsy said the rate hikes will continue until inflation falls back into a sustainable range.

    Analysts, however, pointed out that the rate increase was at the lower end of the 30 to 40 basis points expected by the market, meaning that in itself, Tuesday’s increase would certainly not be the last.

    Matolcsy added that the decision was made to push inflation back on a sustainable trajectory before long-lasting, high inflation sets in, with the aim to keep inflation within the 3 percent range of the MNB.

    At the same time, the interest rate corridor will remain unchanged, with the base rate remaining the dominant instrument. The one-week deposit has been retained, with the central bank expecting it to follow the level of the base rate through natural market movements.

    Matolcsy stressed that the monetary policy adjustment steps will continue in a data-driven manner in the coming months.

    He mentioned that the central bank already made its contribution to the crisis management. Last year, the bank poured 6,000 billion forints into the economy followed by another 3,300 billion forints, mainly in the form of preferential loans. This is one of the strongest central bank interventions in financing the fight against the epidemic. He stressed that the reboot was successful, and the recovery has begun. Forecasts for this year and next are encouraging.

    The Hungarian economy is doing well in terms of restarting and the real economic recovery. The Hungarian economy restarted in the second quarter, with all growth figures pointing in the right direction, Matolcsy said.

    At the same time, the MNB has increased its economic growth forecast for this year to 6 percent or even above the Hungarian economy. Matolcsy also said that the restart of the economy was successful because the vaccination is four to six weeks ahead of other EU countries.

    He also indicated that the downside of the economic reboot is inflation, and this is characterized by an inflationary jump. For the whole year, inflation is projected to be above 4 percent, which he called “natural”. The faster recovery begins, the more inflation it generates, Matolcsy said, but pointed out that the central bank’s number one mandate is to maintain price stability, which is why the decision to raise interest rates was made.

    Title image: MNB building entrance. (Magyar Hírlap/László Katona)

  • The German steamroller

    Both the Munich municipality and Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder, a politician of the Christian Social Union — a party which has seen better days — is supporting lighting the Munich stadium in rainbow colors for Wednesday night’s German-Hungarian match. All this, of course, in the spirit of openness and acceptance.— while it is true that the idea comes from a petition, is it also obviously a response to the adoption of the Hungarian Child Protection Act.

    In Hungary, we know very well how seriously UEFA takes the ban on politicization in matches, but this is of course of secondary importance in this case, which also happens to be the case with Manuel Neuer, the German team captain, who has played with rainbow-colored armbands in previous matches. These cases are exceptions because it serves a good cause, the UEFA and German officials claim.

    But where does this confidence come from, dear Germany? According to a recent survey, which was also quoted by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in his recent speech, only 45 percent of Germans said they were free to express their views, and 44 percent were of the opposite opinion. Respondents say they can easily get in trouble if they say what they think about Islam or patriotism. This is how much freedom of opinion there is in Germany, the poster child for many other countries.

    According to another survey commissioned by the right-wing Junge Freiheit, Germans are more patriotic and conservative than we think based on actions like the one planned by Munich. Among those surveyed, 61 percent said that schoolchildren should be offered a more positive image of Germany, 58 percent were disturbed by the enforced usage of politically correct language, gender language and — hold on, Mr. Söder — 57 percent said a family is primarily composed of father, mother and child.

    We must add, of course, that the “long march” of liberal forces in institutions is not ineffective, as only 39 percent of 18-29 year olds think a family is defined by father, mother and child, and 45 percent outright reject the primacy of the traditional family model.

    The above opinion polling does not matter to German decision-makers, key players in the media and culture, because just as they want to educate us — the Hungarians and the Visegrád group — they also want to decide what is good for ordinary German people. The hypocrisy, as always, is outrageous. Gerhard Papke, the president of the German-Hungarian Society, aptly pointed out on Twitter that they are protesting against Hungary in Munich, which is a guest in Germany during the match, even though there is a legal option for registered same-sex partnerships in Hungary, while in World Cup host Qatar homosexuality is a criminal offense.

    It would be reassuring to know that aggressive foreign propaganda actions that politicize football would also be met with a unanimous rejection on the part of Hungary’s domestic politics. Unfortunately, this is far from being the case. The liberal side of Hungary outright enjoys its own country being ridiculed, outdoing one another in seeking the graces of politicians and officials who have the opportunity to impose any kind of sanction on Hungary.

    András Fekete-Győr, the president of [centrist party] Momentum, proudly announced the other day that he had convinced a French pro-government MEP to intervene in Hungary somehow. He even assured that “after 2022, Hungary will return to the Western way”.

    Well, that about completes the picture. We are faced with an aggressive liberal push that disregarded national sovereignty, and then there is the Hungarian liberal side, which will happily throw the country under the steamroller.

    Title image: The Allianz Arena, home of local football team FC Bayern München.

  • Pandemic and immigration form a vicious cycle, says Hungarian foreign minister

    The epidemic and migration form a vicious cycle, as the more places an epidemic occurs, the more people try to migrate, and the more people who try to migrate, the greater the risk of the epidemic spreading, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Luxembourg on Monday during a one-day meeting of the foreign ministers of the EU member states.

    Speaking to Hungarian journalists during a break, Szijjártó emphasized that it is clear that the world is about to experience a fresh outbreak of migration, as all the processes that sparked migration waves in the recent period have intensified.

    “We have only one task: to protect our own citizens from the dangers of the new waves of migration, and we must seize all the means at our disposal to stop the migration processes,” Szijjártó said.

    He stressed that the economic effects of the pandemic will contribute to the strengthening of migration. Multi-faceted armed conflicts are not moving towards a solution, and another wave of migration can be expected due to the terrorist threat posed by NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and Brussels’ pro-migration policy, he said.

    “It is clear that nothing is enough for Brussels for bureaucrats to realize that migration poses serious risks,” he said.

    As an example, Szijjártó mentioned that a number of cases of illegal immigrants arriving in Italy have been shown to be linked to the Indian coronavirus variant named Delta.

    Rule-of-law procedure is an instrument for blackmail

    The procedure under Article 7 of the EU Treaty is not about the facts, but a political and blackmail tool against Hungary, said Szijjártó, who responded that he would hold hearings at the meeting of the Ministers for General Affairs of the EU on Tuesday in Luxembourg on the situation of the rule of law in Poland and the application of the values ​​of the Union in Hungary in connection with the proceedings under Article 7.

    Szijjártó stated that the longer the process drags on, the more it will unmask the motivations of its initiators. The procedure is a tool of political blackmail, if anyone wanted to argue about the facts, it would be long over, he stressed.

    He emphasized that Hungary’s position was well-known, as it had answered all the questions that could be asked, and the procedure could be closed. That needs to be voted on and then things could move forward based on the outcome of the vote, he said.

    “It is obvious to them that they cannot win the vote, because it requires unanimity, and not all 27 member states of the European Union will condemn Hungary,” he said.

    He also stated that the connection between the procedure, which is a tool of political blackmail, and next year’s Hungarian elections is obvious. The procedure is another tool for the liberal mainstream to try to influence the Hungarian parliamentary elections, he said. This is not the only nor the first attempt to influence next year’s elections, he said.

    With regard to the Hungarian anti-pedophile law passed last week, which could also be on the agenda of Tuesday’s council meeting, Szijjártó said, “There is no world where we are told by bureaucrats in Brussels or liberal politicians in Western Europe whether we can protect our children or not”.

    He stated that the protection of Hungarian children is the right and responsibility of the Hungarian legislature. The Hungarian legislature should give only families and parents the right to decide whether to raise their own children. Protecting Hungarian children does not depend on Western European liberal politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels.

    “Protecting Hungarian children is our right and duty,” Szijjártó added.

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

  • Hungarian central bank head criticizes 2022 budget

    Hungary’s budget for next year is wrong, because its 5.9 percent deficit “unnecessarily introduces significant risks into the working of the Hungarian economy”, Hungarian Central Bank head György Matolcsy writes in daily Magyar Nemzet, announcing at the same time its “fourth campaign” to restore the budgetary balance.

    “The management of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB) is therefore launching its fourth campaign to restore fiscal balance in order to reduce next year’s general government deficit target to close to 3 percent as soon as possible, i.e. to the 3 to 3.4 percent of GDP ratio,” Matolcsy wrote.

    He enumerated four key arguments why the budget is wrong, as follows:

    The starting points are incorrect

    The budget for 2022 cannot be the budget of the reboot, because the Hungarian economy will already reboot this year. The first quarter has been better than expected, the second quarter will bring double-digit growth and in the summer months we will restore the level of GDP to the end of 2019 levels. With GDP growth expected to be around 6 percent for the year as a whole, it is one of the best, if not the best, economic performances in the EU.

    The Hungarian economy will no longer have to be restarted in 2022 with a high budget deficit, instead a return to the previous equilibrium trajectory is possible and necessary.

    An inflation budget instead of a restart

    It took six and a half years after the 2008 crisis to restore previous GDP levels, and now this will happen within a year and a half. This change brings with it inflationary spikes because the forcibly accumulated demand does not immediately meet the same amount and structure of supply in the internal market. This will lead to soaring inflation. Once this is the case in other countries, imported inflation will also jump.

    Inflation is further fueled by excess demand stemming from the 5.9 percent of GDP deficit in the budget, which could lead to jumps on a persistently high inflation path. Thus, the 2022 budget will stimulate inflation instead of the inflation-reducing effect of returning to equilibrium.

    It is wrong to build the deficit on the EU exemption

    Even in 2022, the European Union will release member states from the obligation of a deficit below 3 percent, so the government considers a high deficit target acceptable. This is a mistake, and it has happened so many times that the EU should not have been listened to.

    The Hungarian economy has the highest debt ratio within the V4 group, while it plans to have the highest budget deficit by 2022, which would also be the third-largest deficit in the EU.

    The risk lies with the financial markets, not the EU. If financial markets, after a rebound in double-digit GDP growth this year in the second quarter of this year, consider the unchanged repayment moratorium, the adopted 2022 budget, persistently high inflation and the biggest negative real interest rates together to be unsustainable economic policies, a strong financial attack can be directed against Hungary.

    This can be averted by a targeted overhaul of the [loan repayment] moratorium (only those who really need it can continue) and an amendment to next year’s budget.

    The public investment policy behind the deficit is flawed

    Behind the 5.9 percent deficit in next year’s budget is the projected cost of public investment to 7.1 percent of GDP. If this were halved, it would be possible to return to the equilibrium trajectory immediately, as early as 2022. The average coverage ratio of public investment in the EU is close to 3 to 3.5 percent of GDP, and the financial markets compare the Hungarian data with this.

    In addition, a significant part of the planned public investments will not start in 2021, a good part of them will not even start in 2022, therefore it is unnecessary to burden the budget with them.

    Title image: Hungarian central bank governor György Matolcsy.

  • Top EU official uses fake news to condemn Poland over LGBT rights

    False news reports about “LGBT-free zones” in Poland — areas where LGBT people are allegedly not allowed to enter — has raised its ugly head again, this time being used by a top EU official to condemn the country.

    The official, Vice-President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans, wrote in a social media post that “Putin was the first to weaponize homophobia and his sorcerer’s apprentices in Poland and Hungary followed suit.”

    He then added that “the LGTBIQ+ free zones in Poland and the recent outrageous Hungarian law banning LGTBIQ+ content in schools or on kids’ TV which links being gay with pedophilia, are a new low and should remind everyone that Putin’s playbook is being used in the heart of the EU in the 21st century.”

    The issue of alleged “LGBT-free zones” in Poland was created by LGBT activist Bart Staszewski, who has been sued by municipalities in Poland for spreading false information, including placing “LGBT-free zone” signs written in several languages beneath the names of Polish towns which adopted pro-family declarations. The international news media has often reported on the signs as if local authorities put them up in an effort to keep LGBT people out. Photos of the signs went viral.

    Some of the municipalities sued Staszewski for defamation. The activist has responded by stating that his actions were an artistic project which was meant to point out the discrimination of LGBT persons to the public’s benefit.

    This fake news story was later authenticated by Left party and Civic Platform politicians in Brussels. Although the subject was clarified and explained many times by Polish officials, the so-called “LGBT-free zones” are still continuously used to attack Poland. 

    Although the Netherlands, which is Timmermans’s home country, has been quietly supporting Nord Stream 2 and the European Commission has been unable to efficiently oppose making deals with Moscow, Poland is being accused of supposed alliances with Russia.

    Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk responded to the EU politician’s accusations, emphasizing that there were no “LGBT-free zones” in Poland.

    Timmermans’ claim about Hungary passing a law banning LGBTIQ+ content from being shown to children is accurate, but the law does not claim that LGBTIQ+ people are pedophiles. Instead, the law focuses on restricting content for children and young adults that focuses on gender and sexuality and also restricts any content that would encourage children to change their gender. The law was passed by an overwhelming majority in Hungary’s parliament.

  • Rebooting the economy is the key element of Hungary’s 2022 budget

    The highlight of next year’s budget is the economic reboot plan, which will allow everyone who has been put in a difficult position by the coronavirus epidemic to recover, Finance Minister Mihály Varga said on national radio station Kossuth on Sunday.

    Varga emphasized that he would like to regain as soon as possible the growth capacity that characterized the years before the epidemic. As he said, 2022 could already be the year when this is achieved. 

    The minister of finance emphasized that in 2021 the economy is expected to reach the point where it was at the end of 2019, before the epidemic, and in 2022 economic growth is expected to be 5.2 percent, a public deficit target of 5.9 percent of GDP and a debt ratio that returns to a declining path.

    As Remix News reported last week, the Hungarian Parliament approved on June 15 the country’s budget for 2022 with 132 yes and 26 no votes by the 199-seat legislation, translating into an 83.5 percent majority.

    Varga also said that there are important social policy goals, among which he mentioned the support of families, the reconstruction of the 13-month pension, and the introduction of tax exemptions for those under 25 years of age.

    “Next year should be about the completion of the restart, about the fact that the Hungarian economy can continue on the path where it was in the period before the epidemic,” he said.

    The minister of finance recalled the importance of the economic protection fund, in which various resources were raised to protect Hungary’s economy, including launching investments and protecting jobs. 

    The 2022 budget will retain its structure, but it is already an economic relaunch — a 7,300 billion forints (€20.52 billion) economic restart fund will be set aside in the budget, he explained. He added that there will continue to be a health insurance and epidemic prevention fund with a budget of 3,600 billion forints.

    At the same time, Varga explained that he was confident that after 2022 there would be less and less emphasis on protection against the epidemic.

    The Hungarian minister of finance drew attention to the fact that in the first quarter of this year, last year’s government measures already had a positive impact, especially in the field of investments and developments. He indicated that the investments the government has launched will gradually be reflected in the operation of the economy. For this reason, Varga expects a “strong rebound” of the economy.

    He also explained that the biggest boost to economic growth since 2016 has come from a tax-cutting and wage-raising agreement with employers and employees.

    “If we can get back on this path and there is a gradual but vigorous wage increase, but at the same time we can reduce taxes, the competitiveness of the Hungarian economy can improve, the growth path can again be imagined in the 4 to 5 percent range,” he said.

    Title image: Hungarian Finance Minister Mihály Varga. (source: Facebook)

  • Central European power supply just became more resilient

    Last week marked the implementation of a major change in the European power supply grid without consumers noticing anything, the Hungarian Power Exchange (HUPX) announced in a statement.

    A single, stronger electricity market at the European level has been created by linking trade between two regions these days. The move will bring more balanced stock prices, stronger security of supply and price competition to all European users involved.

    The integreation will increase the flexibility and security of supply of the region’s electricity systems, contribute to the strengthening of regional price stability and the equalization of prices. The electricity markets of the so-called 4M MC region (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania) of the Central and Eastern European countries and the core multi-region coupling (MRC) area covering the Western European countries were connected to the common Austrian, German and Polish countries from the delivery date of June 18. At the same time, a more liquid market creates more favorable conditions for traders in the next day’s electricity trade.

    “In addition to merging the day-ahead electricity markets of Eastern and Western Europe, this was the last and most significant step towards the creation of a single European day-ahead electricity market,” HUPX said.

    Soon, in about three months, the Bulgarian and Romanian electricity markets will also be connected. In relation to the event, Péter János Horváth, president of the Hungarian Energy and Utilities Regulatory Authority, emphasized that Hungary is approaching the creation of a flow-based market in February 2022 within the EU’s target model, the so-called Core region, which also includes Hungary. At the same time, the Croatian and Hungarian networks will be connected.

    Hungary’s most active wholesale electricity market, the next-day market, must deliver service flexibly and efficiently. Therefore, HUPX wrote that it began the initiative at the level of authorities, system operators and stock exchanges, and supported the project with significant resources.

    From the Hungarian point of view, trade at the Austrian border is of paramount importance, as is trade on the Czech-German border due to the indirect effect. Among the positive effects on energy markets, the power exchange mentioned will increase efficiency, bring more balanced prices, create a more balanced electricity market, stronger liquidity and more efficient allocation of cross-border capacities.

    The latter is particularly important for import-intensive countries such as Hungary at present, as they can obtain the necessary energy at the best possible price, which can ultimately have a positive effect on consumer prices.

    Title image: Aerial close-up view of electricity pylon with power lines over agricultural field in Lajoskomárom, Hungary.

     

  • Europe dominated by progressive ‘steamroller’ pushing multiculturalism, immigration, and anti-family policies, says Hungarian justice minister

    Hungary wants a smarter Europe, not more of it, but for Hungarians unity in diversity means harmony between nations — a Europe where the national interest takes precedence over the EU interest, Justice Minister Judit Varga said at a Budapest conference entitled Hungarian Independence Day.

    “The series of belated and erroneous European responses to the challenges of the 21st century have made it clear that integration has now lost its responsiveness and become a field of ideological debate rather than pragmatic cooperation. Europe is dominated by a steamroller mainstream that calls itself progressive and liberal, with the vision of the United States of Europe as its main goal. This Europe supports multiculturalism, welcomes immigration, but rejects the traditional family model and the cultural and religious heritage of the continent,” Varga said.

    Varga said the Hungarian government believes that the family, the nation, the national identity, and regional cooperation as a natural community are the main factors safeguarding sovereign decision-making and the pledges of a strong Europe of healthy nations.

    She added that today, 17 years after joining the EU, Hungary has the knowledge and the experience to help recognize the insidious federalist aspirations amid a “deliberately created chaos”.

    She also warned of Brussels weaponizing its liberal majority to turn on smaller conservative nations unhappy with mass immigration and progressive ideologies. 

    “We want a Europe where EU law is not an instrument of the ideological arsenal, where political frustration does not override the principles of the treaties, a Europe that raises its voice against the open violations of the obligations of the institutions, the open violations of the law,” Varga said.

    The conference was organized on the occasion of the Hungarian Independence Day, June 19, 1991, when the last Soviet troops left Hungary.

    Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also spoke at the conference, and prominent guests included, Speaker of the Parliament László Kövér, Minister in charge of the Prime Minister’s OfficeGergely Gulyás, Minister of Human Resources Miklós Kásler, members of parliament, and ambassadors accredited to Hungary.

    Mária Schmidt, government commissioner for the 30-year commemoration and director general of the House of Terror Museum, recalled that Article 22 of the 1947 peace treaty, which ended World War II, contained a clause providing for the logistical provision of Soviet troops to continue occupying Hungary.

    This situation was preserved by accession to the Warsaw Pact in 1955, and after the bloody defeat of the 1956 Revolution and War of Independence, the agreement reached in May 1957 no longer contained a time limit for Soviet troops to stay here.

    Title image: Justice Minister Judit Varga speaks at the “30 Years of Freedom” conference in Budapest on June 19. (Magyar Hírlap/Péter Papajcsik)

  • PM Orbán: 7 steps to reform the EU

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, during a speech given on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Soviet troop withdrawal from Hungary, formulated seven theses in which he outlines his vision for reforming the European Union.

    In his view, the EU is a political formation created for the economic and military protection of its inhabitants. It was conceived during the Cold War with the hope of healing divisions, and that one day all Europeans will be able to decide about their own future. Despite the noble goals, the reality is that today half of Germans think that they cannot speak freely and are afraid that their opinions could lead to repercussions, especially if they were to speak their minds about topics like Islam, their homeland or patriotism.

    Orbán has also quoted former Czech Prime Minister Václav Klaus, according to whom today humanity, family and nationhood are all under a concerted attack, which endangers the future of Europe. In contrasts, Orbán also referred to an earlier comment made by Katarina Barley, vice-president of the European Parliament, according to which “countries such as Poland and Hungary must be starved financially”.

    The Hungarian prime minister then went on to outline why he feels that Europe is currently in decline, quoting statistics such as the fact that the EU had produced 25 percent of the world’s GDP in 2008, while in 2018 this was only 18 percent. Orbán sums up his proposals for the EU’s reform in seven points:

    1. Instead of a Europe of nations, Brussels is building an imperial European Union, which inevitably leads to a democratic deficit. There is no such thing as a European demos, there are only citizens of nation states, and they are the ones on which European democracies can be built. Democracies based on national identities are now in opposition to empire builders, who are in fact enemies of democracy, claimed Orbán.

    2. Brussels is led by those for whom integration is not a goal but a self-interest. This is why they are attempting to overstep traditional values, are attacking families, the idea of nationhood, Christianity, and the Jewish faith. Therefore, it is imperative that Europeans remove the concept of “ever closer union” from the founding documents of the EU at the first possible opportunity.

    3. Brussels has outsourced a large chunk of its powers to forces outside Europe, primarily to NGOs tied to United States financier George Soros, and to interests behind the US Democratic Party. This has resulted in the transformation of the European Commission into a political body that busies itself with preparing rule-of-law reports about member states of the EU. However, they have even outsourced the creation of these reports to NGOs active in these countries that are almost without exception tied to the Soros network. It is on the basis of these NGO reports that democratically-elected governments are then assessed, and the ones that are found to be lacking, are often punished.

    4. Orbán had brought up several examples in which he demonstrated how the EU has been left behind economically. In his view, without a common European economic success, the union will disintegrate. Hungary will therefore only take part in European political projects that will lead to a common economic success.

