After Donald Trump had won the U.S. presidential elections in 2016, the world focused on France and their bet went to the right wing candidate Marine Le Pen and her 44-year-old party, the National Front. Not many people gave one single thought to a newly founded party; not even a year old at the time; and its 39 year-old founder […]
Outgoing Dutch ambassador Gajus Scheltema’s suggestion that the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán creates enemies along the same lines as Islamic terrorists sparked a political firestorm in Hungary. Mr. Scheltema said, as part of a response to journalists from the 168 Óra weekly on the risk of terrorist attacks, particularly after Barcelona: “A car attack can occur anywhere in […]
The newly appointed Hungarian Ambassador, László Szabó, has put the blame squarely on the US State Department for the poor relations between the two countries. According to Ambassador Szabó the State Department has a major problem: “The vast majority of the staff members of the US State Department, where tens of thousands of people work, still have ties to the […]
Hungarians are seeing a major increase in their wages, with the average gross monthly salary now standing at 297,000 forints, or US$1,154. This represents a 14.4% increase compared to 2016 figures released by the Central Statistical Office (KSH). Inflation in Hungary is at just 2.3%. The bulk of the increase is connected to the 15% to 25% rise in the […]
Zsolt Semjén, Hungary’s Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP), was asked to comment on an idea that only those who pay taxes should be permitted to vote in elections. The hypothetical scenario was recently raised by Publicus, a major national polling firm, when respondents in a representative poll were asked about whether only those […]
A proposed referendum aimed at making it easier to prosecute politicians guilty of corruption managed to pass the muster of Hungary’s National Election Commission, even though the group’s Fidesz delegate fiercely opposed the anti-corruption initiative. Yet just when it seemed that Hungarian voters would have a chance to vote on the proposal to increase the time limit to prosecute corrupt […]
Gábor Vona, leader of Hungary’s Jobbik party, is calling on Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government to issue a formal apology to the Roma minority. He accuses the ruling Fidesz party of deliberately eliminating any possibility for upward social mobility within the country’s largest minority group. Speaking in the town of Eger, a few days after he confirmed in a television […]
Szilárd Németh, a prominent parliamentarian affiliated with Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party, knows who is to blame for the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia during a rally by neo-Nazis and members of the Ku Klux Klan. In keeping with the politics of the Hungarian regime, Mr. Németh points the finger at “liberal fascists,” who bear full responsibility for the fatal events in […]
There is a suspicion that the Orbán government played a role in building a “bridge” between Russian President Putin and President elect Trump. At this point, we don’t know whether this “bridge building” effort is significant enough to register on the radar screen of the ongoing US Congressional and Senate investigations in Washington DC. According to the European Council on […]
After the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released information concerning the questionable quality of Hungarian drinking water, the Orbán government did what they do best: they denied the problem and started a propaganda campaign to discredit the CDC. (Read here.) The CDC recommendation is clear. In a health advisory for travelers to Hungary they do not recommend […]
