In January this year Lord Peter Lilley, member of the Upper House, came to Budapest to the invitation of the Danube Institute to give a lecture about the Brexit and its prospects. (The video of the lecture can be seen here.) It was early days to form any judgement about it, but there were questions abound already. His presentation was […]
Britain’s Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, a Tory politician appointed by the current prime minister, advised that Theresa May’s last ditch efforts to secure legally binding reassurances for her Brexit deal around the controversial backstop clause fell short of guaranteeing that the United Kingdom could unilaterally withdraw itself from a situation that would see Northern Ireland unified indefinitely with the Republic of […]
European Union institutions currently based in London, but scheduled to relocate following the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU, are coveted prizes for member states. EU members see these as an important source of new jobs, investment in the local economy and international stature. Hungary, however, is bucking the trend and is uninterested in attracting any EU institution from London […]
Tibor Navracsics, one of Fidesz’s most prominent politicians and currently the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, spoke this weekend at a symposium organized by a foundation affiliated with the Politics Can Be Different green party (Lehet Más a Politika – LMP). Mr. Navracsics, who is considered a dove within Fidesz, especially now that he works for the European […]
Hungary has already left the European Union, at least in terms of the Orbán government’s overt rejection of the ties that have bound the country to the Transatlantic community since 1990, including the system of checks and balances, judicial independence (however flawed this may have been, at times), parliamentary democracy and media freedom. But a growing number of analysts believe that […]
Writing in Saturday’s printed edition of the Népszava daily, journalist and author Paul Lendvai suggested that Brexit “strengthened Viktor Orbán’s position, almost as much as the recent soccer victories” during the UEFA European Championship. While Mr. Orbán may benefit on the surface, and in the very short-term, I would argue that Brexit will pose a very serious challenge to his […]