    5. In the interest of protecting EU member states’ national and constitutional identity, a new institution must be created that involves national constitutional courts.

    6. The role of national parliaments must be increased significantly, and based on the example of the European Council’s parliamentary assembly, national representatives should take part in the work of the European Parliament. Parliaments of member states should receive the right to stop EU law-making in case they deem it a threat to national sovereignty, which Orbán named a red card system.

    7. Finally, Serbia should be accepted into the EU because it is in the interest of the EU to have them among their members, more so than it would be in the interest of Serbia itself.

     

  • Hungary jumps five places in global competitiveness list

    Hungary has moved up five places in the competitiveness ranking published by the IMD World Competitiveness Center of the Swiss Business School, Finance Minister Mihály Varga said at a Budapest press conference on Thursday.

    In the ranking of 63 countries in the 2021 IMD Competitiveness Yearbook of 2021, prepared with the assistance of the ICEG European Center, an independent economic research institute, Hungary ranked 42nd, with the third-largest improvement. The finance minister also stressed that 42nd place is still far from desirable and the work started in the Competitiveness Council should be continued.

    According to him, Hungarian economic protection measures not only mitigated the effects of the crisis but also contributed to the Hungarian economy gaining an advantage and increasing its competitiveness. He added that the supportive, stimulating economic policy that has characterized the operation of the Hungarian government so far will continue in the future.

    Varga also emphasized that the significant progress was due to the government’s adherence to clear principles on economic protection measures; from the beginning, the goal was for Hungary to not only effectively prevent the economic effects of the epidemic but also get out of the crisis with an advantage over other countries.

    Hungary has also improved among the Visegrád countries: It is now in second place, surpassed only by the Czech Republic, while Poland and Slovakia finished lower in the ranking, he said.

    The minister explained that the government did not deal with the crisis with tax increases and deductions. On the contrary, significant tax cuts and tax simplifications were implemented, investment support was increased and special attention was paid to the protection of jobs. The survey confirms that these measures were effective: Hungary saw the biggest improvements in terms of a competitive tax system, employment, the labor market and international investment, he said.

    Varga highlighted some important findings of the IMD analysis: The country advanced to 8th place in terms of economic performance, which is the best position in 25 years. In 14 of the 20 sub-factors examined, Hungary’s ranking improved, plus it reached its highest position ever in employment and taxation, he said.

    Meanwhile, the country’s position in international investment improved by 30 places. The finance minister emphasized that even during the crisis, special attention was paid to encouraging investments, which is well reflected in the fact that more than HUF 4 trillion was spent from the budget last year to support investments. In 2020, the National Investment Agency contributed to the implementation of 907 projects, which resulted in investments of more than HUF 1.4 trillion.

    In terms of employment and the labor market, the country was able to improve by seven places. According to the April data, the unemployment rate is 4.4 percent, while the Eurozone average is around 8 percent.

    Improving seven places in the government-efficiency factor, the country reached 40th place, which is the most favorable position since 2007, and improved four places in infrastructure, ranking 37th.

    The IMD World Competitiveness Center has been publishing its competitiveness ranking in the form of a yearbook since 1989. It builds on 258 indicators and gives a relative ranking of 63 countries.

    Title image: Hungarian Finance Minister Mihály Varga. (source: Facebook)

  • PM Orbán: The ‘liberal steamrollers’ are once again at work against Hungary

    Liberals across Europe have launched a concerted attack on Hungary’s anti-pedophile law passed earlier by parliament with a huge majority, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán writes in an article on his homepage entitled Samizdat 10. 

    A collection of articles on topical issues and a platform for Orbán’s policy ideas, the Samizdat series derives its name from a Russian neologism, which is an amalgamation of the words sam (self) and izdatelstvo (publishing), a term coined in the former Soviet Union for dissident writings multiplied in makeshift form and distributed clandestinely. Such publications are also well-known in the former Eastern European satellite states of the Soviet empire that lived with extreme censorship from communist authorities.

    Below we reproduce integrally the original article in English, which is also available in German and Hungarian:

    They’re now setting off alarm bells across Europe over Hungary’s new laws to severely punish pedophiles and protect our children. Let’s face it, this movement is eternal, and its new slogan is no longer “Proletarians of the world, unite!” but “Liberals of the world, unite!” This, of course, reinforces the Central European conviction that today’s liberals are in fact communists with degrees.

    The current left-wing campaign against Hungary is further proof that today the left is the enemy of freedom, because instead of freedom of speech, they want political correctness as defined by them, and hegemony of opinion instead of a pluralism of ideas.

    The new Hungarian law does not conflict with any lofty ideals or European laws. The new Hungarian law simply states clearly that only parents can decide on the sexual education of their children. Education in schools must not be in conflict with the will of parents; it must at most be supplementary, its form and content must be clearly defined, and it must be subject to parental consent.

    Parents also rightly expect that on platforms used by their children that pornography, sexuality for its own sake, homosexuality, and gender reassignment programs should not be available. These restrictions must also be defined with surgical precision. In Hungary, no one has a say in how adults live their lives. In our view, a free adult should not have to give an account of his life in front of any secular authority — only before God when the time comes.

    Therefore, the Hungarian law does not apply to the lives and sexual practices of adults over 18, nor to what they are exposed to as an adult in the public realm. Moreover, in the European context, Hungarian society is among Europe’s most committed nations to individual freedom and tolerance. The reasons for this are rooted in our cultural traditions, in Christian freedom, in the struggle for national freedom and in a deep contempt for communism and communist tyranny.

    Hungarian freedom means not only political freedom, freedom of choice, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and association, but also the right to defend our families and educate our children as we see fit. Our law is a worthy continuation of the European tradition of freedom.

    The debate on the future of Europe – that is, our children – has just begun. We are here, and we stand ready.

    Title image: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

  • ‘We need a sovereign Europe’ – Former Austrian chancellor speaks in Budapest

    Europe needs both a joint armed force and a common currency, as it should not yield these to outside powers and it “must preserve its sovereignty,” former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel said at a Budapest event on Wednesday.

    Schüssel was attending the “Europe-talk in Budapest” organized by the Konrad Adenauer foundation on the fourth anniversary of the death of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Schüssel used the event reminded to remind the audience of the huge influence Kohl had on Christian Democrats across Europe.

    He emphasized that the late German chancellor had never forgotten the role that Hungary had played in breaking down the Iron Curtain and in European reunification.

    “A ring of fire surrounds the union, it is important that the union speaks with one voice on geopolitical issues,” Schüssel said.

    He emphasized the need for a common European force and payment system, and in these areas Europe should not be dependent on others either. He also noted that there was a need to speak out strongly on the issue of human rights, but Kohl would warn against a race for sanctions.

    The former Austrian chancellor also said whoever wants to break down internal borders must also protect external borders. He stressed that Hungary and Austria were doing the right thing in 2015 when one and a half million people stormed Europe during the migration crisis.

    According to Schüssel, Kohl would be sad that Fidesz is no longer a member of the European People’s Party. The former chancellor emphasized the need to talk openly and critically with each other and about each other in the EU but not to push people out when there are disagreements.

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also met with Schüssel in his Budapest office, posting a shared photo on Facebook with the comment: “An old friend in Budapest.”

    Title image: Former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel (L), HUngarian cabinet minister Gergely Gulyás (C) and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (R) in Budapest on June 18, 2021. (source: Facebook)

  • We Hungarians reject attempts to influence our children with LGBT propaganda

    Now that Parliament has passed the Child Protection Act, with 157 yes votes in a legislature of 199 seats, a serious war of words is flying on the web. According to a narrow minority, we incite hatred, we are homophobic, we equate the disgusting crimes of pedophiles with the beautiful love of same-sex couples, when the ruling majority enshrines in law our desire that no one should rape our children with deed or propaganda.

    There is no political adventurer on the left who would not splash out his hatred for us and his Orbán-phobia these days. In a hypocritical way, they fight for inclusion, freedom, love, while in fact they would prefer to lock away anyone opposed to their views.

    Yet, there are a few million of us who see this problem quite differently. We think it is not the government that has come into our bedroom, it is not Fidesz that is interfering in our private lives, but on the contrary, the pseudo-civilian activists gathering under the rainbow flags, furtively joined by a hand-picked few opposition figures.

    I don’t think they will heed this warning, nor do I think they will give it any thought, but it is important to say it again: Get your hands off our children!

    Adult people do what they want. They love the way they please, they live with whom they want and can reshape their bodies as they please. But they shouldn’t interfere with the sexual development of our children. This belongs to the parents alone, that is, to the mother and the father. Not even the state should be involved — whether the government is Fidesz or not. And irresponsible storytellers and all kinds of organizations trying to sensitiize us should find something else to do. But most of all, just go away.

    At the pre-vote demonstration, one speaker said it was children who needed enlightening knowledge, and the sooner they received it, the less they were hurt, the less likely they would suffer from the rejection and stigmatization of their peers. Take this as a confession from these ideologues. The way they view it, the younger the subject, the easier it is to subject him or her to various gender and LGBTQ propaganda techniques.

    The sooner we confuse your self-image, your gender identity, the more susceptible you will be to the most extreme manifestations. Well, this is exactly what the majority of Hungarian society does not want. I, the proud hetero, am obviously irredeemable in the eyes of gender- and society-transforming neo-leftist revolutionaries. But pre-schoolers, those who go to school, seem like a good target audience to them.

    And if at the age of 18 one of them says that he really wants to break up with this binary world, or may be as a boy is imagining himself as a girl with a girl who has become a boy, we’ll at most sigh that the world has gone crazy. We will not hate them, we will not be involved in their affairs, but we will also expect them not to abuse children at the same time.

    So, we do not equate unrelated things. A pedophile will suffer the deepest contempt in addition to the most severe punishment, and sex propagandists should keep an appropriate distance from minors in the media as well. They are not the same in our eyes, but the danger to young people lurks from both directions. This is the essence of the Child Protection Act, and it has nothing to do with love or hate. The healthy physical and psychosexual development of our offspring is not an emotional issue, but of a fundamental social interest.

    Whoever cannot accept that much is, I think, heterophobic, exclusionary, hateful, and there is a strong suspicion that he wants to use children for lowly political purposes.

    Title image: LGBTQ demonstartion in Budapest in June 14, 2021. (Index/Emma Gömbkötő)

  • What can Hungary expect from the Biden-Putin summit?

    “The decade ahead will be an era of epidemics and mass migration,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned on Monday as he arrived at the NATO summit in Brussels.

    Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó provided even more details about the challenges ahead of us, who said, among other things, that NATO’s withdrawal from Afghanistan could create a number of new problems and exacerbate existing ones.

    “If we cannot ensure that there is peace and tranquility in the country, and it does not become a hotbed of terrorism again, we will face another, very serious migration challenge,” he warned.

    This challenging decade alone would clearly not be handled by NATO or the West as a whole. As for the relationship between East and West, the Hungarian interest is obvious: by no means are we interested in another Cold War or anything worse. In such conflicts, Central Europe and our country have always lost. To quote Szijjártó, it is therefore in our interest to have “the most cultured and constructive dialogue possible” with both the East and the West.

    That is why it does matter to us what results tomorrow’s meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden in Geneva will bring. They didn’t get off to a good start: we can remember Biden answered yes in an interview back in March about whether he thought Putin was a murderer. Nothing good can come from that kind of rhetoric.

    But fortunately, Putin has already had relations with a couple of U.S. presidents, and it could easily be that Biden will not be the last U.S. president he faces at the negotiating table. In an interview the other day, he tied Biden’s big story to American political culture, Hollywood, machoism, but he remarked that maybe that’s normal there, “but not here”.

    Hardly anyone expects a miracle from Wednesday’s meeting — Putin doesn’t either. On Russian TV, he said that if he managed to start a dialogue in areas where their countries could really work together effectively, the Swiss journey would not have been in vain.

    Even at the close of the G7 summit in Cornwall, Biden said he would not seek conflict with either Russia or China, but would make his views “very clear” to Putin. He also said the bilateral relationship depends on Moscow behaving in a way that is compatible with international standards.

    Let’s face it, the latter is obviously not the case. So-called international norms, human rights, the rule of law, and the like are wielded by the West as a bludgeon when it is in its best interests. To cite a recent example, Ukraine can still be the good guy for the West by trampling on the rights of national minorities or even celebrating Nazi collaborators. Of course, we know very well what it is like in Hungary when there is political pressure under the guise of the rule of law.

    All the above shows not only what we need to pay attention to in international politics, but also how dangerous it is when the left wants to import international conflicts, falsely holding the government accountable for basing its diplomacy on the country’s interests as opposed to the demands of Soros and various NGOs.

    In addition, epidemic management in Europe has shown that national solutions have been the most effective. The European Union’s member states would have been in serious trouble if they had relied on and waited for Brussels in everything. This is again a point where the liberals would have had no problem misleading Hungary.

    It is not in Hungary’s interest to be a battleground for great powers, nor is it in its interest to merge into an empire. Hungary has its own place on the map.

     Title image: The Villa La Grange in Geneva, Switzerland, location of today’s U.S.-Russia summit. (source: Wikimedia Commons)

  • Hungary’s ruling conservative Fidesz maintains comfortable lead over opposition parties

    Just as members of parliament are wrapping up the spring session of legislation, Hungary’s ruling conservative Fidesz party has maintained its uninterrupted lead over the combined popularity of all opposition parties, a recent poll by the Nézőpont Institute showed.

    The latest poll, from June 7 to June 9, indicates that should Hungary hold elections this weekend, the ruling Fidesz would get 52 percent of the votes compared with 43 percent for opposition parties.

    The left cannot be satisfied with its performance at the end of the spring session of the parliament, as it has not been able to tighten the electoral competition with Fidesz, according to the latest research from the Nézőpont Institute. Among decide voters within the entire population, there have been only minor shifts within the lead margin of Fidesz since April, and the pro-government advantage has remained unchanged.

    Within the total population, Fidesz-KDNP leads the joint list of the left 40 to 36, and 52 to 43 on the basis of secure party voters.

    The right-wing Our Homeland movement — which stands at three percent — and the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party (a satire party) have yet to reach the 5 percent threshold required to enter parliament. According to the analysis of the data, the Nézőpont Institute concluded that the stable leading position of the governing parties can be explained by the satisfaction with the epidemic management beyond the pro-government camp, the unity of Fidesz and its ability to govern.

    In contrast, ideological divisions keep undermining the loose coalition of the of opposition parties, which continue to struggle with pre-election internal conflicts, and the lack of a capable joint leader. Based on the data, the think-tank’s analysis said that should elections be held this Sunday, the joint list of Fidesz and junior coalition partner KDNP would win the parliamentary elections again, and Viktor Orbán could form his fifth government.

    Hungary is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections in the spring of 2022.

    Title image: Popularity of the ruling Fidesz (orange) and opposition parties (red). (source: Nézőpont Institute)

  • Hungary targets 5.2% GDP growth for next year

    The Hungarian parliament approved on Tuesday the country’s budget for 2022, targeting a 5.2 percent growth and a 5.9 percent increase in public debt, daily Magyar Nemzet reports.

    The budget was approved with 132 yes and 26 no votes by the 199-seat legislation, translating into an 83.5 percent majority.

    The key figures of the budget are a dynamic, 5.2 percent economic growth, inflation at 3 percent and an increase in public debt by 5.9 percent of the GDP, a figure that is in line with European trends. As the coronavirus pandemic hit last year, the European Union relaxed its otherwise strict requirement of a maximum 3 percent budget deficit for member states.

    Next year’s budget deficit was set at  3,153 billion forints (€8.97 billion), with general reserves of HUF 233 billion forints (€663 million) and a public debt of 79.3 percent by the end of next year.

    The focus of the recovery remains on job creation, support for families with children and the protection of the elderly, as well as the development of key sectors for the Hungarian economy. In addition, climate protection goals and digitalization will play a significant role, the budget preamble says.

    Like this year, next year’s budget will have two pillars. The amount of the economic reboot fund in 2022 will exceed 7,300 billion forints, which is 13 percent of next year’s GDP. The health insurance and epidemic prevention fund exceeds 3,600 billion forints.

    Prime Minister Viktor Orbán reaffirmed that the government was targeting a 5.5 percent GDP growth for this year, and if it succeeds, families with children will have this year’s income tax reimbursed for those with an average income or less.

    “We need to raise economic growth above 5.5 percent. It’s a huge task, but not impossible,” Orbán said in a Facebook post.

  • Hungary plans to ban transgender and homosexual content targeted at minors

    Thousands of radical left-wing liberals took to the streets in Budapest on Monday to protest newly proposed legislation which, if passed, would ban the dissemination of pornographic, transgender, and homosexual content targeted at minors.

    The legislation, tabled last Thursday by Hungary’s ruling party Fidesz, is expected to be approved this week, and will amend the currently existing pedophile law. Once passed, any pornographic made available to anyone under the age of 18 “as well as content that depicts sexuality for its own sake or promotes or displays deviations from the identity of the sex of birth, gender, reassignment or homosexuality” will be prohibited, Index reports.

    Fidesz MP Gabriella Selmeczi, while responding to left-wing critics across Europe and North America who’ve decried the legislation as discriminatory, homophobic, and anti-liberal, argued that “true liberalism is when children are left alone with questions about their sexual orientation until the age of 18.”

    The new law comes amid the so-called “Pride Month”, where parades celebrating LGBT people commence across the globe, and large multinational corporations change their social-media insignias to rainbow-colored logos to express their support for the community.

    In the past several weeks, the children’s television channel Nickelodeon has faced widespread backlash after releasing two LGBT pride promotion videos that encourage prepubescent kids to embrace homosexuality, transgenderism, drag queens, and multiculturalism.

    The first video, titled “The Blue’s Clues Pride Parade ️‍Sing-Along Ft. Nina West”, was posted to Nickelodeon’s YouTube channel late last month, and shows the famous dog presiding over a procession of gay, queer, transgender, and “non-binary” parents and children led by a cartoon version of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” contestant Nina West.

    “This family has two mommies, they love each other so proudly, and they all go marching in the big parade!” the Nina West cartoon character sings into a microphone adorned with the image of a raised fist.

    “All families are made differently they love each other so proudly,” West sings. “Love is love is love you see, and everyone should love proudly.”

    A week after the Blue’s Clues video was released, Nickelodeon continued its promotion of Pride Month to young children in another video featuring drag queen Nina West, who sings about the meaning of each color of the pride flag.

    “Every color on the pride flag is a symbol in the sky. And I’m proud to be me every time that I see that pride flag waving high,” 

    “Red means life, because living is a gift. Orange means healing, and we have to persist in working to heal the world, and healing ourselves,” the drag queen continues. “Yellow means sunlight because you’ve gotta shine bright. Green means nature, and we’ve gotta fight to keep our earth a thriving home for life.”

    Nina West, whose real name is Andrew Levit, goes on to point out that the colors of the flag represent various skin colors, as well as transgender individuals.

    “Baby blue, pink, and white represent transgender people, because every letter in LGBTQ+ is equal, and black and brown represent the queer and trans people of color,” she sings.

    It is unclear how the new Hungarian law would treat this kind of content, but it is clear that conservatives in the Hungarian government have the goal of having children in the country exposed to similar products. 

  • PM Orbán at NATO summit: The decade ahead will be one of epidemics and migration

    The decade ahead will be defined by epidemics and mass migration, and both member states and NATO must be prepared to respond to these challenges, said Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Brussels on Monday when he arrived at a one-day summit of NATO members.

    “The decade ahead will be an era of epidemics and mass migration,” Orbán at the NATO summit in Brussels. Orbán stressed that whether the deliberations would become a turning point would be decided only at the end of the summit, but the allies would make an attempt to do so by adopting a new strategic plan for 2030.

    He said that the main point of the NATO strategy is to strengthen national resilience, in this respect Hungary is active, be it in the fight against the pandemic or in the fight against migration.

    “We have something to say, and we have something to add to the common [effort],” the prime minister said. In the context of the commitment that by 2024 NATO member states should dedicate 2 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense spending, he emphasized in response to a question that “[Hungary is] doing well if we deliver on our commitments,”

    According to him, it would be better if Hungary were already able to spend 2 percent of its gross national product on its own security every year.

    According to Orbán, Hungary will achieve this by 2022-2023, but he reminded that there are NATO member states that are worse in this respect.

    Regarding the commitment that the member states must spend 20 percent of their defense spending on development, Orbán emphasized that Hungary is already achieving this. Hungary has already fulfilled one of its commitments, the other will be fulfilled by 2023-2024, which will put Hungary at the forefront, he emphasized.

    “We live in a part of the world where you can’t be without an army, there is no security without an army,” he said. For Hungarian families and the Hungarian nation, an adequate military capacity and deployable military force will always be needed. Efforts to build this are well under way, he said.

    “We have neglected this for 20 or 30 years, but now I feel we are putting Hungary back on the map in this respect as well,” he said. Responding to a question on the challenges posed by China, the prime minister said: Hungary opposes all forms of the Cold War and added that he had spent 26 years of his life in Cold War conditions.

    “Believe me, this is a bad thing, so let’s not do that,” Orbán added.

    Title image: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (center left) and Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa arrive at the NATO summit in Brussels on June 14. (source: Prime Minister’s press office)

  • Hungary, Turkey, and Pakistan may remain in Afghanistan

    Just as the United States is wrapping up its presence in Afghanistan, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told U.S. President Joe Biden that a three-nation group, including Hungary, may remain there to ensure the security of the Kabul airport, daily Magyar Nemzet reports.

    Erdoğan’s announcement confirmed previous reports that, under certain conditions, Turkey would take over the guarding of the airport even after international troops leave Afghanistan after the 9/11 deadline. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met with the Turkish head of state just before the summit, and according to national news agency MTI, the meeting also focused on “bilateral military and defense industrial cooperation”.

    Magyar Nemzet also wrote that the paper contacted the Hungarian Defense Ministry to confirm the information, but has yet to receive a reply.

    Earlier statements said Turkey would contribute 500 troops for the protection and operation of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan’s largest airport, even after the withdrawal of international forces. The United States will end its military presence in Afghanistan by Sept. 11.

