Prime Minister Viktor Orbán spoke to Hungary’s ambassadors today at a talk given to employees of the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is an annual affair, usually held each August, and just as the summer holidays begin to wind down. Mr. Orbán highlighted the fact that he places pragmatic considerations far above lofty ideals any day of the week and while […]
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s infamous (and illiberal) Tusnádfürdő speech has taken on a life of its own in the foreign press. The Czech Republic’s Ech024.cz news site published this caricature of Mr. Orbán, as Central Europe’s new “paprika” dictator: The illustration warns of Central Europe’s dangerous transformation and of Mr. Orbán’s dreams of resurrecting Greater Hungary, at the expense of neighbouring […]
Miskolc, a traditionally industrial and working-class city of 163,000 residents situated in northeastern Hungary, is evicting much of its Roma population. The official explanation refers to a petition apparently signed by some 35,000 residents, in support of razing one of the city’s rundown and largely Roma-populated neighbourhoods, which will become the site of a new stadium. Those who pay close attention […]
Hungarian human resources minister Zoltán Balog’s comments that Roma were not deported from Hungary during the Holocaust and that Roma intellectuals need to be careful not to focus as much on the experience of the Holocaust as the Jews did, for fear that the sense of “victimhood” lead to schizophrenia, has resulted in calls for the minister’s resignation. Ágnes Kunhalmi, […]
One day after the commemoration of the Roma Holocaust (also known as Porajmos) Hungarian Human Resources Minister Zoltán Balog denied that Hungarian Roma were deported from Hungary and went on to warn the community that they must be careful not to focus as much on these Holocaust experiences as the country’s Jewish population has focused on the Shoah, for fear that […]
Hungary’s M1, the main public television channel, interviewed economist and Orbán government consultant Csaba Lentner, airing his views on why journalists in the West reacted so critically and fiercely to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s infamous ‘illiberal’ speech in Tusnádfürdő, Romania, last weekend. What the state broadcaster (which is hardly known for its fair and balanced reporting, even though they are […]
Never in over four years of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s rise to power with a supermajority have major western journals and commentators sounded the alarm bells quite so loud. In just the last 24 hours, two major outlets have written about the demise of parliamentary democracy in Hungary, in a manner that has never before been seen, not even when […]
After terminating or “re-assigning” some 200 career diplomats, who were not perceived as staunchly loyal to the Orbán government, Fidesz has axed 190 civil servants at Hungary’s Ministry of National Development (NFM). In June alone, NFM “lost” 179 employees. An additional 14 mid-career civil servants were removed in July. Despite the fact that after winning the April 6th elections and […]
The pro-government (although essentially neoconservative and occasionally libertarian) Mandiner blog published an opinion piece, noting that Viktor Orbán’s infamous statements in Tusnádfürdő/Băile Tușnad represent nothing new in how the prime minister views East vs. West, certainly nothing novel in his nationalist and irredentist rhetoric or in his serial vilification of liberals, leftists and the “1968 generation.” I should note that […]
Zoltán Lovas, a prominent Hungarian journalist and activist whose name is certainly not unfamiliar to those who have followed the on-going Freedom Square protests, published a Facebook post Tuesday afternoon, in which he called for a boycott of the municipal elections scheduled for October 12th, 2014. Mr. Lovas believes that since Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s infamous speech in Tusnádfürdő/Băile Tușnad, […]
