Post Tagged with: "European Union"

Tibor Navracsics speaking on Saturday at the Ökopolisz symposium. Photo: HírTV.

Tibor Navracsics blasts Brexit for running emotionally-driven political campaign

Tibor Navracsics, one of Fidesz’s most prominent politicians and currently the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, spoke this weekend at a symposium organized by a foundation affiliated with the Politics Can Be Different green party (Lehet Más a Politika – LMP). Mr. Navracsics, who is considered a dove within Fidesz, especially now that he works for the European […]

by · July 31, 2016 · Politics
Antal Rogán

Fidesz minister Antal Rogán: Immigrants lead to terrorism

Antal Rogán, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office, gave an interview Sunday morning to state-run Kossuth Radio. Speaking about the impact of the terrorist attack in Nice, he warned Hungarians about travelling to western European countries with significant immigrant populations, as he believes that the integration of immigrants has failed and therefore the risk of terrorism is high. “Europe […]

by · July 17, 2016 · Politics
Nándor Csepreghy. Photo: József Vajda / Népszava

Nándor Csepreghy: The European Union’s days are numbered — More talk of Huxit

Nándor Csepreghy, Deputy Minister in the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office, disagrees with his boss, János Lázár, who recently toyed with the hypothetical idea of a Hungarian referendum on European Union membership and said that in such a plebiscite, he would vote for Huxit. It is quite widely believed that Mr. Lázár’s suggestion of Hungary’s departure from the EU was a […]

by · July 10, 2016 · Politics
Government campaign billboard in a Budapest metro station: Let's send a message to Brussels, so that even they will undertand!" Photo: Christopher Adam.

Viktor Orbán and Huxit: Hungary may be the next to leave the European Union

Hungary has already left the European Union, at least in terms of the Orbán government’s overt rejection of the ties that have bound the country to the Transatlantic community since 1990, including the system of checks and balances, judicial independence (however flawed this may have been, at times), parliamentary democracy and media freedom. But a growing number of analysts believe that […]

by · July 6, 2016 · Politics
Outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron with Viktor Orbán earlier this year.

Why Brexit is terrible news for Hungary’s Viktor Orbán

Writing in Saturday’s printed edition of the Népszava daily, journalist and author Paul Lendvai suggested that Brexit “strengthened Viktor Orbán’s position, almost as much as the recent soccer victories” during the UEFA European Championship. While Mr. Orbán may benefit on the surface, and in the very short-term, I would argue that Brexit will pose a very serious challenge to his […]

by · June 26, 2016 · Politics
Tibor Navracsics

Should the democratic opposition embrace Tibor Navracsics of Fidesz?

Júlia Mira Lévai is a liberal journalist and author, who was a regular contributor to the now folded Galamus Csoport online news site. On Monday, she wrote a column for the hvg.hu news magazine, in which she referred to recent comments by Tibor Navracsics, a Fidesz politician and currently the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sports, as a “bombshell.” Mr. […]

by · June 6, 2016 · Politics
Viktor Szigetvári (left) vs Szilárd Németh (right) debating on ATV.

Viktor Szigetvári’s words are too painful for Fidesz vice president to hear

On Friday night, Fidesz vice president Szilárd Németh debated Viktor Szigetvári, president of the centre-left Együtt (Together) party on ATV, Hungary’s only centre-left cable news channel. Within minutes, the Fidesz politician was demonizing the refugees and migrants arriving in Europe, suggesting that “ordinary” Hungarians cannot co-exist with refugees in Hungary and implied that Hungarian opposition politicians were traitors allied to […]

by · May 14, 2016 · Antisemitism
Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin.

Hungary is Russia’s new bastion in Europe

Zsuzsanna Szelényi is a foreign policy analyst and Member of Parliament affiliated with the centre-left Együtt (Together) Party. Ms. Szelényi argues that through Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s war against the West and Moscow’s highly effective use of 21st century hybrid warfare, Hungary is being turned into a colony of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.  We are translating Ms. Szelényi’s insightful analysis from the […]

by · May 9, 2016 · Focus
Visegrád 4

Orbán and Visegrad: Hungary repurposes an old alliance

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán certainly found his groove in the last few months, since the refugee crisis and the election in Poland of the populist Law and Justice Party, headed by Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his ally, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło. The ruling Fidesz party went from an increasingly tired clique that had been in power too long and one which […]

by · January 29, 2016 · Politics
British Prime Minister David Cameron, right, speaks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban during a meeting on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Dec. 18, 2015. European Union leaders are reconvening in Brussels for the final day of their year-end summit with a wide-ranging agenda including how to build greater economic unity among their 28 countries and stepping up the fight against terrorism. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, Pool)

David Cameron vs. Viktor Orbán

David Cameron is a true democrat and a wise politician. He believes in liberal democracy and free market economy, and refuses an ever more integrated European Union. Mr. Cameron looks for allies on these grounds. And his greatest challenge is that most of his anti-EU allies are xenophobes and extreme populists. Will statesman Cameron be ready to tame or handle […]

by · January 7, 2016 · Politics