    Ankara noted, however, that the plan he told Biden was conditional on NATO’s political, material and logistical support. After the announcement, the Taliban warned that they would oppose the move because it was contrary to the agreement.


     

    The last nine Hungarian soldiers from Afghanistan returned home on June 9, thus concluding our 18-year role in the country. Hungarian soldiers have already participated in the defense of Kabul Airport before, so Hungary also has the appropriate experience to carry out this task.

    Title image: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (L) and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (R) at the NATO summit in Brussels. (source: Viktor Orbán’s Facebook page) 

  • Hungary more active in NATO than ever before

    Hungary is gearing up to assume its most active role in NATO so far, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said at a Brussels press conference on Sunday, just hours before the alliance’s summit that begins on Monday.

    “Hungary is taking on a significant role in the operation of NATO that has never happened before,” Szijjártó said. He pointed out that in November this year Hungary will take over command of NATO’s largest land operation, KFOR, in Kosovo, and next year it will once again be the leading nation in defending the Baltic airspace, providing its eastern and southern partners with key health assets.

    He explained that Hungary would increase the Hungarian military presence in Kosovo to 500, and would also undertake to vaccinate KFOR personnel against the coronavirus. In parallel, NATO is providing ventilators to several Eastern and Southern Partners through a fund set up to alleviate the epidemic.

    The head of Hungarian diplomacy also stressed that Hungary, fulfilling its commitments made at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales, will spend 2 percent of its budget on defense spending by 2024 at the latest. That ratio is 1.6 percent this year, and will reach 1.87 percent next year.

    Szijjártó explained that Hungary had already started fulfilling — five years ahead of schedule — the other commitment of the Welsh Summit, which envisages that 20 percent of defense expenditures should be for development.

    He also mentioned that the NATO Summit will take place at a time when the world is entering a new era, as the changed political and economic relations following the pandemic require a new approach.

    “The changes have serious security aspects, which is why Hungary also supports NATO’s new strategic concept plan, NATO 2030,” Szijjártó said.

    NATO Secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday that the present summit is “pivotal moment for our Alliance and for our collective security”.

    Title image: Hungarian KFOR troops. (photo: András Grépály)

  • Identifying the hidden networks of the global elite: commentary

    The basic issue of the 21st century is how can the global elite be mapped, outlined and contoured with journalistic and scientific tools, beyond unfounded conspiracy theories, assumptions, and unsubstantiated claims?

    Today’s global elite is characterized by networking. Some of them work visibly, assume their existence, or are located in the twilight zone between visibility and invisibility. However, a significant part of them exists within an invisible network, and it is precisely their discovery that is the biggest challenge, as they very consciously conceal their existence. They are aware that they can only achieve their goals within formal institutions if their functioning is not visible, for if they did, they would face enormous social resistance — and that’s what they want the least.

    They will only announce the “end result” (achieving their globalist goals) in public if and when those goals are finally reached and remain unstoppable.

    Sovereignist forces must prevent this “end result”, but this requires revealing here and now the existence and functioning of networks that want to create a global, world government, a federal Europe, and a mixed race and religious society.

    The basic question: How?

    In the first approach, I have two methodological suggestions for mapping invisible networks. I would call one the dark matter method, which essentially posits that when unpredictable events occurs in the political arena, the presence of the missing factor must be assumed on a logical basis. If the search for causality, the causal relationship, is an existing form of analysis, then the logically missing link must be replaced, even if conditionally.

    But this alone is not a sufficient condition for exploring invisible networks. What really brings it closer is the phenomenon of discharge (or bursting): a moment, event, statement, happening, etc., which is careless or conscious, but a clear indication of the existence of an informal organization, possibly without any precedent, unexpectedly.These are moments that the public doesn’t know what to make of in the first place, but a thorough analysis can reveal the underlying forces at work. One such moment was the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963 in Dallas. Kennedy intended to act against an underlying, hidden background power, of which he also informed the public and the world in a famous speech before his assassination.

    So, we are in a period of changing era. Today, it is up to us to decide whether globalist networks will eventually take over power over traditional nation-state institutions and organizations.

    But the point is that this is not a one-sided process: the sovereign, national, conservative camp is not a spectator and a passive observer of this process, which is now taking place before our eyes, but an active shaper.

    Conservatism — if it only comments, observes and eventually “suffers” — is defeated. This mentality must be overcome in order to resist the seemingly irresistible aspirations of globalism to gain world power. For there is really no irresistible force, only forces that no one is actively resisting. That is why the conservative and Christian camps face a great challenge.

    Title image: European Parliament members attend the opening of the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, Monday June 7, 2021. The European Parliament holds its first session in Strasbourg since the beginning of the pandemic.(Frederick Florin, Pool via AP)

  • Croatia’s football team refuses to kneel for BLM during Euro 2020, backs Hungary’s position

    Following the example of the Hungarian national team, Croats also announced that they will not kneel before the matches of the Euro 2020 Championship, which kicks off Friday evening in Rome with Turkey vs. Italy at 9:00 in the evening.

    The players of the Croatian national football team said they will certainly not kneel in their opening match against England. The reasoning on the part of the Croatian federation is the same as the Hungarian position, which points to European Football Association (UEFA), which prohibits players making political gestures. 

    It is common practice in England for players to kneel before matches, who are campaigning for the controversial Black Lives Matter political movement. The members of the English national team did the same in their preparation match against Austria and Romania despite fans booing the gesture, and the players also plan to kneel during their European Championship matches.

    In contrast, the 2018 World Cup silver medalists, the Croats, have announced that they will not join the English before the match and will remain standing after the starting whistle before the ball sets off in a clash in Group D.

    At a press conference before the European Championships, Croatian national team spokesman Tomislav Pacak did not want to answer a question related to kneeling, but Croatian journalists said the decision was made by the association because kneeling is not part of the UEFA protocol and the UEFA is explicitly opposed to any politically motivated manifestations in sport.

    Earlier this week, before their warm-up match with Ireland, the Hungarian Football Association (MLSZ) similarly explained why the members of the national team refuse to join the movement.

    “The rules of UEFA and FIFA do not allow politicization on the pitch and in the stadium, which the MLSZ not only accepts but agrees with. The national team will not express its condemnation of any form of hatred by not kneeling before the matches,” MLSZ said in a statement.

    Croatia meets England at Wembley on Sunday at 3:00 p.m.

    Title image: The Croatian national football team.

  • PM Orbán meets World Jewish Congress leader in Budapest

    On Thursday afternoon, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán received Ronald S. Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), in the prime minister’s Budapest office, after his guest attended the opening of the Rumbach Sebestyén Street Synagogue in the Hungarian capital, Orbán press secretary Bertalan Havasi told the press.

    The ICOMOS award-winning reconstruction of the monument of international significance was carried out with 3.2 billion forints (€9.27 million) worth of government support.

    During the meeting, which was also attended by Katalin Novák, minister without portfolio for families, Orbán and Lauder stated that Hungarian Jews can continue to count on the help of the Hungarian government, as they did in past years. The president of the WJC praised the government’s support to the Jewish community for the fight against the coronavirus epidemic, as well as for health, social and cultural investments and institution-building to improve the quality of life of Hungarian Jews.

    Lauder called Orbán’s recent visit to Israel encouraging and thanked the Hungarian government for its support for the Jewish state on international forums. Orbán noted that the Hungarian government remains firmly committed to zero tolerance against anti-Semitism and offered further cooperation to the president of the WJC in the spirit of common values.

    The Rumbach Sebestyén Street Synagogue was completely renovated with government support of 3.2 billion. Inaugurated in 1872, the building, which lay in ruins since World War II, was renovated in four years. In her greeting, Novák said that it was a noble task to save a building from extinction, but the government did not only support the renovation. More importantly, they hope life will also return to the building.

    András Heisler, president of the Association of Jewish Communities in Hungary (Mazsihisz), thanked the builders for their work and the government’s support. He said that thanks to them, after more than 70 years of limbo, they have created a multi-functional space where the prayers and ancient melodies of the community can be heard again, where they can provide an opportunity for Jewish community development and space for “fantastic cultural, public cultural, and tourism” events.

    Lauder said most states were afraid to stand up for the Jewish people over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict recently, but Hungary was one of the few states that had the courage to do so, adding that the Jewish community around the world was grateful for that.

    Title image: Ronald S. Lauder (L) and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (R) meet in Budapest on June 10, 2021. (source: Viktor Orbán’s Facebook page)

  • As repression of ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine grows, demands for indigenous people status increases

    Faced with a new wave of state discrimination, ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine demand to be granted the status of an indigenous nation, daily Magyar Nemzet reports.

    President László Brenzovics, on behalf of the Hungarian Cultural Association of Transcarpathia (KMKSZ), wrote a letter on Thursday asking the Ukrainian head of state to classify Hungarians living in Ukraine among the country’s indigenous peoples.

    Brenzovics points out that according to UN documents, indigenous peoples are “peoples living in independent countries” because they are descendants of those who lived in the country or geographical area that is part of the present country at the time of conquest or colonization, and they have retained some or all of their social, economic, cultural and political institutions, regardless of their legal status.

    Hungary considers the nationalities living in its territory for at least a hundred years, including the Ukrainians, to be a historical nationality, the letter states. In the letter, Brenzovics reminded President Volodymyr Zelensky that the Hungarian ethnic group has lived in the Carpathian Basin for more than a thousand years, including in the territory of Ukraine, so it has every right to claim recognition as an indigenous people.

    However, the draft law on the indigenous peoples of Ukraine, recently submitted to the parliament by the Ukrainian head of state, does not classify Hungarians and several other nationalities living in the country as indigenous peoples. Brenzovics’ letter also criticizes the fact that in some cases (for example in the case of Hungarians) it is argued that the given nationality has a motherland, while in other cases (for example in the case of gypsies) their exclusion is not even justified. In the letter, Brenzovich points out that the unacceptability of this type of discrimination was also raised by the Venice Commission.

    President Volodymyr Zelenski submitted to the Ukrainian parliament draft bill no. 5506 entitled “On Indigenous People of Ukraine” back in May, defining the Crimean Tatars, Crimean Karaites, and Krymchaks as indigenous peoples. This is important because international treaties signed by Ukraine as well as the country’s constitution and laws grant additional collective rights to indigenous peoples.

    These collective rights include cultural, educational, linguistic, and informational rights, of which the Hungarian minority would be deprived as it is not defined as an indigenous group. The ethnic Hungarians living in Transcarpathia have for the past decades been subject to state-sponsored ethnic discrimination, which was and is mainly aimed at the country’s Russian minority.

    “The Ukrainian bill, which divides the population of Ukraine into deep-rooted and non-rooted peoples, is reminiscent of the ideals of Nazi Germany,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

    Piyterfolvo, Ukraine – October 8, 2020: Youth in protective masks pray in the local Hungarian Reformed Church during coronavirus pandemic.

  • Jerusalem rabbinical court rules in feud between Hungarian Jewish organizations

    A Jerusalem rabbinical court has made a ruling in favor of two smaller Orthodox Jewish organizations in Hungary concerning state reparations of Jewish properties confiscated during World War II, Hungarian Jewish news portal Neokohn reports.

    “Real estate and other assets taken from communities during World War II or during communist rule must be returned to the original religious community or their successors,” the civic section of the Jerusalem Supreme Rabbinate Court said in its ruling, adding that “if the distribution has not previously prevailed on the basis of the above criteria, it is correct to apply positive discrimination that corrects the already established disproportionate distribution, so that the past erroneous distribution is compensated in the direction of all concerned.”

    The dispute between the three organizations of the Hungarian Jewish community goes back to an 1991 restitution law, in which the Hungarian state granted Jewish organizations reparations for 153 properties confiscated by the country during the Holocaust from Jews who have no legal heirs.

    One smaller Orthodox Hungarian organization, MAOIH, claims that it owns 40 percent of the properties in question while the largest umbrella group of Hungarian Jews, the Neolog Mazsihisz, only transferred 5 percent to them, hence Mazsihisz owes MAOIH $33 million. Their claim is also supported by another Orthodox Hungarian group, EMIH, affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.

    Mazsihisz did not send its representatives to the Jerusalem court hearing, saying that the dispute should be handled by Hungarian courts. While the Jerusalem Supreme Rabbinate Court is part of the Israeli judicial system, its rulings are restricted to religious matters and even in Israel, only Orthodox groups accept their jurisdiction.

    Title image: András Heisler, President of Hungary’s largest Jewish umbrella group Mazsihisz. (source: Mazsihisz)

  • EU foreign policy is a laughable paper tiger

    “The European Union’s foreign policy has become ridiculous. If our eight joint statements have been swept aside so far — and in the case of China this has happened — the ninth will also make a mockery. We look like pathetic paper tigers, and after our statements without consequences, the world is laughing at us,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán recently confronted EU decision-makers with this unpleasant truth.

    It really cannot be said that the Hungarian position on this issue has not been clear for a particularly long time. In his previous, eighth Samizdat, which Orbán addressed to Armin Laschet, who is Germany’s Christian Democratic Union chancellor candidate, Orbán reacted to a similar topic. That is why our country became the target of Berlin criticism, being the only one that did not support the EU statement concerning Israel.

    Before we examine why the Union’s obsession with making statements is problematic, let us dwell on an interesting detail. The first element of this detail has to do with Laschet but even more important is the Social Democrat Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who suggested that unanimity in decisions on the European Union’s foreign affairs should be abolished. Does it hurt Germany not to be able to rule the Union alone because it is hampered by annoying member state sovereignty?

    Unpleasant suggestions relating to Europe’s past come to mind.

    Berlin always wraps the enforcement of its own will in the so-called common interest, which usually translates to the German interest. For example, when Chancellor Angela Merkel generously invited the Syrians to Germany, and pretty much anyone who purported to be Syrian, it suddenly became a common European interest to distribute these people.

    Returning to churning out statements: do not think that when Hungary vetoes a joint draft declaration, everyone else is perfectly satisfied with the document. That is not the case, they just don’t dare stand up. The Hungarian position, on the other hand, is that dangerous nonsense should not be facilitated or supported.

    The European Union makes a mockery of itself when it wants to threaten the great powers with ineffective papers, plays a political police force, and criticizes the Union’s strategic partners in a condescending, instructional manner. There is endless arrogance behind it, which is very typical of the EU’s liberal elite. It is not just that they’re wrong, because as long as they make these angry statements, the world goes on — in fact, the world goes past us.

    Europe will not be strong and competitive because it has made foreign policy statements — especially not when it is yet again mishandling a crisis. The EU countries that rely exclusively on Western vaccines and joint EU procurement are well behind Hungary, by a good one and a half months. The government recognized in time that it was wrong to rely solely on Western vaccines, and we also needed Eastern ones. The Hungarian government did not make this into a political issue, saying the point of the vaccine is to make it work.

    This is as much a matter of sovereignty as it is for nation states to retain the right to veto joint decisions and declarations. Hungary does not want to be a paper tiger, but a strong, sovereign country. The indicators of epidemic management and those of the economy prove that this is the right direction and that Hungary is on the right side of history.

    Title image: Josep Borrell Fontelles vice president of the European Commission in charge of coordinating the external action of the European Union. (Jean-François Badias / AP) Pool image)

  • Pope Francis will meet PM Orbán and President Áder in Hungary

    Despite what the international press wrote earlier, Pope Francis will meet both Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and President János Áder when he comes to Budapest on Sept. 12, the Conference of the Hungarian Catholic Bishops said in a statement on Wednesday.

    Pope Francis will arrive for the closing Holy Mass of the 52nd Eucharistic World Congress, and it is planned that prior to the Mass he will to meet separately with the leaders of the Hungarian state, including President János Áder, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, members of the government, and other high-ranking state leaders, the statement said.

    “We find it unfortunate that false information and misinterpretations of the Holy Father’s program in Hungary, which is still being organized, have spread in local and international media. For example, the rumor that the Holy Father would have excluded anyone from his program is untrue,” the statement said.

    As Remix News reported earlier, diplomatic tensions between the Vatican and the Hungarian government have been growing since reports of the pope’s intention to avoid meeting Hungarian heads of state during his planned visit have emerged.

    Some press reports suggested that Pope Francis only intends to stay in the country for three hours, and leave straight after the mass to neighboring Slovakia for a three-day visit. This would have been a serious deviation from the usual papal protocol, since it is unprecedented that a pope would omit a formal meeting with heads of state during a visit to a country’s capital.

    However, speaking to journalists on his flight back from Iraq in March, the pope had stated that “it is not a visit to the country, but for that Mass.”

    Title image: Pope Francis waves as he arrives for his weekly general audience, at the Vatican, Wednesday, June 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

  • PM Orbán announces income tax refund for families with children

    If the country’s economic performance this year is strong enough, the state will refund the income tax for families with children early next year, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at a Budapest economic conference on Wednesday.

    If economic growth reaches 5.5 percent, families with children will get their paid personal income tax back in early 2022 to replenish their reserves spent in the crisis, Orbán said at the conference organized by daily Világgazdaság.

    This measure would cost the central budget 550 billion to 580 billion forints (€1.59 billion to €1.67 billion). The prime minister stressed that the richest do not need this, so a limit should be set at the level of the average income.

    At the event, Orbán also announced that a new low-cost loan will help small and medium-sized businesses in the future. He also talked about the fact that the goal is a minimum wage of 200,000 forints (€577) compared with the current 167,000 forints.

    Orbán also spoke about the fact that crisis management cannot be done in a normative way. He also announced that the country, in addition to the one handling the coronavirus pandemic, will set up two new operative groups: one responsible for restarting the economy and one for restarting social life. The former will be led by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, while the latter will be led by Minister for Families Katalin Novák.

    The prime minister also said that the most important issue now is what economic growth could be this year. Very high numbers have been predicted, but he says the issue must be handled with caution. This is also why the moratorium on corporate loan repayments has been extended until September, as they want to implement a cautious exit scenario.

    A very important question is what to do with the large budget deficit, Orbán said. The deficit was 8.2 percent of the GDP last year and is projected to come in at 7 percent this year and 5.9 percent next year.

    Orbán said it is not feasible to reduce the deficit to the 3 percent Maastricht level next year, even though the central bank wants it to. Later, however, the level may decrease, and in the long run, the goal is to have no budget deficit at all.

    Title image: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the “Restart Hungary” economic conference in Budapest on June 9, 2021. (Prime Minister’s Office, Vivien Cher Benkő)

  • Barack Obama calls Poland and Hungary ‘authoritarian’

    In an interview for CNN, former US President Barack Obama warned of how quickly democracy can change to authoritarianism and gave Poland and Hungary as examples.

    “Undemocratic America is not going to happen in just one bang, it happens in a series of steps. When you look at what’s happening in places like Hungary and in Poland that obviously did not have the same democratic traditions as we did, they weren’t as deeply rooted. And yet, as recently as 10 years ago they were functioning democracies and now, essentially, have become authoritarian,” Obama said during an interview for left-wing news station CNN.

  • Migration pressure rising on all European routes

    Until Europe closes its external borders, there will always be people trying to enter illegally, Prime Minister’s Viktor Orbán’s Chief Homeland Security Adviser György Bakondi told national station Kossuth radio on Wednesday, warning that migratory pressures have increased along all European routes.

    Taking advantage of the political debate between Morocco and Spain, more and more people are coming to Europe illegally via Spain, Bakondi said, adding that the situation is similar on the Mediterranean migration route in Italy.

    He said that Spain and Italy had initiated negotiations on the migration situation in the Council of Europe at precisely the right time as the European Union is currently discussing the outlines of a new migration strategy.


     

    Regarding the migration route from Turkey, he said that the situation there was greatly influenced by the development of the Turkish-Greek relationship, which is currently burdened with varying degrees of political tension. Therefore, that migration route is also busy, and through this particular route is where most people come to the Hungarian border.

    This year, more than 38,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended by the Hungarian authorities, compared to only about 10,000 in the same period last year.

    Bakondi said that Hungary’s position on migration is very clear:

    “We do not want to live with those who are sent here to the European Union by an organization to support them. We believe that those who enter Hungary here cannot be illegal border crossers, they cannot be people transported by organized crime. This is open to those who have been granted a permit by the authorities,” he said.

    Title image: MTI/AP.

  • Hungarian police foil terrorist attack by young Hungarian Islamist

    The intervention unit of Hungary’s Counter Terrorism Center (TEK) took a 21-year-old Hungarian convert to Islam in custody on Tuesday after he planned to bomb Puskás Stadium, the venue of the June Football European Championship, daily Magyar Nemzet writes.

    According to a statement issued by the Budapest Prosecutors’ Office, which arrested the man on Wednesday and charged him with preparations for terrorist attacks, the young man — a resident in the central Hungarian town of Kecskemét — planned to use pipe bombs at the Puskás stadium and also wanted to ram a vehicle into the holiday crowd at Lake Balaton.

    TEK commander Lt Gen János Hajdú said at a press conference that TEK’s relevant directorate has been investigating the matter for weeks after a young Hungarian man took part in the talks on websites linked to the Islamic State, which can only be accessed using a strictly guarded method.

    The content of the dialogue on the dark web was about preparing for a terrorist attack with people who profess hostile ideology, “specifically jihadist propaganda”. The young man was learning how to make a pipe bomb and use it at a mass event in Budapest or Hungary.

    The conversation also included information about so-called ramming attacks, that is, attacks that drive a car into the crowd, and the young man firmly stated that he wanted to do so. He didn’t plan either one or the other type of attack, but both, Hajdú said, adding that the information gathered so far was sufficient to hand over the case to the prosecutor’s office.

    Hungary last experienced a bomb attack in September 2014 when a pipe bomb went off in downtown Budapest, severely injuring two police officers and causing minor injuries to a cab driver. Police took him into custody one month later, and he is currently serving a life sentence with parole possibility after 30 years. 

    Title image: Islamist man arrested by Counter Terrorism Center (TEK) unit. (source: TEK)

  • Hungary and Poland in the crosshairs as Jourová threatens rule-of-law financial sanctions later this year

    Talking to journalists in Luxembourg, Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová has signaled that a decision regarding an official guidance for the interpretation of law-and-order proceedings is expected by the end of summer or the beginning of autumn.

