Viktor Orbán is in Communist Vietnam on an official visit. He warmly greeted the country’s leaders and laid a wreath at the Hanoi War Memorial commemorating the Communist victory over the Americans and their South-Vietnamese allies. Orbán met with Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and signed “a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation between the two ruling parties and expressed […]
After 48 hour of offering no commentary whatsoever on a ruling by the European Court of Justice that dismissed both Hungary’s and Slovakia’s complaints about equitably resettling mostly Syrian refugees among EU member states, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán finally spoke to the issue in his usual Friday morning radio interview. The usually loquacious Hungarian prime minister was frugal with his […]
At a weekend picnic of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party and its propagandists within the media world and educational sector, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned: the most important question in the April 2018 national elections is whether the country will be able to defend its border fence against some 60 million migrants that he anticipates will leave Africa and try to […]
On August 28, at the invitation of Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin will visit Budapest to take part in the opening ceremony of the World Judo Championships. Bilateral meetings are also planned and the University of Debrecen will award Mr. Putin the title “Civis Honoris Causa” – Honorary Citizen of the University in […]
Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister and a left-leaning politician not immune to populism, nationalism and euroscepticism, has distanced himself from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s hard-line anti-EU and anti-western rhetoric. Most crucially: Mr. Fico confirmed that for him, cooperation and a close alliance with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Germany and President Emmanuel Macron’s France is more important than cooperation among the […]
In a bizarre speech Hungary’s right-wing authoritarian strongman, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, recently called Miklós Horthy an “exceptional statesman.” Admiral Horthy, also an authoritarian (although some called him a dictator) led his country as Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary following the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. He turned pro-Mussolini and pro-Hitler in the 1930s and […]
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told Kossuth Rádió Friday morning that he was “in a state of shock,” after he heard that President Donald Trump will withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change. Mr. Orbán then noted that on the Hungarian right, and in Hungarian society, the science of climate change is not called into question. “In […]
Fidesz politician Lőrinc Mészáros, a plumber by trade and the mayor of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s tiny home town of Felcsút, has acquired a 49% share in Hungary’s MKB Bank–the fourth largest commercial financial institution in the country. Mr. Mészáros’ company, the Konzum Befektetési Alapkezelő, bought 45% of the bank’s shares and approval is imminent to acquire an additional 4%. […]
Fidesz Vice President Szilárd Németh is a fortunate man. According to János Hudák, a municipal politician associated with the Párbeszéd party, Mr. Németh’s private foundation, registered at his home address, will receive 2 billion forints in state subsidies to build a new sports complex, which will become home to the Hungarian Wrestling Academy. Curiously, but in keeping with how things […]
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced on Thursday, at the World Congress of Families, held in Budapest, that his government intended to increase the birth rate from 1.5 children per woman to 2.1 by 2030. Hungary’s low birth rate and the decline in population has been a pressing problem for the country since the early nineties and new statistics show that […]
