With all the chatter and protest around the Internet tax (the implementation of which has been merely postponed until 2015), little attention has been given to the Orbán government’s rather insidious plans to “reform” the country’s education system. Fortunately, Népszabadság – the country’s most widely-read daily newspaper of record – published an analysis of what is likely in store for Hungary’s […]
1. How did Fidesz, the party which stood up against the ‘yes-man’ parties that roamed the corridors of power, the same parties that were essentially Mamelukes, and which shook their fists at the West, winking instead at the East, parties that played to the choirs of Kádár’s people, that rejected the civic ethos, that understood ever less of the modern […]
On Sunday night, over 10,000 Hungarians from many walks of political life protested in Budapest, ostensibly against a new circa $0.75CDN/GB Internet tax, but on a more latent level also against the growing diplomatic row between the oligarchic Orbán government and Washington. At one point in this protest, a group of demonstrators attacked Fidesz party headquarters, located just across from […]
Concordia’s Journalists for Human rights group will be hosting their first speaker series of the year on Thursday, Oct. 23 by Concordia Political Science Professor Emeritus András B. Göllner. Entitled “Rules for Civil Rights Activism”, the talk will look at what it takes to be a human rights activist and the dangers of the role by drawing largely from Göllner’s […]
Zsolt Németh, the chair of the Hungarian Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee, first realized the real extent of troubles surrounding Hungary’s relationship with the United States when he presented at a conference in Washington D.C. earlier this fall. Mr. Németh spoke fairly candidly with the right-wing Válasz.hu website on Tuesday (the online presence of the Heti Válasz weekly, which was founded under […]
András Schiffer, leader of Politics Can Be Different (LMP), a small green party, which just barely passed the 5% hurdle needed for representation in Parliament during national elections in April, berated the more prominent left-centre opposition parties and added that a decent opposition result in Sunday’s municipal vote was critical, if Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is to be ousted from […]
Members of the European Pariament have determined that Tibor Navracsics, Hungary’s previous foreign affairs minister and earlier the country’s justice minister, is not fit to serve as the European Union’s commissioner for culture and education. Mr. Navracsics was the first candidate to be rejected during the current round of hearings. BBC News noted that this was a major slap in […]
Tibor Szanyi, currently a Member of the European Parliament and one of the most prominent politicians in the Hungarian Socialist Party, reportedly entertained a group of far right-wing bikers in Brussels this summer. The story is so bizarre, that one would be inclined to think that it was made up by a talented political satirist. Mr. Szanyi, after all, is […]
Last week, former U.S. President Bill Clinton commented on the Daily Show, that with his brand of authoritarian capitalism, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wants little more than to stay in power indefinitely and become wealthy through dubious means. (“Usually these guys just want to stay forever and make a lot of money,”–said Mr. Clinton.) The collective heart of the Orbán […]
Tibor Navracsics received the lowest ranking position in Jean-Claude Juncker’s new European Commission, having been appointed commissioner for education, culture, youth and citizenship. Mr. Navracsics has served as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s foreign affairs minister, but it is widely believed that this position will now be passed on to Péter Szijjártó, one of Fidesz’s most vocal supporters of the new […]