    As Remix News reported earlier, according to a compromise agreement between the European Commission and the Hungarian government, the distribution of European development funds cannot be tied to political criteria. However, according to signals coming from Jourová and other European Commission representatives, the Commission is intent on circumventing this principle in order to use EU finances to put political pressure on defiant member states.

    Worryingly for EU nations that aim to keep parts of their legal system independent of EU interference, the statement came in the context of the launch of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO). Hungary, Poland, Denmark, and Ireland have all opted out from joining the EPPO that will oversee investigations of any possible misuse of EU funds, yet there are signs that refusing to join this institution will not protect them from being subject to their investigations or even judgments.

    Hungary and Poland were singled out for criticism for not joining the prosecutor’s office, and as Commissioner Didier Reynders has made it clear, countries that have refused to join should realize that the protection of the EU’s budget is their responsibility too, and therefore even though they have opted out, they are also required to co-operate with the EPPO.

    If the European Court of Justice (ECJ), were to rule in the autumn that the distribution of EU recovery and development funds should not only be affected by a possible misuse of EU money but can also be tied with political infringements and violations against democratic standards, then this could open the gates to a serious centralized political interference from Brussels, calling into question the future role of national parliamentary democracies. Hungary and Poland have never questioned the authority of European investigative bodies such as The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) in matters of financial or criminal investigations regarding the allocation and spending of European funds and have in the past fully co-operated during such investigations.

    The fact that the warning coming from Jourová had coincided with the launch of EPPO strengthens the impression that the new prosecution body will be used as a backdoor for political interference from Brussels that is currently dominated by left-wing and liberal parties. Yet, it was also a clear signal towards the European Parliament, whose own ultimatum towards the Commission for activating the rule of law mechanism has expired on June 1. According to this, the European Commission was supposed to outline its guidance regarding the application of Article 7 rule-of-law proceedings against member states that are found to be in violation of EU treaties. However, the Commission’s hands are tied until the ruling of the ECJ that will decide whether transgressions against the political ethos of EU institutions can or cannot be a legal basis for the initiation of punitive proceedings against member states resulting in the withdrawal of financial resources.

    In its current form, left-wing and liberal political forces form a strong majority in the European Parliament. Their eagerness to use the rule-of-law mechanism against their political opponents with whom they do not see eye to eye in fundamental questions such as migration, freedom of speech, and in the independence of judiciary, explains why Jourová and Reynders have used the launch of EPPO to send out a message of looming sanctions towards conservative governments. In the past, MEPs have threatened to sue the Commission if its guidance is not published in time and in order to speed the process up, the question will likely dominate next week’s plenary session in Strasbourg.

    Earlier in the month Gert-Jan Koopman, the Commission’s director general for budget, has asked MEPs for their patience, stressing that the Commission cannot afford to make mistakes in crucial questions such as the rule-of-law mechanism. Among the most vocal MEPs demanding the introduction of the new rule-of-law mechanism was Katalin Cseh, member of the Hungarian far-left political party Momentum, who is known for her relentless attacks against the conservative government of Viktor Orbán.

  • Hungary Q1 GDP shows decline but exceeds expectations

    Hungary’s upwardly revised first-quarter GDP data showed surprisingly positive developments, analysts told national news agency MTI on Tuesday.

    In the second estimate issued by the Central Statistical Office (KSH), Hungary improved its GDP indicators for the first quarter upwards compared to its first estimate, which were published two weeks ago and were already a pleasant surprise. The volume of gross domestic product was 2.1 percent lower than in the first quarter of last year, which is 0.2 percent less than in the first estimate.

    According to seasonally and workday-adjusted data, the performance of the economy increased by 2 percent in the previous quarter from 1.6 percent in the previous quarter, decreasing by 1.6 percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year, which is 0.4 percentage points less than in the previous quarter. Analysts expected a 0.3 percent decline from the previous quarter and a 3.7 percent decline from a year earlier before the first estimate was published.

    Péter Virovácz, senior analyst at ING Bank, noted that based on quarterly growth data, the dynamics of final consumption barely slowed in the first quarter, which is certainly a positive surprise in light of the tightening epidemiological measures.

    After the first estimate, analysts still thought that the investment may have been behind the positive surprise, but they could not have been more wrong, as investment shrank quarter-on-quarter, as already forecast on Monday’s investment report.

    Overall, the internal engine of the economy slowed down, and despite the difficulties, exports of both goods and services were able to continue to grow, meaning that net exports were the other main surprise factor, the analyst wrote.

    On the production side, in general, all sectors produced more favorable figures than could be expected from the monthly data releases. Value added in the industry clearly exceeded expectations stemming from fluctuating monthly production data. The quarterly expansion in the construction industry also outpaced what production data suggested. An even bigger surprise is the expanding service sector despite the epidemiological constraint, where mainly the transportation, warehousing, information, communication and professional scientific activities kept up the performance of the entire sector.

    According to Péter Virovácz, based on the upwardly revised GDP data and the details, it is clear that the Hungarian economy will have significant growth potential in the second quarter due to the reopening. Another quarterly increase of around 2 percent or more, which will be driven primarily by services, cannot be ruled out. In the second half of the year, this will be accompanied by a combination of industry and construction. All in all, ING Bank’s latest GDP forecast for 2021 projects economic growth of 7.4 percent.

    In his comment, Gábor Regős, the head of the Macroeconomic Business Unit of the Századvég Economic Research unit also emphasized that compared to his second estimate, the KSH had slightly improved the favorable GDP data for the first quarter. On the production side, most sectors experienced a slight decline year-on-year, while some sectors (industry, agriculture, information communication, financial insurance) were able to achieve expansion.

  • Big employment gaps for EU natives vs. non-EU workers in many member states

    Not only has the employment rate in the EU fallen in 2020, but immigrants from outside the EU are also a growing challenge in the EU labor market, news and opinion portal Mandiner writes.

    In 2020, the employment rate for the age cohort of 20 to 64 among those born outside the EU was 61.9 percent, while for intra-EU workers and indigenous nationals it was already 73.5 percent, according to Eurostat.

    Between 2010 and 2020, the employment rate for immigrants was systematically lower than for those born in the European Union, and the gap widened until 2017. By 2020, the gap then began to narrow. The employment rate of immigrants in Europe was 11.6 percentage points lower than that of EU citizens.

    The employment rate of immigrants was best in the Czech Republic, where the indicator stood at 82.5 percent, while the lowest rate was observed in Belgium, where the indicator stood at 52.3 per cent. With the exception of four member states, the employment rate of non-EU-born immigrants fell everywhere between 2019 and 2020.


     

    For those born within the EU but working in another member state, Malta had the highest employment rate at 89.8 percent, while Greece had the lowest at 56.7 percent. Data is available for 25 EU countries, of which the employment rate for this group decreased in 12 countries and increased in 13 between 2019 and 2020.

    The employment rate of the indigenous population was highest in Sweden at 85.3 percent, while it was lowest in Greece at 61.8 percent, but in this group the employment rate has already fallen in 23 member states and only doubled between 2019 and 2020. Hungary is in the middle of the employment rate, ahead of France, Poland and Slovakia, among others.

    In Hungary, as in most of the countries surveyed, the employment rate of those from other EU countries is the highest. This may indicate that workers from similar cultures often come for actual employment purposes. They are closely followed by the indigenous population, followed by the employment rate of immigrants from outside the EU.

    The employment rate of non-EU nationals is in all cases the lowest, which shows that these people could not be integrated into the domestic labor market by the countries. Two of the worst performing countries are Belgium and Sweden. In countries where there is a high difference between the employment rates of each group, those native workers must then support immigrants.

    Title image: Police try to escort migrants that arrived on a train in Bicske, Hungary, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015. Over 150,000 migrants have reached Hungary this year, most coming through the southern border with Serbia. Many apply for asylum but quickly try to leave for richer EU countries. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

  • Hungary won’t join European Public Prosecutor’s Office

    Following the preliminary ruling of the National Assembly, the Hungarian Government decided to participate in neither the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office nor in the cooperation strengthening process, Justice Minister Judit Varga announced in a Facebook post.

    “This is a matter of sovereignty. With the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, Brussels wants even more power to the detriment of the member states,” Varga wrote. “The document establishing the EPPO does not meet the basic, principled and professional requirements such as national self-determination and full respect of the constitutional structure.”

    Together with Hungary, five countries — Poland, Denmark, Sweden, and Ireland — decided not to join but indicating their absence from the organization.

    “The idea of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office is still raising many questions and has several unresolved problems and deficiencies. If we look at the overall picture, the operating procedure of the whole organization remains chaotic and uncertain,” Varga wrote. “As a responsible decision-maker, the Hungarian government, therefore, decided to abstain. We remain an observer by following with interest the operation of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. It would be a great pain for integration if yet another supranational extortionist device were set up.”

    She further wrote that the fight against corruption is extremely important at both the European and national levels, but the solution may not be to create more and more institutions.

    “There are other frameworks within which corruption can be properly addressed. These key tools include, inter alia (among others), Eurojust or OLAF.

    Although we have not joined the organization, a working agreement between the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Hungarian Public Prosecutor’s Office has already been adopted,” Varga wrote. “To sum up, Hungary, as always, is a partner once again, but we keep both feet on the ground and keep using common sense when making decisions.”

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

  • Hungary builds mobile bomb shelters for Israel

    Hungary will build mobile bomb shelters for Israel, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said during his one-day visit to the country on Tuesday, daily Magyar Nemzet reports.

    “Hungary does not just stand up for Israel in words,” Szijjártó during his one-day visit to Israel on Tuesday. “Hungary attaches strategic importance to Hungarian-Israeli cooperation, and we are not only talking about it, but also doing so. Today, an agreement is signed between an Israeli defense industrial company and a Hungarian construction company, according to which more than a thousand special mobile and tactical shelters will be built in Hungary to order from Israel, which will later be used here in Israel to defend against missile attacks”.

    Szijjártó referred back to the recent multi-day rocket war between Israel and the radical Palestinian organization Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.

    “Israel was attacked by a terrorist organization, thousands of rockets were fired at Israeli cities, especially in densely populated areas, and the lives of thousands, tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of people were endangered,” the Hungarian foreign minister emphasized.

    “We regret that no common position has been reached in international political organizations to assess this situation, we regret that the fact that Israel has been attacked by a terrorist organization has been disputed, we regret that some international organizations have wanted to treat Israel and Hamas on the same level,” Szijjártó said. “It (Hamas) would be treated as an NGO, and we also regret that international organizations have not spoken clearly that Israel does have a right to self-defense, the minister said, criticizing the international response to the Gaza missile attacks.”

    “Peace is needed here in the Middle East, and the way to peace can be through the Abraham agreements,” Szijjártó said, referring to the Middle East agreements reached last year with the help of former US President Donald Trump.

    “In some major cities in Western Europe, anti-Semitism has reared its head again,” Szijjártó said, adding that this could have been seen before, when the waves of illegal immigration began, but now, in recent weeks, there have been open anti-Semitic demonstrations in Western European cities, which have raised clear, evident and legitimate concerns for millions of Europeans.

    Title image: Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi (center left) and Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó visit an Israeli home hit by a Hamas missile. (MTI/AP/Ariel Schalit)

  • Hungary to produce China’s COVID-19 vaccine

    Hungary and China reached an agreement that the National Vaccine Factory currently under construction in Hungary will also be  able to make Chinese vaccines against the coronavirus, which will be a great strategic advantage for the country, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced in China on Monday.

    As Remix News reported earlier, Hungary announced last month that it will shortly begin building its own vaccine plant in the eastern Hungarian town of Debrecen.

    Szijjártó said the meeting with his Chinese counterpart was the 12th one in the last seven years, which shows how much importance the two countries attach to the continuous development of their cooperation.

    “Hungary and the People’s Republic of China have been strategic partners for each other since 2017, if anyone has had any doubts so far, they have been able to see in recent months how much Hungary has benefited from this strategic cooperation (…) Its success can now be measured in saved lives,” Szijjártó said.

    “Vaccines are not an ideological or geopolitical issue, but a tool to save lives. Had it not been a matter of human lives at stake, we could now simply and loudly laugh at those who spewed all sorts of nonsense and nonsense about the Chinese vaccine,” he said.

    Szijjártó pointed out that if the government had not bought the vaccine from Sinopharm, “there would have been one million less vaccinated (people) now, we would not have been at the head of the European Union in terms of vaccination, and we could not have taken significant steps back to normal.”

    He added that cooperation in the field of vaccines will continue, and that Sinopharm’s entire production technology will be adapted in Hungary, which is an important advantage, as there will be a constant demand for vaccines in the world.

    Szijjártó emphasized that in addition to health, the success of the economic response is also important, and the two countries are facing significant economic success stories. He mentioned, among other things, that two large Chinese banks will soon appear in Hungary, several Hungarian companies have achieved serious success in the Asian country, and several large Hungarian investments are currently being negotiated, for example in the production of electric cars.

    Speaking about the relationship between the EU and China, he said the government supports initiatives to improve the relationship instead of “sanctions and hostility”. Instead, Hungary’s foreign minister said he believes cooperation based on mutual interests is needed.

    Szijjártó expressed the view that preventing a comprehensive investment agreement is against European interests, the continent should already “wake up to a new reality in the world”, and if relations are not improved, the EU will lose a great deal. Finally, he added that China had allowed Hungary to establish a new consulate general in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province.

    Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi praised the “exemplary” Sino-Hungarian relations and expressed hope that they could be further deepened in many areas in the future. He also underlined that “in a time of growing global challenges, China and the EU are strategic partners, our goal is not to forget this, but to maintain our cooperation”.

    Title image: Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade (L) and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Guiyang, China on May 31, 2021. (source: Facebook)

  • Two-thirds of Hungarians satisfied with government’s handling of pandemic

    Almost two-thirds of Hungarians approve of the conservative government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, a recent poll shows.

    Popular approval of the government measures related to the coronavirus rose back again to the 62 percent level seen at the beginning of the year as the country recovered from the third wave of the pandemic.

    Although satisfaction declined somewhat during the third wave, both the high data now measured and the fact that the satisfaction rate never fell below 50 percent at the time of the epidemic indicates that the majority of Hungarians are satisfied with the government’s performance.

    There may be several reasons for the high satisfaction level, which is also rare in Europe. The high vaccination rate, the multi-source vaccine procurement and abundance of vaccines, and finally, the freedom gained step by step due to the effectiveness of the defense and the subsequent easing of restrictive measures have all fueled support for the government’s policies.

    Satisfaction of pro-government respondents is less surprising, with 89 percent finding no objections to epidemic management. More importantly for the 2022 election, however, 26 percent of those opposed to the government and 45 percent of those with unknown party preferences are also satisfied with the government’s performance (69 and 27 percent, respectively, are dissatisfied).

    The bad news for the left is that satisfaction with the government’s epidemic management among their potential voters has not been so high this year. The Nézőpont Institute’s opinion poll commissioned by daily Magyar Nemzet was conducted between May 25 and May 26, 2021 by interviewing thousands of people by telephone.

    The sample is representative of the population over 18 years of age by sex, age, region, type of settlement and education. For a sample size of 1,000 and a 95 percent confidence level, the sampling error is 3.16 percent.

    Title image: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. (source: Viktor Orbán’s Facebook page)

  • Hungary shares a small part of Chelsea’s second Champions League win

    Albeit indirectly, Hungarian football fans also bask in a tiny ray of glory following Chelsea’s second Champions League win. Former Hungarian national team defender Zsolt Lőw, who is the assistant coach of the London club, told Hungarian sports channel M4 that his current position is probably worth more than being head coach at a lesser team.

    “I think we are at the absolute very top of football. I have the opportunity to work with a sensational coach, with whom I not only have a good professional relationship, but we are also friends,” Lőw said. Asked by M4 whether he would use his growing reputation to seek a head coach position elsewhere, he said that would be a very tough decision.

    “This is so much more than a coaching post. One has to think long and hard if one is about leave this very high level where trophies can be collected and won, and where one’s country is proud of him, just to step down one or even two levels,” Lőw said.

    Zsolt Lőw (42), a former defender of Hungarian football club Újpest and 25-time member of the Hungarian national team, later in his career played at several German clubs (Energie Cottbus, Hansa Rostock, 1899 Hoffenheim and Mainz) and started his coaching career at a small Austrian club.

    He eventually joined Thomas Tuchel as assistant coach when the German manager took over Paris Saint-Germain in 2018, and they brought the French club to the Champions League final. They both transferred to Chelsea this January.

    “It’s an amazing journey we’ve taken, everything happened very quickly. It was our thirtieth match we played during those four months,” Lőw said. On Saturday, Chelsea beat Manchester City in the Champions League final 1-0, winning the trophy for the second time after the previous one in 2012.  

    Title image: Zsolt Löw, the Hungarian assistant coach of Chelsea. (source: Sandro Halank, Wikimedia Commons)

  • Europe is struggling

    It is not easy to capture the attention of the world press and the international public for a long time: just think of how the Beirut explosion last August, which claimed 200 lives, were pushed off the front pages by the riots in Minsk within a week. Those who changed their Facebook profile image to prayers for the Beirut victims, switched to the symbols of the Belarusian opposition.

    We have a sense of déjà vu, as it didn’t hit everyone’s sensitivity threshold last week that more than 8,000 people from Morocco simply broke into Ceuta, which belongs to Spain — 5,000 of them in a single day. They didn’t pay enough attention to it, but the Spanish government, no matter how liberal, was forced to respond to the rather formidable invasion.

    Arriving at the EU summit, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez drew attention to the unprecedented crisis that has developed between Spain and Morocco for years. He recalled that not only his country but also the European Union’s relationship with Morocco was of strategic importance.

    Incidentally, Jorge Buxadé Villalba, a Spanish right-wing Vox politician, has just told our paper that Morocco does not respect either the European Union or Spain because they themselves do not respect their own sovereignty and borders.

    Europe has something to learn when it comes to its neighbors. Recently, German news and commentary website Tichys Einblick wrote that in the midst of a coronavirus epidemic, media attention is quite distracted from the fact that Turkey and Russia are essentially fighting a proxy war in Libya. The portal pointed out that as North Africa grows in influence, Ankara will gain indirect control over another migration route and could put even more pressure on the EU.

    Of course, all this would not be possible without the NGOs that transport illegal migrants to the EU in the Mediterranean. More and more ships are arriving in Europe from Libya. In 2019, only a few people arrived in this manner, but this year, by mid-May, there are at least 13,000, according to the Rome Ministry of the Interior. Tichys Einblick warns that more than 60,000 migrants are waiting to travel on the Libyan coast, and there are at least another million people who want to reach the EU, but especially Germany.

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán mentioned migration among the most important topics of the EU summit earlier this week. He recalled that thousands of illegal immigrants were arriving in Europe, which is why Italy and Spain were on the agenda.

    “Hungary still does not accept that we take over illegally arrived and admitted migrants,” he stressed.

    As the prime minister said, epidemic management, migration and climate protection are indeed crucial to the future of the European Union. In these cases, it is clear how much the union can actually decide quickly and efficiently how well it can defend itself and maintain its own competitiveness.

    There is growing evidence that action by member states is most effective. Demanding a curtailment of nation-state powers, as Hungarian liberals do, is a grave political sin.

    Title image: French President Emmanuel Macron, left, speaks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and Malta’s Prime Minister Robert Abela during a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels, Tuesday, May 25, 2021. European Union leaders gather for a second day of meetings to discuss the coronavirus pandemic and to assess new measures on how to meet targets to become climate-neutral by mid-century. (AP Photo/Olivier Matthys, Pool)

  • ‘Border protection, family policy, Christian culture’ – Hungary’s Orbán meets Spanish Vox party leader Santiago Abascal in Budapest

    The future of Europe must not lack the voices of the parties committed to the freedom and traditions of the European nations, which represent many millions of citizens committed to traditional European values, agreed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the chairman of the rapidly growing Vox Party in Spain, Santiago Abascal. 

    The two political leaders met yesterday to discuss areas of cooperation, Orbán’s press secretary Bertalan Havasi told national news agency MTI. Abascal’s conservative Vox party has been growing in prominence in Spain. Following the national elections in 2019, Vox secured 3.6 million votes (18 percent) and 52 seats in the Congress of Deputies, becoming the third-largest party in the country. 

    Katalin Novák, vice-president of Fidesz, also took part in a meeting with the president of the Spanish party, which professes Christian Democratic principles and opposes multiculturalism and immigration.


     

    Abascal, who is also a member of Spanish Parliament and Orbán said they both agreed that Europe needs national sovereignty and border protection, proper family policies and respect for every country’s cultural roots.

    “Meeting with Vox President Santiago Abascal. Border protection, family policy, Christian culture – we believe this is what the future of Europe depends on!” Orbán wrote about the meeting in a Facebook post.

    Orban has been working to unify national-conservative political movements along with political leaders in Poland and Italy. Vox is seen as a potentially strong ally if the party continues it meteoric rise in Spain. 

    Title image: Hungarian Prime Minister and President of the ruling conservative Fidesz party Viktor Orbán meets Santiago Abascal, Chairman of the Spanish Vox party in Budapest on May 27, 2021. (source: Prime Minister’s Office) 

  • Hungarian police arrest two people smugglers in Budapest

    Hungarian police arrested two Arab men living in the capital thought to be the leaders of a people smuggling ring, who commissioned Hungarian and Bulgarian drivers to send migrants to Austria, the National Police wrote on its website.

    The police are investigating several Hungarian and Bulgarian citizens who have taken migrants from Hungary to Austria more than 20 times since January this year, the police said.

    The investigation led to arrests and investigations being carried out in Budapest on May 26. In doing so, Alahmed O., a 35-year-old Syrian citizen, and  Mohamed A.F., a 39-year-old stateless person, were arrested.


     

    The 35-year-old man was under criminal supervision in a previous case of human trafficking, so he committed the acts charged against him in the present proceedings.

