Post Tagged with: "Foreign Policy"

Hanna Tetteh, foreign minister of Ghana and Péter Szijjártó, foreign minister of Hungary.

Orbán: “The real threat is from the heart of Africa” — Maybe from Ghana?

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán often gives hard-hitting speeches on the threat to Hungary posed by multiculturalism and immigration. At Tusványos in 2015 Orbán argued that African immigration was an existential threat to European nationhood and civilization. “Let us speak plainly: the intensification of modern-day mass migration is a consequence of political processes. The countries of North Africa once functioned […]

by · May 13, 2016 · Politics
New York Jobbik party members line up for group photo.

Hungarian diplomats celebrate with neo-Nazi Jobbik in New York City

Hungary’s previous ambassador to Washington DC., western-educated Mr. György Szapáry refused to meet with leaders and supporters of Hungary’s neo-Nazi Jobbik party. He would walk out from the room if Jobbik members showed up at an event. With the arrival of Ms. Réka Szemerkényi, Hungary’s first female Ambassador to the US, all this has changed. Ms. Szemerkényi has personally met […]

by · May 3, 2016 · Diaspora
Martonyi speaks about the suffering Communism caused to innocent people in 2015 in Washington DC.

János Martonyi, anti-Communist crusader and suspected Communist informer

Next week, on May 3, 2016, the Hungarian American Coalition will honor János Martonyi at its 12th annual Gala Dinner at the House of Sweden in Washington DC. (Read the Coalition’s invitation here.) Mr. Martonyi was Hungary’s foreign minister under Viktor Orbán, from 1998-2002 and again in 2010-2014. As part of the inner circle of the power elite, he became […]

by · April 23, 2016 · Diaspora
Ms. Judit Czakó of the Consulate General of Hungary in New York supposed to organize a “targeted company visit” at Tesla Motors.

Tesla Motors car assembly plant in Hungary? Oh, really?

Hungarian government propagandists have a new strategy – they plant fake, “feel-good” stories about the economy in the media. Recently articles appeared that Hungary’s debt upgrade is “imminent” and would be well-deserved. Keeping the country’s debt in “junk” is unfair. Portfolio.hu published an elaborate story about the government’s efforts to attract Tesla Motors, quoting Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs, […]

by · March 27, 2016 · Politics
Visegrád 4

Orbán and Visegrad: Hungary repurposes an old alliance

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán certainly found his groove in the last few months, since the refugee crisis and the election in Poland of the populist Law and Justice Party, headed by Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his ally, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło. The ruling Fidesz party went from an increasingly tired clique that had been in power too long and one which […]

by · January 29, 2016 · Politics
Mr. Ferenc Kumin Consul General in New York suggests psychological help to critics of his government.

NY Consul Ferenc Kumin says Hungarian-American critics of the Orbán government need psychological help

Hungary’s diplomats in the US generally don’t respond to criticism coming from the Hungarian-American community. They expect that Americans of Hungarian origin will hold back their critique of Prime Minister Orbán’s policies. Now, Mr. Ferenc Kumin Consul General in New York has gone one step further, he has insulted those who offer differing views. In a recent interview with Inforadio […]

by · January 11, 2016 · Diaspora
British Prime Minister David Cameron, right, speaks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban during a meeting on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Dec. 18, 2015. European Union leaders are reconvening in Brussels for the final day of their year-end summit with a wide-ranging agenda including how to build greater economic unity among their 28 countries and stepping up the fight against terrorism. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, Pool)

David Cameron vs. Viktor Orbán

David Cameron is a true democrat and a wise politician. He believes in liberal democracy and free market economy, and refuses an ever more integrated European Union. Mr. Cameron looks for allies on these grounds. And his greatest challenge is that most of his anti-EU allies are xenophobes and extreme populists. Will statesman Cameron be ready to tame or handle […]

by · January 7, 2016 · Politics
Andrew Friedman and Consul General in Los Angeles László Kálmán with the menorah at the Hungarian Chrismukkah celebration.

Chrismukkah – the latest weapon of Hungarian diplomacy

Chrismukkah (in Hungarian Hanukarácsony) is the merging of two holidays – Christmas and Hanukkah. It was popularized by the TV drama The O.C. where the main character Seth Cohen created an imaginary holiday in an interfaith household with a Jewish father and Protestant mother. The television series was created by producer wunderkind Josh Schwartz and aired on cable TV from […]

by · December 21, 2015 · Politics
Hungarian Consul General in Chicago, Mr. Ferenc Szebényi speaks at the 55th Hungarian Congress in Cleveland.

It’s time to stop the Hungarian diplomatic doubletalk

For the first time a Hungarian diplomat, László Kálmán, Hungarian Consul General in Los Angeles, paid respect at the Pearl Harbor Memorial that is built over the sunken wreckage of the USS Arizona. This is a welcome gesture. The dramatic attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, resulted in the US entry into World War II and changed […]

by · December 15, 2015 · Politics
Igor Crnadak (left) with Péter Szijjártó (right).

Hungary and Bosnia: Budapest pushes for Bosnian admission to EU and NATO

One of the tensions in the European Union is between those who seek an ever deeper, more integrated union of member states, and those who prefer a larger, continually expanding EU, but one where fewer areas of national sovereignty are pooled. The two tracks need not be inherently at odds with each, but it is difficult to imagine a deeply […]

by · December 7, 2015 · Politics