In almost any country, except Hungary, publicist Árpád W. Tóta would likely be considered an ultraconservative for his rigid economic views. In Hungary, he’s a prominent opinion-maker of the left-centre opposition establishment. He sometimes reminds me of an enthusiastic member of an Ayn Rand college fan club, comprised of anxious freshmen who haven’t seen much of the world, beyond their suburban […]
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 […]
Hungary’s Magyar Nemzet daily newspaper believes that as Greece shut downs its banking system, introduces financial controls and teeters on the knife edge of default, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras may very definitively turn to Russian President Vladimir Putin for assistance. “Compared to this, Viktor Orbán’s flirtation with Russia will have been nothing at all,” adds Magyar Nemzet, in a clear […]
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 […]
Mathieu Labrèche is a corporate communications manager based in Toronto and a graduate of the Brussels School of International Studies. He argues in this piece that a Greek exit from the euro would have serious geopolitical ramifications and would strengthen Russia’s hand in Eastern and Central Europe.
Hungary is sending 20 police officers and will install thermal imaging cameras to help monitor Serbia’s southern borders, in an attempt to stop a growing number of refugees from making their way into the European Union through Macedonia and Serbia. This move follows heightened tension between Budapest and Belgrade, after the Orbán government’s unilateral decision to erect a four metre-high […]
According to figures released Thursday by Eurostat, as part of its quarterly report, Germany and Hungary received the most refugees of all member states in the European Union. The number of asylum seekers increased by 86% in the EU. Kosovars formed the single largest group of refugees arriving to EU member states, followed by Syrians and Afghanis. Forty percent of […]
While the adoption of the euro is off the table in Hungary until at least 2020, Czech popular opinion remains torn on the issue, with a clear majority still opposing the replacement of the koruna with the common currency, according to a study published this week. CVVM, a scholarly pollster in Prague, found that 69% of Czechs oppose introducing the euro […]
Ukraine may not be in the headlines at the moment, as a lull in the fighting that claimed over 6,100 lives in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions appears to be largely holding, but both the U.S. State Department and experts on Russian foreign foreign policy strongly suggest that it’s merely a matter of time before the war is reignited. Russia […]
A group of young Czech libertarians planted a flag on a 7 square kilometer tract of land, nestled between Croatia and Serbia, which has been abandoned, uninhabited and disputed since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990’s. The heart-shaped plot of land, located along the shores of the Danube, is considered to be a terra nullius, although according to an agreement […]