    Investigators questioned the two men as suspects. Hungary is a transit hub for mostly Middle East migrants making their way to Western Europe through the Balkans route.

    Title image: Arrest of one of the people smuggling suspects. (source: National Police)

  • Franco-German alliance wants flat carbon tax on all EU member states

    During a special meeting of the European Council between May 24-25, a topic of a flat carbon tax for all EU member states has emerged. The idea is meant to be a preliminary step towards a larger goal, a so-called “carbon border tax”, which is a tariff on goods brought into the country based on the level of CO2 emitted in producing them.

    As explained on the website of the German Ministry of Finance, a Franco-German council of economic experts has prepared a recommendation that promotes a central uniform pricing of CO2 in the EU, leading to a single tax rate for goods leaving or entering the EU’s borders. The recommendation was made by German and French finance experts, hence it is safe to assume that the criteria employed were mostly economic, rather than environmental. Moreover, even though the principle of a flat carbon tax rate for all EU countries is already a working idea, the mechanism of the distribution of the revenue collected from importers crossing the bloc’s borders has not been revealed yet.

    A uniform carbon tax would clearly benefit countries that produce higher levels or air pollution rather than those that have achieved a reduction of their emissions. As Remix News reported earlier, the disparity has been highlighted by the Hungarian delegation led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. He stressed that Hungary would oppose such an approach because the price of climate protection should be borne by those who produce the most carbon emissions, that is, by large companies.

    Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga had also defended the principle of “technology neutrality”, that would give countries the freedom to choose their own means of carbon reduction, including nuclear power. She had emphasized that their opposition to the uniform carbon tax is not an effort to undermine the EU-wide effort of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, as this goal is already enshrined in Hungarian legislation. However, according to the minister, “we cannot let the people pay the price of the climate fight instead of the large polluters”.

    Opponents of the plan have also stressed that a uniform carbon flat-rate would put an enormous financial burden on families and individual citizens, as the inclusion of household emissions in the carbon trade systems could annually cost as much as €900 for an average family in extra bills. Doing away with nuclear energy, as Germany is currently planning, would further complicate matters, as nuclear has an important role to play in achieving EU climate targets.

    According to a recent study, the largest air polluters in Europe are coal power plants in Ukraine, the Western Balkans, Poland, and Germany. The pollutants can travel thousands of kilometers from the source of origin and are thought to be the cause of a high number of premature deaths. Air pollution had caused about 417,000 premature deaths in 41 European countries in 2018. The study highlights Poland’s Belchatow plant as well as four German plants as the EU’s top polluters.

    It is no surprise that one of the most vocal advocates of a uniform carbon EU carbon tax seems to be the German government of Angela Merkel, as is clear from the promotion of the idea on the Finance Ministry’s website quoted above. Germany’s energy policy is driven by radical ideological targets shaped by the internal dynamics of the political landscape, in which the governing parties are in a direct electoral competition with the rising Greens. The rushed closure of nuclear and coal power plants, coupled with ambitious targets for the introduction of electric vehicles is bringing Germany ever closer to a long-term energy crisis, the solution to which will drain the resources of even such an economic and industrial giant.

    It comes as no surprise then that smaller and less well-off nations are protesting the idea that developed countries currently producing higher levels of greenhouse gases should subsidize their politically driven environmental goals from a common EU purse. For instance, figures show that Hungarian annual greenhouse gas emissions per capita are 6.6 tons, while a German citizen produces 11.2 tons. It is thus not the usual East-West, or liberal-conservative dispute that is at play here, but an effort of less industrialized countries wanting to protect their citizens from a cynical economic exploitation by high polluting industrial giants with a lot of political clout.

  • Spain: Madrid names street after Hungarian football legend Puskás

    Hungarian football legend Ferenc Puskás (1927-2006) had a street named after him in Madrid, where he was a key player of the first great generation of Real Madrid, daily Magyar Nemzet reports.

    “We are proud of Ferenc Puskás as the best-known Hungarian who made his career extremely successful in a historical period full of difficulties and challenges,”  Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said at a short ceremony in Madrid’s eastern Vicálvaro district, where the street sign named after Ferenc Puskás was unveiled.

    Szijjártó spoke about the fact that although Puskás died 15 years ago, he is still remembered all over the world. He praised the performance of “the best footballer of the era” and recalled his unbeaten record, saying that one else has been able to score four goals in the European Championship or in the Champions League final.

    Szijjártó said Puskás is the connecting link between the Spanish and Hungarian nations, and also thanked the Spaniards, Real Madrid and the city of Madrid for keeping their memory alive.

    “Ferenc Puskás is a fundamental figure in the history of Real Madrid, the legend of Real Madrid would be impossible to understand without Ferenc Puskás. Ferenc Puskás is on our coat of arms, our t-shirt, our uniform, and we always keep it in our hearts,” said Emilio Butragueno, Real Madrid’s international director. As he said, Puskás was a member of an unforgettable generation that helped make Real Madrid grow into a myth.

    “We are very proud that we now have a street that will make the figure of Ferenc Puskás memorable forever,” Butragueno added.

    The ceremony was also attended by the grandson and great-grandson of Puskás, as well as Amancio Amaro, former Real Madrid striker who played with the well-known Hungarian legend, nicknamed “Pancho” in Spain. Puskás came to Spain after the defeat of the 1956 Hungarian anti-Soviet uprising, and he played with Real Madrid from 1958 to 1966.

    Title image: Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó at the inauguration. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade/Mátyás Borsos)

  • Hungary and Spain’s joint fight against people-smuggling networks

    Cooperation between Hungary and Spain is strong in the fight against people-smuggling mafias, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said at a press conference held in Madrid on Wednesday with his Spanish counterpart Arancha González Laya.

    The Hungarian minister emphasized the agreement between the two countries on the protection of the European Union’s external borders and the need to help disadvantaged communities locally.

    “We must not forget the long-term security threats that, if not properly addressed, will fall on us, such as illegal migration,” he said, adding that the business model of people-smuggling mafias should be permanently eradicated before it’s too late.

    According to Szijjártó, Hungary’s position on the issue of migration is clear.

    “We insist on our right to decide for ourselves who we admit to Hungary and who we do not, (…) that is why we do not accept any kind of mandatory introduction quota, we do not accept that Brussels determines who should be admitted,” he said, adding that only those who can do it properly can come to Europe.

    He says that Hungary will continue to work closely with Spain during Hungary’s presidency of the Council of Europe.

    Szijjártó also announced that Spanish will be also available as a first foreign language choice from fourth grade in Hungary beginning with the next school year. About a hundred primary and secondary schools already take part in the bilingual training, he added. He said that 370 Spanish students are studying at Hungarian universities and expressed hope that a Hungarian lecturer could start working at the University of Barcelona soon.

    Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya welcomed the fact that the Hungarian parliament approved the European Union recovery fund on Wednesday, so only the legislative bodies of three more countries will have to ratify the EU agreement. She was also pleased that Hungary is opening a new consulate in Málaga, which could encourage Hungarian tourism to Spain.

    Title image: Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó (L) and his Spanish counterpart, Arancha Gonzalez Laya (R) at a press conference in Madrid on May 26, 2021. (MTI/EPA-EFE/Juan Carlos Hidalgo)

  • Hungarian research heralds breakthrough in prostate cancer diagnosis

    The marker 18F-JK-PSMA-7 from the innovative Hungarian healthcare company, the Positron Diagnostic Center, could be a breakthrough for prostate cancer patients because it shows metastases in prostate cancer patients more accurately than ever before, news portal Origo reports.

    The use of a special marker in PET/CT scans makes up for the noticeable lack of effective diagnosis of tumors. The tracer is manufactured in the company’s own laboratory with its own particle accelerator.

    According to statistics, prostate cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in men in Hungary and the fifth leading cause of death.

    The Positron Diagnostic Center won more than 385 million forints in funding for a project leading to development, including the research and production of PSMA-specific tracers (radiopharmaceuticals), through a research and development tender funded by the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund.

    The total cost of the project, which closes in February 2023, is 770 million forints, and the oompany’s own resources amounted to 385 million forints, so the support intensity is 50 percent, with an expected return of seven to eight years.

    In the first year after the introduction of the special procedure, Pozitron-Diagnosztika Kft. undertook to perform a few hundred prostate cancer tests (PSMA tests), 250 of which have already been performed successfully. Thousands of examinations are planned in the coming years, so in the seven to eight years after the project closes, the investment can pay off from this one source, while thousands of people will be helped by a more accurate diagnosis, emphasized András Kókay, managing director of the Positron Diagnostics Center.

    Dr. Szabolcs Szakáll, a nuclear medicine specialist and medical director, said that 5,000 to 6,000 new prostate cancers are diagnosed each year in Hungary, but one-third of those who undergo radical surgery relapse after surgery or radiation therapy. The first sign of this is an increase in PSA levels, which can be explained by the presence of undetected metastases.

    However, the PSA level determined by the laboratory test does not provide information about the location of the metastases, emphasized Dr. Szabolcs Szakáll. He added that the study is based on the detection of a protein that is up to several hundred times more common in prostate cancer cells — the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA).

    The associated PET markers are able to detect prostate cancer with unprecedented contrast. The primary purpose of PET/CT scans is to detect recurrences, Szakáll explained. The test can under certain conditions help determine the appropriate treatment strategy by assessing the pre-treatment stage of a previously confirmed prostate tumor.

    Title image: The Hungarian diagnosis firm is the only one in the country to use this method. (source: Pozitron-Diagnosztika Központ)

  • Hungary, Ireland have first high-level meeting in 20 years

    Hungary and Ireland have extensive cooperation in the fields of economy, investment, education, and peacekeeping, among others, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in Dublin on Tuesday.

    Speaking to MTI, Szijjártó emphasized that there are currently more than a hundred high value-added Irish companies operating in Hungary, employing around 10,000 people, and further investment is expected due to the favorable operating and tax environment.

    Szijjártó pointed out the importance of educational cooperation, underlining that more than 300 Irish students are admitted to Hungarian universities each year and that 46 language schools have been accredited to allow high school Hungarian students to travel to Ireland to study English. An estimated 9,000 young Hungarians will be able to take advantage of this opportunity, and therefore the Hungarian diplomatic presence in Ireland will be strengthened.

    Szijjártó also emphasized that Hungarian and Irish soldiers are serving together in the UN mission in Lebanon, and that the two countries are thinking similarly about the importance of peacekeeping. Hungary is dedicated to taking a strong role in such operations. 

    The head of the ministry underlined that Hungary is one of the 21 countries in the world that were able to increase their economic performance before the coronavirus pandemic while reducing their emissions. In connection with the topic, Szijjártó stated that the price of developments and technological innovations necessary for the fight against climate change must be paid to large polluting companies.

    “It is unacceptable for us to pay the costs of the changeover to Hungarian families and Central European countries,” Szijjártó said, also mentioning on his Facebook page that a Hungarian foreign minister had last paid an official visit to Dublin 20 years ago. During the visit, Szijjártó also met Irish Minister for Enterprise, Trade  and Employment Leo Vardarkar.

    Title image: Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó (L) and Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney (R) meet in Dublin on May 25, 2021. (source: Facebook)

  • PM Orbán: Major polluters should pay the costs of making Europe green, not the people

    Instead of raising taxes for the entire EU population as one group of countries proposes, Hungary is on the side of those who want the major polluting industries to foot the bill, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said after the two-day European Union summit on Tuesday.

    “One group says that people should pay the price of climate protection in the form of fuel, petrol and housing taxes, and the other group — all Central European countries belong here — says that the price of climate protection should be paid by climate destroyers, so they should bear it, as it is the burden of large polluting companies,” Orbán said in a short video message posted on his Facebook page. “This debate will continue next month.”

    Orbán referred back to what Minister of Innovation and Technology László Palkovics told Hungarian journalists in Brussels on Tuesday: EU climate targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions should not be paid for by people, but by large polluters and large companies. Hungary also opposes the idea of ​​including CO2 emissions from residential buildings in the emissions trading scheme, as so far the member states have been able to decide on their own emission trading systems.

    However, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at a press conference following the summit that “the European Commission would extend its carbon trading scheme to residential buildings and transport, while introducing immediate compensation for low-income households”.

    The EU has so far applied the emission trading system (ETS) only to industry, and the extension of its role will be part of a climate protection package to be presented by the Commission in June in which the panel will publish proposals on how to achieve a reduction in CO2 emission of 55 percent by 2030, which is the goal of the European Union, she said.

    Although member states have not yet been able to reach agreement on key issues, European Council President Charles Michel expressed confidence, saying leaders had reaffirmed their commitment to their ambitious common goals on climate protection, including making Europe a climate-neutral continent by 2050.

    In addition to the debate on the costs of CO2 emission, there is another fault line among member states: one group, led by Germany which has decided to phase out nuclear power plants in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, is against it, while most Central European countries insist they cannot replace the more polluting fossil fuel power plants without nuclear ones.   

    Title image: Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, left, speaks with Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, center, and Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven during a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels, Tuesday, May 25, 2021. European Union leaders gather for a second day of meetings to discuss the coronavirus pandemic and to assess new measures on how to meet targets to become climate-neutral by mid-century. (John Thys, Pool via AP)

  • Hungary: Scandal deepens over Budapest mayor’s English-language skills, false PhD claims

    The scandal around liberal Budapest mayor and 2022 prime ministerial candidate Gergely Karácsony’s English skills, or their lack thereof, broke with the publication of a 2020 television footage where the mayor seems to go out of his way to avoid any conversation in English with a foreign diplomat during a memorial event. During last year’s meeting with the Korean ambassador, Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó was forced to translate for the mayor in order to avoid further embarrassment. The footage shows Karácsony leaving the occasion without addressing the Korean diplomat at all.

    The video had prompted a media investigation into how the liberal mayor, who is Viktor Orbán’s main rival for the 2022 parliamentary elections, was able to obtain his PhD title without the appropriate language skills, which are a legal requirement in Hungarian post-graduate education. The investigation has revealed that not only does the mayor lack any valid language exams, his previous claims of holding a PhD title have also been misleading.

    As it turns out, the mayor had started his PhD studies in 2007 without a foreign language certificate, something that was still possible at the time. Yet, he had failed to complete his PhD studies partly due to his language skills, as well as his lack of academic progress during the program. He was unable to finish his research and did not publish any articles during his studies.

    This did not prevent Karácsony from claiming that he held a PhD degree during the 2018 elections. On his party’s website he claimed that he was awarded a degree in political sciences in 2007. This has since proved to be a fabrication since he only commenced his doctoral studies in 2007, furthermore, for obtaining a PhD diploma he would have needed as much as two foreign language certificates, of which he has none. In fact, during this period, he worked for a survey agency which has received tens of millions of Hungarian forints in commission fees from the then Socialist government of Ferenc Gyurcsány.

    According to recent polls, 83 percent of Hungarians expect the country’s prime minister to speak English, and only 13% would like to see Karácsony at the helm of the country. As if the embarrassing polls, to which the language skills scandal has no doubt contributed, were not enough, an off-hand remark from the mayor, in which he goaded his former academic supervisor, prompted the said professor to enter the debate with more cringe-worthy revelations.

    According to Prof. András Lánczi, during his post-graduate years Karácsony had received all the support from academic staff, and was even granted an extraordinary extension to complete his studies. Despite all the help, the professor had no option but to release Karácsony from the university, as he had failed to show progress and meet the required deadlines. Rather magnanimously, the professor regards the lack of his former protégé’s language deficiencies a heritage of the former communist regime, in which only a few select were able to acquire high level proficiency in English.

    Although Karácsony’s intention to stand for prime minister in the 2022 elections was announced only days ago, some analysts call this the worst start to an election campaign since the fall of the communist regime. In his own defense, Karácsony claimed to have what he called a “hyper-passive” knowledge of English. To protect himself from further criticism, he has also tried to adopt a victim-group identity when he claimed that his problems with English stem from childhood dyslexia, yet, according his own assessment, he was able to overcome this in adulthood.

    Although the mayor did not show any evidence that he was ever diagnosed with dyslexia, nor is there medical evidence that childhood dyslexia can disappear in adulthood, Karácsony had claimed that he is now able to read through tens of pages at a time at speeds that few others are capable of.

    The liberal mayor, who often positions himself as a defender of freedom of the press against the allegedly authoritarian government of Viktor Orbán, when asked about his PhD diploma by a journalist, reacted angrily by saying, “Shame on you”. He was more forthcoming with foreign journalists though when in an interview entitled “The man who could oust Orbán” with the American magazine The Economist, he body-shamed the current prime minister, referring to his weight and height. The incumbent prime minister, Viktor Orbán, Karácsony’s main rival for the 2022 elections, is known for his strong command of English. 

    Orbán has held a number of press conferences in English and appears to use the language as a diplomatic and communication tool to promote Hungarian interests at the international level. Given the relative lack of Hungarian speakers worldwide, this may be a factor in why Hungarians strongly support a prime minister confident with the language.

  • FM Szijjártó: Hungary rejects Biden’s plan to enact global minimum corporate tax

    Hungary rejects US President Joe Biden’s plan to implement a global corporate tax rate since it would raise taxes in the country, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced last week after meeting with Mathias Cormann, the incoming Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in Paris.

    “Nobody has the right to intervene from abroad in Hungary’s tax policies,” the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade told the Hungarian news outlet MTI, insisting that it’s the Hungarian government’s sovereign right to decide tax rates within its own borders.

    Despite lacking a consensus, discussions are underway in the OECD to establish a global minimum corporate tax that would place Hungary, which has a corporate tax rate of 9 percent — the lowest in the European Union — at a disadvantage. In the past decade, Hungary and other Central European states have significantly reduced taxes on capital and income so as to make foreign investment as attractive as possible.

    According to the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, a global minimum tax levied against corporations would prevent nation states from having to bid against one another in an effort to attract foreign corporations — something which causes countries’ budgets to suffer “tax revenue shortfalls”. Originally, the Biden administration had proposed a 21 percent global corporate tax rate. However, after facing widespread pushback from US lawmakers, as well as certain members of the OECD, the administration has signaled that a 15 percent global minimum tax on multinational companies would be acceptable.

    Despite the minor concessions made by Biden administration, however, the Hungarian government remains firmly opposed.

    During his comments, Szijjártó also noted that it had become quite clear “over the past decade that raising taxes is a dead-end street”, adding that the “most effective means for creating new jobs and stimulating economic growth are tax cuts”.

    Szijjártó, while voicing the Hungarian government’s support for initiatives which seek to settle how tech giants should be tax, also argued that multinationals ought to pay taxes in the countries that they’re operating in.

    “We shouldn’t allow tech giants to enjoy an unfair competitive advantage in the absence of international tax regulation,” he said.

    The economic response measures put in place by the Hungarian government to mitigate the crisis caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic have been among the most effective in the world, the foreign minister argued, adding that the most effective economic policies for recovery, stability, and sustained growth should emphasize tax cuts, supporting investments, and saving jobs.

    “All over the world, we’re seeing the pursuit of policies that are making it harder to reboot the global economy, such as the ones in favor of introducing a global minimum tax,” Szijjártó lamented. ‘

    He added that the idea of a global minimum corporate tax goes against the fundamental principles of a market economy, and would unfairly reward countries that have lacked the fiscal discipline that’s required to maintain low tax rates.

    We will continue to support “work over welfare”, he said, adding that the Hungarian government planned to maintain its low tax rates.

    “We won’t accept any form of international pressure or regulation that would lead to tax increases in Hungary,” the minister declared. 

  • Long Pentecost weekend revives domestic tourism in Hungary

    The long Pentecost weekend stretching into Monday brought about the first real signs of revival for the Hungarian hospitality sector, booking site Szallas.hu reports.

    The portal’s PR manager Beatrix Trepess told business news site Pénzcentrum that the number of bookings rose by 42 percent compared with the same period of 2020 when the lockdown measures triggered by the first coronavirus wave were already in place.

    Now, however, Hungary is continuing its gradual opening that began when the number of inoculated people reached 4 million in the country of just under 10 million.

    The most popular destinations were Eger in northeastern Hungary with its medieval castle and charming little old town of Gyula in central Hungary, which boasts both a castle and a large lake as well as the Lake Balaton resort Siófok. Two urban centers — Pécs in southwest Hungary and the capital of Budapest — came in fourth and fifth.

    The bad news for vacationers was that average booking prices per person per night reached 9,217 forints (€26.50), meaning an increase of 20 percent, while year-on year inflation in the country was just one quarter of that at 5.2 percent. Trepess said, however, that the higher prices were not just a result of price increases, but also slightly longer average bookings and a shift towards other, more expensive destinations.

    In Hungary, where tourism and hospitality accounts for over 9 percent of GDP, the number of vaccinated people reached 5.023 million over the weekend, meaning that the inoculation rate now stands at 52 percent, the third highest in the world behind Israel (62.87 percent) and Mongolia (55.84 percent).

    Title image: The most popular weekend destination was Eger with its medieval castle.

  • Brussels never learns

    The international press is full of reports that Hungary has vetoed a joint resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. According to the Hungarian liberal media, this is absolutely unheard of, Hungary is again sabotaging European unity, which is otherwise quite exemplary. Is this really a blatant Hungarian contrarianism? Of course not.

    In the European Union, there is a need for consensus for many political decisions, meaning that everyone’s consent is required. As not everyone always agrees with everything, any member state can exercise its right of veto in a perfectly legitimate way. This is not a special Hungarian hobby, but a common practice, even in matters with a greater weight than a foreign policy statement. The accession negotiations with northern Macedonia and Albania, or even the Schengen membership of Romania and Bulgaria, are not held up by general opposition, but by the stubborn veto of one or two member states.

    According to the Hungarian position, the resolution calling for a ceasefire criticizing Israel is extremely one-sided, and it does nothing to help the situation. This is not the first time that the government has prevented such a statement about Israel, and in other similar cases it has repeatedly expressed its displeasure. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó also said that it was completely pointless to vote for such documents in connection, referring to the resolution and criticisms of China.

    Let us have no doubt that if 27 of the 27 member states would have voted in favor of this week’s resolution, it would not have affected the development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in any way, but at the most it would have worsened the relationship between the Union and Israel.

