I am travelling to Budapest later this month and I’m scheduled to give two public talks in Hungarian, to very different audiences, yet on interrelated topics. Both events are open to the public and all are welcome! On Saturday, June 18th at 2:00 PM in Budapest’s Köztársaság tér, or Republic Square (now formally re-named II. János Pál pápa tér, after […]
With a long weekend fast approaching for our American readers (Happy Memorial Day!), we’re offering a little recommended reading from Denis McShane, a former Minister for Europe and retired Labour Party MP from the United Kingdom. Mr. McShane wrote of the “drift to illiberal Pop-Nat” (populist nationalist) politics in much of Europe, and the gradual decline of moderate, centrist and […]
HFP’s readers may recall Szilárd Kalmár from earlier articles; he is the former President of the fledgling Left Party, a left-wing activist and by day a social worker in Budapest, reaching out to some of the most marginalized populations (especially Roma in the 8th District, as well as refugees and immigrants). A group of mainly young Hungarian left-wing activists, not […]
Greek voters rejected the dictates of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in much larger numbers than initially anticipated. The decision was reasonable, understandable and, given the circumstances, it can certainly be appreciated. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government received a remarkable mandate to continue the country’s economic and humanitarian war of independence. The results of the referendum […]
There seems to be somewhat of a generational divide on the Hungarian left, when it comes to austerity and the debt crisis in Greece. While the mainstream left-centre opposition parties have remained largely mum about the increasingly dramatic stand-off between the Troika and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s Syriza government in Athens, and while some older, “big guns” of prior Hungarian […]
As Greece teeters on the brink of both default and a disorderly exit from the euro zone, the only political party in Hungary that has lent its support behind the anti-austerity government of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is the Balpárt (Left Party). The Balpárt translated Mr. Tsipras’s televised speech into Hungarian, in which he called a snap referendum for […]
I am still sometimes surprised by the true extent of the Orbán government’s small-mindedness, its pettiness and the remarkably arrogant, self-serving use of public funds. It has been 25 years since the formation of Hungary’s first democratically elected parliament in May 1990. The government-funded Veritas Research Institute, led by historian Sándor Szakály–who callously called the deportation of Jews during the […]
Hungary is a small country and early twentieth century author Frigyes Karinthy’s theory on the six degrees of separation isn’t really applicable to a society of this size. As it turns out, during his university days, the chairman of the Left Party (Balpárt), Szilárd Kalmár, lived in the same dorms as Gábor Vona, the leader of the far-right Jobbik party. […]
An unpublished Ipsos opinion poll commissioned two weeks before a critical by-election in a traditionally centre-right Veszprém riding suggested that Zoltán Kész–the independent candidate supported by most of the left-centre opposition–stood a semi-realistic chance of beating Fidesz in a constituency that it had long held. The leaked poll found that Fidesz’s candidate, Lajos Némedi, was ahead of Mr. Kész by […]
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán didn’t have an exceptionally good day. He almost certainly could have avoided an embarrassing press conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel if only he would have taken the more pragmatic route of distancing himself from comments made last summer in Transylvania, about the possibility of turning Hungary into an illiberal democracy. Mr. Orbán was answering a question […]