    It is very wrong when the European Union wants to play world politics because its statements carry no weight. Not only is the competitiveness of the continent in continuous decline, but so is its historically great political significance. For example, the EU has little say in how events unfold in its immediate neighborhood, be it the Middle East, North Africa, the Eastern Partnership countries, or Ukraine.

    In those parts of the world, they are listening to the words of other great powers, not Europe. This is a problem because the stability of the Union’s immediate neighborhood is a key issue for our security. It is difficult for the European Union to show strength. MNot only has it not been able to deal with the migration crisis in a sustainable way — or at all — to this day, but it has also botched the common vaccine procurement, and we do not have high hopes for a common “green card” either. The European Union cannot defend its external borders, and this is also evident from the fact that many thousands of people simply broke through this week from Morocco to the Spanish exclave of Ceuta.

    The prestige of EU diplomacy is better characterized by the fact that High Representative Josep Borrell has been ridiculed in Moscow, then Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is not offered a chair, and even Charles Michel, president of the European Council, has been repeatedly humiliated in Brussels due to the awkward situation despite having had apologized nearly every hour.

    From this awkward stance do they really want to dictate to Israel, Russia, or China what to do?

    Additionally, they want to solve the problems according to the most beautiful Brussels tradition, by breaking down opposition. There is more and more talk about moving from consensus to majority decision-making, thereby further undermining national sovereignty. Is this really what the EU has learned from the migration disaster and Brexit?

    Title image: European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, center rear, and EU ambassadors attend a meeting of European Union foreign ministers, via video link, at the European Council building in Brussels, Tuesday, May 18, 2021. European Union foreign ministers debated Tuesday how to use the 27-nation bloc’s political clout to help diplomatic efforts to end the fighting between the Israeli armed forces and Palestinian militants. (Olivier Hoslet, Pool via AP)

  • Hungary urges more free trade agreements with Far East at EU conference

    Hungary urges the European Union to establish institutional, close, active and effective cooperation with the free trade area in the far East as soon as possible, emphasized Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó. He added that the European Union must forget political preconditions because they do not make any sense.

    “Don’t confuse things with trade and the economy that have nothing to do with either,” Szijjártó said during a one-day meeting of EU foreign and trade ministers in Brussels.

    Hungary pointed out that forging closer ties with the Far East free-trade area should be a priority; failure to do so would result in a huge loss to the European Union and could also affect trade between member states.

    “Urgent action is needed to restore the European Union’s weight in the world economy and global trade,” Szijjártó said, adding that this is especially important for the Hungarian economy. Hungary is a country with an export-to-GDP ratio above 83 percent; last year, it was able to show the 11th highest export ratio in the world.

    He stated that a new global trade and world economic order had emerged — due to the pandemic, among other things — causing global trade to fall 9.2 percent last year. Another argument in favor of Hungary’s proposal is that the Far East has created the world’s largest-ever free-trade zone, encompassing 15 countries and accounting for 30 percent of global GDP and 28 percent of the world’s population. The third reason for the new reality is that the East has reduced its technological and financing gap with the West, which means it has shifted the gravitational point of global trade to the East, Szijjártó said.

    In this context, the FM highlighted, 2020 was the first year in which the United States traded more with China than with the European Union, and in 20 years, the European Union’s share of global GDP fell from 24 percent to 18 percent. This is because the EU has begun to overburden its trade agreements and confuse them with things that have nothing to do with economic or trade cooperation, he said.

    The fact that the EU imposes preconditions on trade agreements, whether it wants to use political, gender or human rights clauses as a precondition, creates a situation where there will be no one to trade with. Now that global trade is more important than ever before in terms of world economic processes, it would be a huge mistake to maintain this practice, Szijjártó declared.

    Title image: Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó (L) and President-in-Office of the European Union and Portugal’s Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva (R) during a meeting of EU trade ministers in Brussels on May 20, 2021. (MTI/EPA/Pool/Francisco Seco) 

  • Hungary would have lost HUF 500 billion (€1.43 billion) without the use of Eastern vaccines

    Without the use of Russian and Chinese coronavirus vaccines, Hungary would have suffered, both in terms of more casualties during the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic and because its economy would have had to endure the restrictive measures for a longer period of time, Tamás Menczer, state secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said on Thursday.

    Menczer said that 4 million people had been vaccinated by April 30 in Hungary, a figure that would have only been reached in the second half of July without the Chinese and Russian vaccines.

    During the complete shutdown, the Hungarian economy suffered a loss of HUF 10-15 billion in just one day, meaning that Hungary gained more than HUF 500 billion (€1.43 billion) by purchasing vaccines from the East, Menczer said on Thursday.

    The state secretary pointed out that thanks to vaccines from Russia and China, Hungarian vaccination data are far better than the European average. Close to 50 percent of the population has already received at least their first dose of a vaccine, compared to the European average of over 32 percent.

    “By April 30, 4 million people had been vaccinated; without the Eastern vaccines, this number would only have been reached in the second half of July, so the previous restrictions would have remained in place for one and a half to two months. Thanks to our vaccine purchase policy, life could return to normal sooner,” Menczer said.

    According to the latest data from May 19, the 49.04 percent vaccination rate in Hungary is second only to Malta (56.33 percent) in the European Union and well ahead of Finland (39.12 percent) and Germany (38.02 percent). THE EU vaccination average, meanwhile, is 32.55 percent.

    Title image: Syringes at a vaccination center to administer the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine at the army barracks in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, May 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

  • Historic heroin seizure in Romanian Black Sea port of Constanța

    Romanian authorities made a massive heroin seizure in the Black Sea port of Constanța on May 10, after a police operation involving nine European countries, Hungary amongst them, daily Magyar Nemzet reports.

    During the operation, authorities seized 1,452 kilograms (3,200 pounds) of heroin in two shipping containers with a street value of HUF 1.75 billion (€5 million), one of the largest drug busts in the European Union in recent years.

    The heroin, hidden in two containers between building materials and destined for Western Europe, is said to have originated in Iran and was seized in the port of Constanta on May 10, according to the Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT).

    On Thursday, law enforcement agencies searched three Romanian houses and carried out five more raids in two Western European countries. Romania said it had received support from a number of agencies, including the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest, Europol and Eurojust, as well as judicial authorities from eight EU countries.

    U.S. sources told daily Magyar Nemzet that special anti-drug investigators from these EU countries — Hungary, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and France — prevented the smuggling of one and a half tons of high-purity heroin into Western Europe with their excellent cooperation.

    The same American source pointed out that the work of Hungarian special investigators was pivotal; they were said to be “decisive” in the elimination of the organization that smuggled shipments from the Iranian border with Afghanistan to Europe.

    Title image: Part of the heroin found in the Black Sea port of Constanța. (source: Romanian Police) 

  • During the pandemic, the EU was often part of the problem rather than the solution, Hungarian Justice Minister says

    “The European Parliament was often part of the problem, rather than the solution, during the pandemic,” Hungarian Justice Minister Varga wrote on her Facebook page. Her comment came after Thursday’s EU agreement on the so-called green passports, which do not automatically include all coronavirus vaccines administered in Hungary.  

    Varga went on to state in her post that the situation doesn’t seem to be any different in the negotiations on the European Digital Green Certificate. “While the member states agree on what kind of certificate they would consider acceptable for their citizens, MEPs are blocking the agreement.”

    Varga added that involving the European Parliament in the process added an unnecessary layer of complexity.

    “As the negotiations concern measures restricting free movement in order to protect public health, member states believe that this system can be implemented without the involvement of the European Parliament, thus hearing its position is simply a gesture.”

    Varga wrote that “the situation is well illustrated by the fact that the news portal Politico, which cannot be accused of promoting the idea of ​​a Europe of nations, has also noticed the increasing number of national governments asking the same question: Why should they suddenly involve the European Parliament in decisions that have not even been agreed upon with their neighbors in the last year?”

    On a more general note, Varga added that the fundamental issue is that Brussels institutions are vying for more power instead of granting member states more latitude in regulating various areas.

    “This is exactly the question we should ask more and more often. The European institutions take it for granted that the development of the Union is only possible by taking more and more powers away from the member states. We think differently. Only strong member states can build a strong Europe.”

    As to the conferences on the future of the European Union, Varga said member states need a smarter, not more, Europe. 

    “One of the key issues in the series of conferences on the future of Europe, launched on May 9, is the direction in which the European Union moves forward. We share the approach of transferring competencies to the Union only in cases in which the member states are unable to carry out the task effectively. We need a smarter Europe, not more, and this has finally been recognized by the liberal media too,” she wrote.

    Title image: Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga. (MTI)

  • Hungarian employment numbers better than before pandemic, ministry says

    Thanks to the Enterprise Support for Workforce program, there has been a significant increase in labor market demand for disadvantaged members of society, Secretary of State of Employment Policy Sándor Bodó at the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (ITM) said in a statement on Wednesday.

    Bodó added that the opportunity presented by the program, available since October last year, has helped employ 10,000 young or lower-skilled job seekers. According to Bodó, the effectiveness of crisis management is the basis for a successful restart of the economy and proof of that is that more people work in Hungary today than before the outbreak of the coronavirus epidemic.

    Hungary’s performance in improving employment indicators is also outstanding in international comparison, and thanks to the joint efforts of the last decade to build a work-based economy and society, almost 4.7 million people work in the country, Bodó said.

    In order to further expand employment, the ministry considers it necessary to provide targeted support to social groups that have more difficulties in terms of employment opportunities. Since the autumn of 2020, the Enterprise Workforce Support has encouraged employers to employ the less skilled and those under 25, giving a total of up to 25,000 job seekers access to work. Employers must provide newly hired employees in the program jobs for at least five months.

    Bodó emphasized that the amount of support for full-time employment is half of the wage cost per month, i.e. the gross wage and social contribution tax, with an upper limit of 100,000 forints (€285). Thus, employers can receive a total of up to half a million forints per job seeker. Thanks to the program, two-thirds of those already in employment are young and one-third have lower education levels.

    Most jobs benefitting from the program are found in the less developed eastern counties of Bács-Kiskun, Békés and Hajdú-Bihar, mainly in trade and repair of motor vehicles (23 percent), construction (21 percent), manufacturing (16 percent) and hospitality (11 percent). The majority of job seekers — almost 5,000 people — were employed by micro and small enterprises, so the support will further strengthen the SME sector.

    The Business Workforce Support Program continues to accept applications at the employment departments of the local district offices on an ongoing basis.

    Title image: Opel engine plant i Szentgotthárd, western Hungary. (source: Origo)

  • Israeli ambassador: We appreciates Hungary’s support in the EU

    Israel appreciates the support Hungary is lending it within the European Union, the Jewish state’s ambassador to Budapest, Yacov Hadas-Handelsman, said in an interview with news and opinion portal Mandiner.

    Asked about the improvement in bilateral relations over the past decade, Handelsman said the reasons are many, but the most important one is that change in the two peoples’ attitudes towards one another.

    “Things are changing, and we live in a constantly changing world. Hungarian and Israeli attitudes towards the other have also changed, and very good relations have been established between the two countries,” Handelsman said.

    “I see a fundamental change in the attitudes of the two peoples, but of course it also required governments and personal political connections. Relationships have a broad basis: synchronization between our economic sectors, such as hi-tech; then tourism, since both peoples are happy to visit the other country, religious tourism is particularly lively; and there are a lot of business and study relations between the two countries. For example, in Israel the proportion of doctors graduating in Hungary is higher year by year, medical training is excellent here. And of course a lot of Israelis have Hungarian ancestors, many of them also speak Hungarian, so somehow they are still part of Hungarian culture. And then we didn’t even talk about goulash and falafel: both peoples love each other’s food.”

    In reply to Mandiner’s question about how Fidesz was able to shake the perception that it was an anti-Semitic party, the ambassador said that the key was the change in the conservative Hungarian government’s perception of Second World War history.

    “Fidesz is a right-wing, as is the Consolidation (Likud) in Israel. A good relationship developed between Viktor Orbán and Benjamin Netanyahu. However, I believe that the way in which the Hungarian government began to relate to the history of Hungary between the two world wars and the Second World War played a decisive role in the rapprochement — this is highly valued by Israel, so it contributed greatly to the excellent relationship between the two countries,” Handelsman said.

    “In their statements, Hungarian political leaders acknowledged Hungary’s role and responsibility in the Holocaust, acknowledging that the Hungarian state had betrayed its citizens of Jewish origin at that time. The other factor is that, compared to European countries, there are few anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish communities in Hungary, meaning it is safe to live in Hungary as a Jew.”

    “A religious Orthodox Jew can walk down the street here at any time without being subjected to an atrocity,” Handelsman said, adding that areas of further improvement in bilateral relations included technology and know-how transfer from Israel to Hungary and Israeli companies cooperation with the important car manufacturing industry in Hungary.

    Title image: Israeli ambassador to Budapest Yacov Hadas-Handelsman. (Mandiner/Márton Ficsor)

  • Hungary’s 2022 budget focuses on ‘rebooting’ economy

    Hungary’s 2022 budget is targeting a robust 5.2 percent economic growth while simultaneously reducing — even if only by a small margin — the country’s public debt ratio, Finance Minister Mihály Varga said in parliament on Wednesday during the debate of the budget bill.

    He emphasized that next year’s budget will focus on the economic relaunch action plan, which is the largest economic program in the history of modern Hungary. Implementing the action plan will allow everyone affected by the epidemic to recover, he said.

    He explained that this also means that budget funds are also used so that everyone who has lost their job can get it back or get a new job, and every entrepreneur who has had to close their business can restart or, if possible, continue to develop.

    Varga emphasized that supporting families and businesses, implementing job-creating investments, and developing health care and higher education contribute to boosting the economy.

    “The goal is for Hungary to be one of the five most successful countries in the European Union by 2030, and the crisis will continue to be managed not only by austerity but by increasing subsidies and tax cuts, putting the budget deficit and public debt on a declining path again,” he said.

    He indicated that based on Hungary’s internal resources and strong expansion capacity, the bill envisages a deficit target of 5.9 percent of GDP, moderate inflation of 3 percent, and dynamic economic growth of 5.2 percent. A key goal remains to put the debt ratio on a declining path so that public debt falls below 80 percent this year after 80.4 percent last year and to 79.3 percent of GDP next year, he explained.

    He noted that the conservative planning approach of previous years was also preserved, so a 233-billion-forint (€660 million) safety reserve was created to manage the risks arising from the changing circumstances and to finance unexpected expenses.

    The minister also spoke about the fact that, considering the structure of the 2022 budget, the proposal preserves the two basic pillars of this year’s budget: the Health Insurance and Epidemic Protection Fund has about 3.6 trillion forints available for health care and, if necessary, epidemiological expenditure, while the economic restart action plan includes an amount of 13 percent of GDP, amounting to 7,308 billion forints.

    Title image: Hungarian Finance Minister Mihály Varga presents the 2022 budget in Parliament on May 19, 2021. (MTI/Zsolt Szigetváry)

  • EU should stop migration instead of promoting it, Justice Minister Varga says

    Wednesday’s debate in the European Parliament about the Commission’s report on legal immigration was entirely along the wrong lines, Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga said in a Facebook post.

    “While the whole world is busy fighting against the coronavirus, in Brussels the left-wing parties have once again put the promotion of migration on their agenda. The Brussels elite, who are happy to promote multiculturalism, have discussed a new migration report, which does not even include proposals to strengthen border protection or stop illegal migration,” Varga wrote. “On the other hand, it calls for the resettlement of migrants in Europe by referring to human rights.”

    She said the debate and the report it was based on show the disconnect of Brussels bureaucrats from the real-world problems of Europeans.

    “If something, this shows well how far Brussels is from people’s real problems,” the Hungarian justice minister wrote, adding that the Hungarian position remains clear: migration should not be supported and encouraged but stopped.

    “The left-wing, hiding behind the comfortable slogan of solidarity, is trying to gloss over the problems instead of solving them. If we really want to help our fellow human beings in trouble, we need to treat migration locally, eliminating its root causes. Hungary has recognized that a long time ago, and together with the Hungary Helps program, it will continue to take serious steps to ensure that everyone can live in peace in their own country.”

    Finally, she noted that instead of promoting migration, the Brussels bureaucracy should concentrate its efforts on tackling the still existent coronavirus pandemic.

    “The coronavirus pandemic is not over yet, so it would be timely for Brussels to finally focus on people’s real problems,” Varga wrote.

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

  • Hungarian FM: V4 countries could be winners in post-pandemic world order

    The Visegrád Four (V4) Group, through its collective efforts and strategic partnership, could emerge as one of the victors of a post-pandemic world order, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said during a press conference last week.

    While speaking to members of the press after a meeting between V4 foreign ministers in the city of Lodz in central Poland, the Hungarian foreign minister highlighted that the cultural, political, and economic cooperation shared between the four Visegrád countries Hungary, Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia was beginning to pay dividends, Index reports.

    “As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s not an exaggeration to speak about a new global order emerging in both political and economic spheres,” Szijjártó said. “Close cooperation between the V4 countries ensures a rapid economic recovery in the future and allows the group to be among the winners of this new global order.”

    After lauding the joint efforts between V4 countries which effectively nixed mandatory migrant distribution quotas from being implemented at an EU level, Szijjártó also noted that the alliance’s common-sense-approach to economic and security policy has resulted in Central Europe becoming the most appealing region in Europe to invest in.

    Szijjártó underlined that Central Europe is now a major supplier to German industry, the “backbone of the European economy,” adding that the volume of trade between the Visegrád Group and Germany surpassed €300 billion in 2019.

    During comments on Central Europe’s disciplined fiscal policies, relatively low taxes, and US President Joe Biden’s plan to implement a global corporate tax rate, the foreign minister said: “Hungary will never support any minimum tax at the global level. We will not raise taxes under international pressure. We will not raise taxes under international pressure; retaining tax policy making as a national competency is a guarantee for our competitiveness.”

    Szijjártó also reaffirmed Hungary’s interest in a strong Europe, which he said “cannot exist without strong Christian values and communities”. Therefore, the Hungarian government will “continue to support persecuted Christians in the world and insist that Europe’s fundamental Christian values be reinforced,” he added.

    In his concluding remarks, the Hungarian minister said that he hoped that agreements could be reached soon that would result in COVID-19 immunity certificates being mutually accepted between V4 members.

    Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Zbigniew Rau also held a brief press conference where he spoke about priorities which he believes the V4 countries should focus on in the near future.

    “One of the priorities of the Visegrád Group in the coming years and months should be to support the Eastern Partnership countries and the Western Balkans, both in terms of combating the pandemic and Euro-Atlantic aspirations,” said Rau.

    Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic Jakub Kulhánek, during his remarks, praised the cooperation between the V4 countries during the pandemic, which he “hopes will continue in the post-Covid period”. He also emphasized the alliance’s shared goal that a common European immunity certificate would be established so as to allow safe travel within the bloc this summer.

    Presently, the Visegrád Group — as a single economic unit — has the 4th highest gross domestic product in the European Union, and the 15th highest in the entire world.

     

  • PM Orbán and former Slovak PM Dzurinda clash over different visions of Central Europe

    In a recent interview, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán expressed his view that the Visegrád Four countries of Hungary, Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia, should find their own voice and create a political counterweight in the European Union dominated by the Franco-German alliance. He has also expressed the view that Europe’s indigenous culture rooted in Christian values will survive and thrive in the Central and Eastern European region, while the West will be dominated by Islam.

    His former counterpart and long-time political critic, former Slovakian Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda (1998-2006), has reacted to the above thesis by saying that creating a direct counterweight to the Franco-German cooperation would be damaging because such a goal would not contribute to the spirit of European unity, but would instead weaken it.

    Dzurinda has implicitly criticized Orbán for pursuing a form of national “egoism” that prevents the Visegrád countries to act in unison. He has named some examples, such as the fact that Hungary has not expelled any Russian diplomats unlike other V4 countries over the munition warehouse explosion in Czechia as well as Hungary’s reluctance to criticize China for its human rights record, or for Hungary trying to block European recovery funds being tied to the rule of law.

    Dzurinda has called the EU a “blessing” for Slovakia but warned against some attempts by EU institutions to take away powers from member states and interfere in matters of national, cultural or religious identity. In his view, the influence of progressives and their political correctness should be rolled back. Yet, he also warned against a polarized view of a “decadent West” on the one side, and a “sunny and happy East” on the other.

    In his view, this concept is unrealistic, and it brings divisions into the EU, even though he claims such a depiction could play well among supporters of Orbán.

    Only hours after the publication of Dzurinda’s objection, Orbán had posted his reply on the official website of the Hungarian prime minister. He claims that the V4 countries have not achieved their goals in finding a proportionate realization of their goals in the European Union, and claims that Central European nations are discriminated against within its institutions. This, he says, will not change until the V4 countries fail to stand up for their own interests more emphatically.

    In his reaction to Dzurinda, Orbán lays out a number of examples in which their region is still not on par with Western European countries. For instance, the European common market brings €1,074 in extra revenue for a French citizen, €1,046 EUR for a German, while only €408 for a Hungarian citizen. Furthermore, when one compares the amount of money that Central European countries receive from European development funds with the profits that are exported from their countries by Western investors, then the deficit comes to 80 percent to Hungary’s disadvantage, and in Slovakia’s case the number is over 90 percent.

    Orbán also lists examples when the Central-Eastern region was put under pressure by vested interests of the major European powers. The European mobility pack, for instance, has resulted in an enormous loss for the Eastern transport and logistics sector, the brain-drain of graduates and qualified workers towards Western markets or, perhaps most notably, migrant quotas that are being forced on the region by countries with multi-ethnic societies.

    Orbán concludes his reply with a question to the former Slovak PM: “Dear Mikuláš, should we not behave with others from the West like an equal member state? Is it not time for organizing ourselves and to stand up for our interests? Why should we remain the EU’s suckers? Slovaks and Hungarians deserve more than this.”

    Three other former Slovak prime ministers were also asked by the authors of the original Orbán interview as to what they think about his views concerning a Central European cooperation. One of them, Peter Pellegrini (2018-2020), was overwhelmingly critical of Orbán’s vision, but the other two, Robert Fico (2006-10 and 2012-18) and Ján Čarnogurský (1991-1992), were in favor of amplifying the voice of the region within European structures.

  • PM Orbán meets Rheinmetall AG president Armin Papperger

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met on Tuesday in his office Armin Papperger, president of Rheinmetall AG, one of the main defense contractors operating in Hungary, daily Magyar Hírlap writes.

    The head of the Düsseldorf-based company discussed the expansion of the strategic partnership in Hungary. During the visit, the parties signed co-operation agreements on the joint development and production of short-range air defense weapon systems and turret weapons, as well as special medium-caliber grenades.

    Orbán’s press secretary Bertalan Havasi said that at the meeting with the prime minister on Tuesday, which was also attended by Minister of Innovation and Technology László Palkovics and Government Commissioner Gáspár Maróth, the regional strategy of the jointly owned Rheinmetall Hungary joint venture was discussed. They looked at how other countries could be involved as partners in the initiative, which is unique in Europe.

    Hungary announced last August that it will purchase Lynx infantry fighting vehicles (IFV) from Rheinmetall for €2 billion ($2.38 billion), the biggest single defense deal since the conservative Orbán-cabinet came to power in 2010. Later, Hungary also announced that a good chunk of the order will be manufactured in a joint venture company in the country.


     

    The parties agreed that the joint investments started so far, such as the Lynx combat vehicle factory in Zalaegerszeg, will greatly promote Hungary’s economic, industrial and technical development and job creation. These projects will make a significant contribution not only to the sovereignty of Hungary, but also to the development of European defense capabilities, and thus to the implementation of strategic autonomy, the press chief said.

    Hungary is also in talks with Rheinmetall regarding the purchase of Oerlikon air defense systems, turret-mounted auto-cannons mainly used against drone swarms, against which conventional air defense missiles are ineffective. There was no word on that deal after the meeting.

    Title image: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (L) meets Armin Papperger, president of Rheinmetall AG. (Prime Minister’s Press Office)

  • Hungary’s ruling conservatives submit anti-pedophile bill to parliament

    Hungary’s ruling conservative party Fidesz has submitted a tougher anti-pedophile law to parliament, caucus leader Máté Kocsis announced on his Facebook page.

    “Every well-meaning person is shaken, but it especially worries us parents when we hear about pedophile crimes in the news. It is not all right for our children to come across content that is inappropriate for their age in more and more places, but it is also wrong that pedophiles are often punished too lightly,” Kocsis said when submitting the bill on Tuesday.

    “Children need to be protected, and the perpetrators hit harder, which is why we will be presenting the anti-pedophile package to parliament next week. The first point is a searchable pedophile register of those who have committed sexual offenses against children should be established. In many cases, this can prevent pedophiles from getting close to children again.”

    The 40-year-old Kocsis, a lawyer by profession, is married with two children.

    On May 8 of this year, Hungarian police from the Cybercrimes Division of the National Bureau of Investigation working with counter-terrorism units raided and searched a number of homes, taking four Hungarians into custody for allegedly distributing child pornography.

    One of them was charged with sexually abusing his own child while another was charged with abusing his own 4-year-old sibling. 

    In January of this year, a Sudanese woman was charged with possessing child pornography and drugs. 

    Title image: Fidesz caucus leader Máté Kocsis in Parliament. (MTI/Tamás Kovács)

  • Hungary’s vaccination rate outpaces US

    The Hungarian vaccination rate overtook that of the United States and currently the country is fourth in the world, news and opinion portal Mandiner writes.

    Within the European Union, the speed of vaccinations in Hungary has been accelerated for a month. In May, the country led the European ranking together with Malta. On Sunday, Hungary also reached the top of the world rankings: ahead of Chile, it is now fourth in the world rankings after Israel, Bahrain and the United Kingdom.

    Cabinet minister Gergely Gulyás said earlier that the third wave of the epidemic had hit Hungary hard, but the number of new infections and deaths had fallen dramatically as a result of the vaccinations. He added that the more people vaccinate themselves, the faster the epidemic can be pushed back.

    Vaccination rates allows for gradual reopening

    The number of people vaccinated was 4,690,000 on Monday, with the government forecasting the rate could reach the 6 million mark after Pentecost.

    Chief Medical Officer Cecília Müller added that inoculations are ongoing at every vaccination point, and there is now an abundance of vaccines. She said it is up to the individual to make use of the vaccine. She said that while AstraZeneca and Sputnik V vaccines are now only available in limited numbers, the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine is available at vaccination points. Additional shipments of Pfizer are expected and 38,400 J&J vaccines arrived on Monday.

    The chief medical officer stressed that the epidemiological data is developing favorably, and Hungary is nearing the end of the descending phase of the third wave thanks to protection measures and vaccinations.

    According to the latest May 16 data, the inoculation rate in Hungary stands at 47.09 percent, second only in the European Union to Malta (55.04 percent) and well ahead of Finland (38.1 percent) and Germany (36.5 percent). The EU average is 31.08 percent.

  • German firms want to keep investing in Hungary: opinion

    Here is the latest and perhaps the best stamp of approval for Hungary’s economic policy: the Hungarian economy has never been evaluated as favorably by the leaders of German companies as it is now. Yet, we are still recovering from a 5 percent decline last year, and life, along with the economy, is only just beginning to return to normal. Still, economic relations between Germany and Hungary are extremely intensive and show dynamic development even after the economic shock of the coronavirus pandemic.

    As for the big headline numbers, Germany has traditionally been a leader in Hungary’s export markets with a share of around 30 percent. Moreover, if we consider each province as an independent country, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg are in themselves the most important markets for export products produced in Hungary.

    There are a very few not familiar with the saying: “If Germany sneezes, Hungary will catch a cold.”

    Nowadays, the close relationship between the German and Hungarian economies is customary. The statement is backed by facts. Namely, we have been able to reach a new record every year since 2016 in terms of the volume of trade in Hungarian-German economic and trade relations. The value of our exports to Germany stands at about €30 billion.

    German-Hungarian economic and trade relations are important not only for us, but also for Germany. If we take the Central European region, trade with the Germans has already reached the German-French level, and overall there is more German capital in this region than in China. And if we look at the trade with individual countries, our country has reached the level of Sweden.

    In any case, according to this year’s economic report of the German-Hungarian Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DUIHK), German business leaders operating in Hungary would again choose Hungary as an investment destination more than ever before, most of them would expand their domestic activities, and the mood index has greatly improved.

    More about the specifics: 88 percent (!) of company executives would still implement their investment in Hungary in the same way as before. In addition, in terms of Hungary’s economic performance and the rate of growth this year, the leaders of German companies agree with the Hungarian government. While German-Hungarian political relations could be, to put it mildly, better, there is no shadow over economic relations.

    Furthermore: it may come as a surprise, but the perception of the Hungarian administration among German managers has improved, there are now more people who are satisfied with this area.

    What can the future bring? The developments of the large German car manufacturers — Audi, Mercedes and BMW — are still gigantic compared to the size of the Hungarian economy, but more and more German small and medium-sized entrepreneurs are relocating, usually as second-tier suppliers of multinationals.

    The future may expand in the sense that many companies may relocate their production activities from Asia to Europe, and it is a novelty that almost half of them have targeted our region and Western Europe.

    That is, German capital is looking for its place and is looking at the Central European region with the same confidence as the world beyond Austria. The leap is even more impressive if we consider that in 1989, with the exception of a few joint ventures, German investments were scarce in Hungary.

    Title image: Mercedes plant in Kecskemét, central Hungary. (source: Mercedes/Szilárd Dudar)

  • Hungary to build vaccine plant to supply country and region

    Hungary will shortly begin building its own vaccine plant in the eastern Hungarian town of Debrecen, State Secretary for Economic Strategy and Regulation László György said on Monday.

    “The countdown has started: the foundation stone of the national vaccine factory will be laid in Debrecen in a hundred days,” László said at the daily press briefing of the coronavirus operation group.

    He emphasized that pharmaceutical production is one of the most profitable industries in the world, so the Hungarian vaccine factory — in addition to serving the health interests of the people living here — can also offer an economic benefit to the county, create high added value and thus high wages, while also creating additional jobs. The state secretary also confirmed that the University of Debrecen has the necessary knowledge to ensure the self-sufficiency of the vaccine factory from the end of 2022 for vaccines against epidemics and infectious diseases for Hungarians and the Carpathian Basin.

    “If everything goes according to plan, the Hungarian coronavirus vaccine will be available by the end of next year,” László said.

    Hungary’s chief medical officer, Cecília Müller, said they wanted to develop a domestic vaccine using the strains — including the British mutation — that are currently common among the population.

    “The vaccine will be similar to the vaccine against the flu virus and the encephalitis,” he said.

    The chief medical officer said in connection with the epidemiological data that the third wave of the epidemic had been broken thanks to vaccinations. According to her information, so far more than 47 percent of the Hungarian population has been vaccinated, which is significantly more than the EU average. She said that there are currently plenty of vaccines in Hungary, and shipments of vaccines continue to arrive: 34,800 doses of J&J vaccine and further Pfizer shipments arrived on Monday, which is why Hungary has extended vaccination registration for another day until Wednesday.

    Registration in Hungary is currently open when there are sufficient vaccines to satisfy demand.

    Title image: MTI/Attlia Balázs

  • Hungarian F1 race will be open to public in August

    Amid a recent batch of bad news and race cancellations which sent the Formula 1 management scrambling to reshuffle its summer schedule, there is at least one bit of good news from Hungary: the Hungaroring F1 Grand Prix will be open to the public.

    Tamás Schanda, state secretary at the Ministry of Information and Technology, announced in a Facebook video on Sunday that spectators will be allowed to attend this year’s race. Last year’s competition, won by Britain’s Lewsi Hamilton, was held behind closed doors.

    Formula One management announced in late April that it would cancel the Canadian Grand Prix on the weekend of June 13 after restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus epidemic made it impossible for the teams to travel to Montreal. Canada. The race, which was also cancelled in 2020, was originally supposed to be replaced with Turkey, but shortly after the official announcement, it became uncertain whether the Istanbul race could actually happen.

    Turkey was put on the UK Red List last week due to the deteriorating epidemic, a major hit to Formula 1 since seven of the ten teams are based in Britain. Under the current rules, those entering Britain are required to be quarantined for ten days, and as the organizers of the Azerbaijani Grand Prix refused to change dates (much of the quarantine would expire due to two consecutive weekends), team members would not be able to return home for six weeks following the crowded calendar as well as the quarantine rule.

    Mugello, Nürburgring and Hockenheim were also mentioned as possible replacements for the Istanbul race, but according to German magazine Auto Motor und Sport, the F1 management did not contact the organizers of the latter two grand prix locations. There have also been rumors that France or Austria could host two races this year — as was already the case in Spielberg and Silverstone in 2020 — but the race calendar would have become very crowded if the second race had been added after the original date.

    The management, on the other hand, stood by its goal of going through the record-breaking season of 23 races, which led to a major overhaul of the early summer program: the Turkish Grand Prix was canceled and the weekend of June 13 was left free, originally from June 25 to The French Grand Prix, scheduled for 27, has been brought forward a week, while Austria, like last year, will double up this year on the weekends of June 27 and July 4.

    The Hungarian Grand Prix is the country’s single largest sporting event, attracting around 200,000 paying visitors in a normal year.

    Title image: Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain, left, celebrates with his team after winning the Hungarian Formula One Grand Prix at the Hungaroring racetrack in Mogyorod, Hungary, Sunday, July 19, 2020. (Joe Klamar/Pool via AP)

  • Hungarian industrial growth highest in EU in March

    Domestic industry expanded by 4 percent in the first quarter despite the fact that the automotive industry, which has the highest weight and growth potential in Hungary, fell by 3.6 percent. The overall growth spurt despite the slowdown in automobile production shows that Hungarian industry has a balanced structure and has several strong points.

    In addition, the temporary stagnation in the automotive industry did not happen because there were no orders. Instead, the overriding factor is that the global raw material supply chain has serious bottlenecks and delays at the moment, which has had a negative impact on the entire world’s automotive industry, including Hungary.

    The data also indicates that there is huge growth potential for Hungarian industry this year. If the supply problems caused by the COVID-19 crisis affecting the operation of the world economy are resolved and the restrictive measures are eased not only in Hungary but also elsewhere, there will be a significant demand for our country’s industrial products.

    Let us not forget in 2020 in Germany alone, there were hundreds of billions of euros in extra savings from simply not being able to spend their disposable income during the epidemic. This is almost three quarters of the annual performance of the Hungarian GDP. The savings rate of Hungarian households also increased by almost 30 percent compared to the pre-crisis level, which could have resulted in additional savings of up to 700 billion forints (€1.97 billion) in 2020.

    We are working to give Hungarian industrial capacities an even bigger role in meeting the soon-to-increase global demand. That is why when creating the economic protection action plan a year ago, we decided to allocate 1,000 billion forints in investment incentives in order to maintain the investment level, which helped to realize the investment exceeding 4 percent of the Hungarian GDP. Due to this, after Estonia and Ireland, the Hungarian investment rate is the third highest in 2020 (27.3 percent), which is almost 6-percentage points higher than the EU average.

    So far, we have been working to keep businesses from delaying their capacity-building investments, and now we are working to keep the investment rate high. At the moment, more than 1,700 billion forints of industrial investment are in the pipeline, as many domestic and foreign companies operating in Hungary have announced new ones in the recent period.

    Title image: Electronics parts manufacturing in Székesfehárvár, Hungary. (source: videoton.hu)

  • Deportation of ‘working-class enemies’ began 70 years ago in communist Hungary

    Seventy years ago, in May 1951, the communist police and secret services began the deportation of those considered “enemies of the working-class”. Almost 14,000 high-ranking officers and politicians of the previous regime along with aristocrats, industrialists and their families, were forced from their homes in the capital and were taken to rural areas where they were lodged with the local population.

    By 1948, Soviet-occupied Hungary had finished its transition to a full-blown communist system, with the trio representing the Workers’ Party, Secretary-General Mátyás Rákosi, Minister of Interior Ernő Gerő and Defense Minister Mihály Farkas, serving as the nation’s supreme leaders.

    In the spring of that year, Hungary nationalized all enterprises with more than 100 workers in a government decree. While some aristocrats and former politicians of the previous regime chose to leave the country, many still hoped that the communist rule would be temporary and tried to survive it as best they could.

    Although they could only find menial jobs, they still had their homes and private possessions, and were a thorn in the side of the new regime, especially in Budapest.

    In order to break their resistance and seize their property, Different types of deportation were used, they could be individual or whole families sent to different parts of the country. During the initial mass eviction in the summer of 1950 in Budapest, almost 10,000 people had already been evicted as internees in the labor camps of the Hortobágy plains. One year after his deportations to Hortobágy, from May 21 to July 18, 1951, 13,670 people were officially deported from the districts of the capital to the eastern counties of the country, to 137 settlements and homesteads.

    Hungary’s dictatorship then wanted to get rid of all the layers of society that posed a potential threat to it as a preemptive strike, as it claimed they were enemies of the working class. This included those whose pre-war position, military or other rank, wealth, intellectual capital, or origin was considered a “crime”, as well as those who were not sympathetic to the regime.

    In 1946, communist leader József Révai called for being a class enemy “free and punishable” in the Free Nation party newspaper. Deportations were also seen as a part of the rapid Sovietization prescribed by Stalin.

    The deportations began on May 21, 1951, with an eviction order signed by the ministry of interior without any court proceedings. These were usually served in the dawn hours and families had 24 hours to gather and pack the allowed amount of possessions — usually no more than two suitcases. Their homes were sealed off, and they were taken to rural settlements and had to work as farm hands — if they were lucky. During the winter, there was no work and a few were allowed to travel to cities to procure some food.

    The deportations ended with the 1953 Amnesty Act (Nov. 11), but none of the deported were allowed to return to Budapest or other cities. By that time, their homes have been seized and occupied by the communist elite.

    Title image: Deported Hungarians at farm work in the summer of 1951.

  • Czechia agrees with four countries on recognizing vaccination certificates

    From Saturday, May 15, the Czech Republic will recognize confirmation of vaccination against Covid-19 issued in Poland, Hungary, Austria, and Germany. Minister of Health Petr Arenberger announced this at the meeting of the Committee on Health in the Chamber of Deputies. According to him, Slovakia will also be included in the agreement.

    The agreement between the five countries will take the form of a diplomatic note.

    Arenberger pointed out that it wasn’t entirely easy to formulate the note as, for example, in Hungary, the vaccination card is issued already after the first dose of the vaccine. Hungary is also the only EU country that uses Russian Sputnik V and vaccines from the Chinese companies Sinopharm and CanSino Biologics.

    Measures for travel currently follow the so-called map of the traveler, which divides countries into four categories from low-, medium-, and high-risk to very high risk. Before returning from the most affected countries, which include part of the European Union and third countries, it is necessary to take the Covid-19 test before entering the Czech Republic.

    Due to the possible spread of new variants of the virus, the Czech Ministry of Health has previously banned travel to countries where there is an extreme risk of being infected with these variants. These include Botswana, Brazil, India, South Africa, Kenya, Colombia, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Peru, Swaziland / Eswatini, Tanzania, including the islands of Zanzibar, and Pemba, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

    Title image: Czech health minister Petr Arenberger (Petr Arenberger / Twitter)

  • Pope Francis to conduct closing Holy Mass of Budapest Eucharistic Congress

    The freshly released schedule of the 52nd Eucharistic World Congress confirms that the closing Holy Mass of the congress held between Sept. 5-12 will be pontificated by Pope Francis on Sunday, Sept. 12.

    The congress — as it was postponed by a year due to the coronavirus pandemic — is still officially named the 52nd Eucharistic World Congress 2020.

    The closing mass will begin at 11:30 a.m. local time, with music provided by the 120-member orchestra of the Budapest Opera House and a 2,000-member choir whose core also consists of singers from the opera house.

    During the congress week, there will be many events across the Hungarian capital, most of which will be free, but organizers encourage people to pre-register.

    Between Sept. 6 and Sept. 10, the Hungexpo fair ground in Budapest will host a series of notable guests such as Archbishop José Palma of Cebu; Cardinal Andrew Yom Su Jung, archbishop of Seoul, Moysés Azevedo of Brazil and founder of the Shalom community; and Archbishop Piero Marini, president of the Pontifical Council of International Eucharistic Congresses.

    The Roman Catholic Church usually holds Eucharistic World Congresses every four years. The first one was held in Lille, France in 1881. Budapest already hosted the 34th congress in 1934, with the closing Holy Mass attended by half a million people. 

    Title image: Nuns hand roses to Pope Francis as he arrives in the St. Damaso Courtyard at the Vatican for his weekly general audience, Wednesday, May 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

  • Hungary, Poland, Czechia, and Slovakia establish family-friendly coalition

    The Visegrád Four (V4) countries of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia have established a “family-friendly coalition” at a video conference held on Thursday, Hungarian minister without portfolio for family affairs Katalin Novák said on Thursday.

    “At the heart of Europe, there is a partnership that puts families at the center. We are not looking for answers to the demographic challenges we all face in migration, but in supporting families,” Novák said. The family conference was organized by the Polish presidency of the V4, with fellow ministers Marlena Malag from Poland, Milan Krajniak from Slovakia and Jana Malacová from the Czech Republic in attendance. The parties agreed to coordinate their decisions regarding families and launch joint research.

    Novák emphasized that the common goal of the four countries is for young people to be able to have as many children as they want and for financial barriers not to hinder starting a family.

    “I spoke about Hungarian practice at the conference. In Hungary, we support the fact that if someone thinks about a family, it means they respect their predecessors and feel responsible for their descendants, i.e. they think in the long run,” Novák said.

    She stressed that women should be given the opportunity to reconcile their professional and family lives, not have to choose between the two. She added that the government is also thinking about families during the coronavirus epidemic, with more and more money being spent on their support in this year’s and next year’s budgets. She stressed that the amount dedicated to family support next year will be three times as high as in 2010 when the current conservative government came to power.

    “We have introduced support for babies, Hungary’s largest home creation program, and we will be raising the daycare subsidy from July1. From 2022, people under the age of 25 will be exempt from personal income tax, while mothers raising four children will also enjoy PIT exemption, but I can also mention nursery construction,” she said while listing the government’s achievements.

    Novák also mentioned that a recent Hungarian poll revealed that young people don’t have set timelines when planning a family, adding that similar research should be coordinated among Visegrád member states. She believed that if they could conduct such research at the level of the Visegrád Group, that would be instrumental for better cooperation.

    “Within V4, we monitor each other’s good practices; in Poland, for example, young people already enjoy personal income tax exemptions, although this means slightly fewer discounts than will be in force in Hungary from next January,” Novák said.

    Title image: Hungarian minister without portfolio for family affairs Katalin Novák. (MTI/Prime Minister’s Office)

  • Hungarian army buys armed US river boats

    The Hungarian Armed Forces will take delivery this November of three U.S.-made Special Operations Craft Riverine (SOC-R) boats, armed forces commander Colonel-General Ferenc Korom announced at the closing press conference of a recent seven-nation military exercise in the country.

    “The Armed Forces will be complemented with three American SOC-R river boats,” Korom said. He added that part of the reason for the recently finished month-long “Black Swan 2021” exercise was to test the usefulness of the boats under local conditions. In the exercise, soldiers from Austria, Croatia, Slovakia, and Slovenia perform certain military tasks. In addition, the two sponsoring countries of Germany and the United States are participating, with Germany providing trainers and the US providing both trainers and soldiers.


     

    The idea behind Hungary procuring SOC-R boats first arose in 2010, when it was suggested Hungary could receive some of these as apart of the US’ Excess Defense Articles (EDA) program after an overhaul by the manufacturer. Under the EDA program, allied and partner forces receive military equipment at a reduced cost or in the form of military aid.

    SOC-R ships are high-speed watercraft developed for river patrols and combat with significant onboard armaments. The craft, complete with its tractor trailer, are designed to fit in the cargo hold of C-130 or larger transport aircraft.

    The ship class offers significant firepower. It is equipped with two high-velocity 7.62mm GAU-17 miniguns, a .50 machine gun, two 7.62 mm light machine guns and two 40mm Mk 19 automatic grenade launchers. Driven by two 440-horsepower engines, the boat has a top speed of 40 miles per hour (75 kilometers per hour) and in addition to its crew of four, can transport an additional eight special operations servicemen and their equipment.

    Title image: Special Warfare Combatant Crewmen (SWCC) assigned to Special Boat Team Twenty-Two demonstrate the firepower of the new Special Operations Craft-Riverine (SOC-R) while training at the Stennis Space Center. (U.S. Navy photo by Intelligence Specialist 1st Class Jeremy Richardson.)

  • PM Orbán meets Katalin Karikó, BioNTech VP and co-inventor of mRNA vaccine technology

    Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met in his Budapest office with Hungarian-born biochemist Katalin Karikó and credited her for a good chunk of the work that led to the development of the current modern batch of messenger RNA (mRNA) coronavirus vaccines, Orbán announced on his Facebook page.

    “From Kisújszállás to world fame. We couldn’t have done it without her in Hungary. Thank you, Katalin Karikó!” Orbán wrote.

    The 66-year-old Karikó, from the small town of Kisújszállás in southern Hungary, who was fired from the Szeged Biological Research Center in southern Hungary in 1985, left for the United States where she became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. In 2012, Karikó and Drew Weissman, an immunologist at the same university, received a patent for the use of several modified nucleosides to reduce the antiviral immune response to mRNA.

    In early 2013, when she realized she wouldn’t get the chance to apply her experience with mRNA at the University of Pennsylvania, Karikó accepted a position as senior cice president at BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals.

    The British ethologist Richard Dawkins, as well as the Canadian stem cell biologist Derrick Rossi, who helped found rival biotechnology firm Moderna, have called for Karikó and Weissman to receive a Nobel Prize.

    Title image: BioNTech vice-president Katalin Karikó (L) and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (R) meet in Budapest on May 13. (Prime Minister’s Press Office)

  • Hungarian tax changes could attract crypto companies

    If parliament approves the country’s 2022 tax bill currently under debate, Hungary could be among the first European countries to have clear and unequivocal cryptocurrency regulations, possibly attracting further investments to the country, news portal Origo reports.

    “Although there are no exact data, the value of assets held in cryptocurrencies in Hungary can be estimated at HUF 300 billion (€84 million). Anyone who wanted to access these assets so far has been easily lost due to the lack of clear regulations. Selling cryptocurrency legally is a very complex and difficult process (taxation, money laundering), and neither the regulatory nor the services environment has been fully prepared for it so far,” Kornél Kalocsai, President of the Blockchain Hungary Association told Origo.

    After several consultations, the Ministry of Finance adopted the association’s regulatory proposal and included it in the tax package. The new regulation will take effect starting next year, which will have a significant impact on the lives of many cryptocurrency owners. 

    Countries such as Malta, Estonia and Lithuania introduced their own blockchain and crypto-friendly regulations years ago, resulting in significant capital flows into their economies, new businesses being set up and people settling in these countries; many international crypto companies chose to reside in these countries as well.

    At present, Hungarian law does not regulate crypto instruments. Although the taxation of cryptocurrencies can fall under the logic of the current personal income tax (PIT) law in theory, in practice, there are many actual cases where cryptocurrency owners cannot figure out when and how much tax to pay, nor in what categories. There are only general principles under which a very high tax rate of 26.5 percent is levied on crypto income.

    This will change from January 1, 2022. Based on the changes announced as part of the spring tax package, a separate section of the PIT Act will deal with cryptocurrency instruments. Starting next year, a 15 percent personal income tax will be payable on profits from mining and trading cryptocurrencies, but the income will be exempt from social security contributions, and all costs incurred will be deductible. Also, those who have not paid any taxes on income from cryptocurrencies in the last five years will receive amnesty and can make their payments retroactively without penalty.

    Regulation of this area is not a completely new issue. The so-called Crypto Asset Regulation is currently being developed in the European Union, which would regulate the market for crypto instruments at the Community level, but its appearance in Hungary may take years.

    The advent of the country’s new tax package could mean that Hungary will become an attractive target for international blockchain companies.

    Title image: Blockchain currencies. (Origo/Sándor Csudai)

  • Majority of Romanians fear Hungary will seize Transylvania

    The majority of Romanians still believe that Hungary wants to separate Transylvania from Romania, a recent poll released by the Laboratory of Information Warfare Analysis and Strategic Communication (LARICS) shows.

    According to the poll conducted on a representative sample of 1,000 Romanians, 66.2 percent agree with the statement that Hungary is trying to separate Transylvania from Romania and 63.6 percent agree with the statement that “Hungary is interfering in an unacceptable manner in Romania’s internal affairs”.

    The opinion of the population about the institutions of Romania also held surprises: most trust the army (72.6 percent), followed by the church (57.5 percent) and then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (50 percent). However, only less than half of the population trusts the police, gendarmerie and hospitals.

    Researchers also asked to what extent some of the best-known international politicians were considered “people of peace or war”. Those polled considered Russian President Vladimir Putin as the biggest threat (62.5 percent), followed by Xi Jinping, president of the People’s Republic of China, with 62.5 percent, former US President Donald Trump in third place, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in fourth place with 39.2 percent.

    On the opposite side of the list is French President Emmanuel Macron, who is thought by 82.4 percent of the population to be a “man of peace”, followed by President Klaus Iohannis with 78.7 percent.

    But perhaps the biggest surprise of the poll came in the answers when those polled were asked to rank the “best” vaccines against the COVID-19, with 21.5 percent saying they have not heard of the vaccines and a further 13.6 percent could or would not answer the question.  

  • Biden nominates globalist to head State Department’s European and Eurasian Affairs

    US President Joe Biden has nominated Karen Donfried as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs in another signal that Biden’s foreign policy will take an anti-nationalist, globalist approach.

    Political analyst John Fonte, program director at the Washington Hudson Institute, told Magyar Nemzet that Donfried’s nomination could signal a return to the Obama administration’s European policy. Donfried will be the direct superior of the yet to be nominated Budapest ambassador and reinforce the vehemently anti-Orbán foreign policy line represented by Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.

    “Karen Erika Donfried’s nomination suggests a return to Obama’s policy towards Europe, which is more in favor of Brussels-led EU integration and moving away from Trump’s emphasis on sovereignty and nation-state democracy,” Fonte said. According to other sources questioned by Magyar Nemzet, Donfried is considered a moderate and expert in German policies. She is said to have tried to dissuade Germany from building the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline but was unsuccessful.

    Donfried has a bachelor’s degree in government from Wesleyan University, a masters and PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a magister degree from the University of Munich. Donfried is fluent in German.

    A US diplomat formerly based in Hungary told Magyar Nemzet that to his knowledge the nomination of the new US ambassador to Budapest is still undecided.

    Donald Trump’s appointee to Budapest, David Cornstein, credited with improving U.S.-Hungarian relations, resigned last September and the Budapest mission has since been led by a chargé d’affairs.


     

    In the run-up to the November 2020 US election, political commentators warned that a victory of Biden would be undoubtedly negative for conservative European countries such as Hungary and Poland. 

    Biden referred to both countries as “totalitarian regimes” during a debate before the election, which prompted strong pushback from both Poland and Hungary. Both countries are democracies.

    Following Biden’s remarks before the election, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjarto wrote on social media, “The relationship between Hungary and the United States has never been as good as it is now. The President of the United States [Donald Trump] and the Hungarian Prime Minister take similar views on illegal immigration, border protection, security, supporting families, and protecting Christian communities.”

    “Obviously, this is why the Democratic challenger involved Hungary in the presidential campaign. As far as the specific content of the statement is concerned, it has nothing to do with reality.”

    Title image: Karen Donfried.

     

  • Hungary develops mobile app for vaccine certificate

    Hungarians will shortly be able to download a vaccine certificate application for mobile phones and tablets that is expected to significantly ease travel abroad, daily Magyar Hírlap reports.

    According to the newspaper’s information, the application for the security certificate has been completed, which can be downloaded from app stores to smartphones and tablets within days. It will show more information compared to cards sent by mail after you register in the app.

    It will show when the user of the application received the vaccines (the dates of the first and second vaccinations will also be visible, which may be important in some countries where entry is subject to full protection, which can be calculated after two doses for most vaccines). After the second vaccination, the data will be updated in the application.

    “To our knowledge, the application will also show the type of vaccine received,” Magyar Hírlap wrote.

    This is important because the plastic vaccination certificate issued to all Hungarian citizens after the first vaccine has been administered, only contains the date of the first inoculation. Hungary is the only EU member state which, in order to speed up vaccination, has approved the use of the Russian Sputnik V and China’s Sinopharm vaccines, which do not have the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approval.

    In the absence of that approval, Hungary has concluded a series of bilateral agreements with mostly neighboring countries for the mutual acceptance of vaccine certificates in order to facilitate cross-border travel during the summer holidays. 

    Title image: Hungary’s plastic card vaccination certificate. (Magyar Hírlap/Péter Papajcsik)

  • Merkel’s successor claims Czechia, Poland and Hungary must ‘return to Europe’

    In a sign that conservative countries in Central Europe may come under increasing pressure regardless of who wins Germany’s upcoming federal elections, Angela Merkel’s successor, Armin Laschet, has called on Czechia, Hungary and Poland to return to the core of Europe.

    Laschet, who is portrayed as representing conservatives in Germany as the chancellor candidate of Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is expected to continue the left-ward shift the party experienced under Merkel. At the same time, he has also been portrayed as a candidate seeking compromise and would likely continue the close economic cooperation with Central European nations that Germany has increasingly pursued. As the CDU has shifted left, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has taken up the mantle on conservative positions related to immigration and patriotism. 

    Laschet became the head of the CDU in January. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung about his plans and election program, Laschet said he considered the European Union to be a key organization, but said there was a need for greater unification of countries. In addition, according to Laschet, the EU must offer its members tangible benefits.

    “I agree with (French President Emmanuel) Macron on many things. The European Union must offer its citizens the clear benefits they will really feel. Unlike him, however, I understand the EU as a community, not as an intergovernmental organization,” said Laschet, adding that Europeans must act together in foreign and defense policy.

    “But if needed, a smaller group of states can take the lead,” he added.

    According to Laschet, the coronavirus pandemic had significantly divided Europe, especially in the western and eastern parts. “The Recovery Fund will help reunite Europe, but this is more for the north and the south. But we must also overcome the division between West and East. Germany considers its task to bring Czechia, Hungary, and Poland back to the heart of Europe,“ said Laschet. He added that the EU must act in unison in foreign and defense policy, which seems problematic for the three states.

    Laschet then stated that he was open to changes in the European Union. “But we have to look at it pragmatically, day after day. In the current conditions, we have no better framework in which to operate,“ said the head of the CDU, adding that the EU will make sense in the future, but some states will have to show “appropriate loyalty”.

    Hungary and Poland have pushed back against efforts to federalize Europe over the years, with both countries fearing that a federalized Europe controlled from Brussels would remove decision-making from nation states, cut out representative democracy, and leave countries powerless to stop migration quotas and other open borders policies. 

    Title image: German Christian Democratic Union Party Chairman Armin Laschet briefs the media after a meeting of the party’s board at the headquarters in Berlin, Germany, Monday, May 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, Pool)

  • We have a year to decide Europe’s common future

    What kind of Europe do we want to live in? What should our common home look like? A series of EU conferences on the future of Europe has been launched, which may sound quite elusive and vague, but the point is that we have a year to “finally settle our common affairs”. In the hope that our views will actually be heeded in Brussels, it is worth thinking about what should be done differently.

    During the coronavirus epidemic, nation-states were the primary, most effective actors and if they failed to act in time, Brussels could not have prevented the situation from becoming even more serious. In more than a year of pandemic, many examples have shown that there are problems in Brussels — it is enough to think about the problems presented by joint vaccine procurement — but we can also look back to the beginning of the epidemic when several European countries asked in vain for aid from the Union or fellow European countries.

    Even during the migration crisis, we have seen that EU decision-making often works along a flawed logic: whatever does not work on a voluntary basis, for example, must then become enforced. The mandatory migrant intake quota has not been forgotten, and while it has failed spectacularly, it did send a damaging message: an invitation letter to the millions of asylum seekers flowing to Europe and the human traffickers who profit from them.

    Let us not forget that while Central Europe, and within it the Visegrád Group, has become the engine of the union, elsewhere in the EU the situation is not so rosy. There have been worrying trends even before the epidemic, and in the crisis, millions of Europeans found themselves in a hopeless situation, losing their jobs and their livelihoods. They should be helped while those in Brussels are discussing instead how to further facilitate and legalize migration to Europe.

    When talking about the future of Europe, the issue of security must inevitability be discussed. Mass, uncontrolled immigration is a major security threat in the short term and culturally in the long term. We have experienced how terrorists exploit illegal migration, how traffickers put immigrants in life-threatening situations, how social welfare systems are overburdened and, of course, how ghettos, no-go zones and parallel societies emerge.

    Several western and northern countries have faced how difficult it is to deal with this problem when bad decisions were made decades ago. Nation-states need to protect their borders and their citizens, but that requires sovereignty. If we lived in the United States of Europe, we would not have the right to defend ourselves, we would not be able to stop hundreds of thousands of migrants at the border if the imperial center in Brussels decided that they should be admitted.

    The issue of climate will certainly be a prominent topic in the one-year conference series. During the coronavirus epidemic, the topic was relegated to the background, but it did not go away. Realistic common goals must be set that do not impose a disproportionate burden or damage on our competitiveness.

    The leadership of the European Union does not have to overdo it and, above all, it does not have to have a say in everything. Based on the principle of subsidiarity and, of course, common sense, problems must be tackled at the level that is as close as possible to the people and where it is most effective.

    If control is taken out of our hands, we will not be able to keep all the achievements that have made the Hungarian model based on work, family, innovation, and national identity successful.

    Let us act against the fever dream of the United States of Europe.

  • Social media leads to lack of trust and division, says speaker of Hungarian parliament

    Social media and the spread of fake news undermines public trust, polarizes societies and is a means of manipulation,said President of the Hungarian Parliament László Kövér at a conference of European Union speakers of the house on Monday. The conference was chaired by the presidents of the two chambers of the German federal Parliament, the Bundestag and Bundesrat, and is part of a year-long series of events designed to discuss the future of the European Union.

    Kövér said that the handling of the series of conferences, which will run until the spring of 2022, with the participation of the EU institutions, member states, local authorities and EU citizens, gives the impression that the whole process is a spectacle, with a pre-written scenario and a pre-determined outcome. He emphasized that it was not the European Parliament, the European Commission or the European Council that had the strongest democratic legitimacy in the EU, but national parliaments

    Kövér emphasized that he agreed with his colleagues who were concerned about the “polarization of politics”. As he said, the reason for the division is that “we have lost trust in each other”. He added that trust should not be further undermined and “we need to show that we are interested in the other’s opinion”. The speaker of the Hungarian Parliament emphasized that it must be decided whether censorship in the online sphere without democratic legitimacy and manipulation by fake news should be accepted or rejected.

    However, he added that “the European left, concerned about the threats to democracy and the online sphere” professes the old Bolshevik principle that “the enemies of democracy do not belong to democracy” and it is precisely “they who want to determine who are the enemies of democracy”.

    In his opening remarks, Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), president of the German Bundestag, emphasized that the growing influence of the Internet, social media firms, and the power concentrated in large online companies is a challenge to representative democracy and have a major influence on the most important institutions of representative democracies, the parliaments.

    He said that social media giants that rely on algorithm-based management of people’s attention have fundamentally changed the public. Traditional media lose their filtering and mediating function, and the social media that replaces them with “pockets of public opinion” supports the spread of hatred and misleading information, and divides society.

    This is how the “common space of shared experience and debate” that is absolutely necessary to maintain democracy, especially in an increasingly diverse society, disintegrates, Schäuble said.

    Title image: President of the Hungarian Parliament László Kövér. (Magyar Hírlap/László Katona)

  • We need a multi-polar, smart Europe, says Hungarian justice minster

    Instead of a closer and more centralized Union, what we need is a multi-polar, smart Europe, Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga said in a Facebook video posted on Europe Day on May 9.

    “We Hungarians have always thought in a rational manner about Europe. We have always recognized in time and drawn attention to the difficulties and dangers affecting the continent, and for this reason, in the coming months, the Hungarians may play a key role in an honest dialogue about Europe,” Varga said. “In the coming period, we must seek together the answers to the most pertinent questions regarding Europe: How can it be that the success story of the 20th century can no longer tackle the challenges of the new era? How can it be that the economic area, which once showed the most dynamic development, is now losing ground in the global arena? Why are the responses to the challenges always late and wrong and why is the Union stumbling from crisis to crisis while unity seems to be breaking?”

    After the questions, Varga also gave her answer.

    “The most important learning of the past decade is that instead of more and closer Union we need a multi-polar, smarter Europe. The future of Europe cannot be planned without respect for national constitutions, a culture of consensus and the equality of the member states,” Varga said, adding that in the next installments she will detail her country’s plans.

    “In the coming week, I will give a detailed presentation of the Hungarian proposals, which will lay the foundation of an active and successful Europe. There is no European Union without Hungary,” Varga said.

    This year, the European Union celebrated Europe Day with a 90-minute video featuring songs from all member states opened by Hungarian pop singer Gabi Tóth preforming a traditional Hungarian folk song. 


     

     

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

  • Hungary and Romania now recognize each other’s vaccination certificates

    With the future of the European Union’s so-called green passport system uncertain, Hungary is striving for bilateral agreements both for its citizens looking to travel abroad and in order to revive domestic tourism. After having had reached accord with several non-EU member Balkans countries, now Romanian Prime Minister Florin Cîțu has announced that the two countries mutually recognize one another’s vaccination certificates.

    Romania is Hungary’s second-largest neighbor by population after the Ukraine.

    Cîțu held a press conference in Constanţa, the hub of the country’s Black Sea vacation resorts after consultations with tourism industry officials before the start of the summer season. Answering journalists’ questions whether Romania will sign an agreement with Hungary, which would be a first among two European Union member states, he said: “I don’t know if we’ll sign an agreement like that. Currently, we recognize the vaccination certificates of Hungary, and Hungary also recognizes ours. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is now discussing whether or not an agreement should be signed on this”.

    Also answering journalists’ questions about when other EU countries will also recognize the Romanian vaccination certificate so that Romanian citizens with a vaccination can travel freely, he said, “Romanian vaccination certificates have a unique code. We also recognize the vaccination certificates used by other EU countries, I do not see what prevents them from recognizing ours”.

    Regarding the European green passport, Cîțu said that a mass vaccination is much more important. Instead of using it, it would be necessary to vaccinate as many people as possible so that all travel restrictions could be lifted and less bureaucracy required.

    In Constanţa, Cîțu said that as of June 1, face masks will not be mandatory on Romanian beaches and all hotels and restaurants can be open to their full capacity.

    Title image: Romanian Prime Minister Florin Cîțu. (MTI/EPA/Robert Ghement)

  • Fidesz MEP: If the ‘United States of Europe’ existed, Brussels would’ve already flooded Hungary with migrants

    The so-called Spinelli Group, an initiative of leftist and green MEPs for the further federalization of the European Union, is pursuing a ‘dangerous nightmare’ and Hungary’s left is assisting them, Fidesz MEP Tamás Deutsch told Magyar Hírlap in an interview.

    The Spinelli Group of the European Parliament, which has 74 members from various parties, includes three members of Hungary’s liberal party, the Democratic Coalition — Klára Dobrev (wife of former Socialts Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány), Attila Ara-Kovács and Sándor Rónai — and the Socialists István Ujhelyi and Márton Gyöngyösi. It has recently launched an appeal for wider federalization of the EU at a time when there is a series of conferences underway regarding the future of the Union.

    “If there is anything that is life-threatening for everyone in the most literal sense, for both left and right Hungarians, it is the nightmare of federal European state that these characters are chasing, with Madam Gyurcsány among them,” Deutsch said.

    He said that if Europeans lived in a United States of Europe, “we Hungarians could not have defended ourselves against many hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants because it would have been decided in Brussels, the imperial center, that they should be admitted.”

    The situation would be similar to tax policy, as Brussels has long decried tax competition based on economic performance, which is an important element of a successful Hungarian economic policy. Higher taxes would be imposed to erode the competitiveness of Central European countries. Hungarian family policy would also fall victim to the United States of Europe, Deutsch said. He said that in Brussels, they are not thinking about encouraging childbirth, but about settling migrants across the continent.

    He also drew attention to the fact that 2 million people in Hungary would not have been vaccinated against the coronavirus if Hungary had been buried under the failed vaccine procurement of the ‘United States of Europe’. According to Deutsch, centralization would mean much less money for Hungary in the name of the Union, for example, €3.5 billion less in regional development resources.

    “Mrs. Gyurcsány wants a world where our affairs are not decided by the parliament and government elected by the Hungarians, but by an imperial center in Brussels. This also threatens the safety, health and existence of the Hungarian people, including the voters of the Democratic Coalition he represents,” the MEP warned.

    According to Deutsch, it would be a mistake to think that Klára Dobrev is merely uninformed.

    “She acts very consciously, Mrs. Gyurcsány is an internationalist, she loves all decisions that weaken our national identity and Hungarian interest, and does not support those that strengthen national commitment,” he said.

    In connection with the EU’s social summit in Porto today, with the Hungarian delegation led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, he said that Hungary had already met the objectives of the social pillar, which proves the success of the Hungarian model. He stressed that instead of what he described as “fever dreams”, a successful nation-state model should be pursued.

    “This is a good practice that we are happy to recommend to all with modesty how to build a successful, work-based and family-friendly society and become one of the best performing countries in Europe,” he said.

    Title image: Fidesz MEP Tamás Deutsch. (Magyar Hírlap/László Katona)