Dr. András Göllner’s essay is the first installment of a three part series in HFP. Introduction It was during the 2016 Presidential election campaign, and for the first time in American electoral history, that a hostile foreign power, aided and abetted by one of the candidates, was able to decisively intervene and significantly influence the outcome of an American election. […]
Hungary is replaceable. Budapest is replaceable. While anyone who knows and loves the Hungarian capital would be saddened to see the Central European University forced to go, those of us who have had our fill of seven years of Hungary’s slide into a wildly corrupt autocracy also applaud Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern’s decision to begin high level negotiations aimed at […]
I have known the dark ages of Hungary. As a child, during World War Two, I experienced first-hand Hungarian ultra-nationalism and anti-Semitism. I managed to avoid deportation and murder in Auschwitz by fleeing to Palestine in 1943, along with 49 other Jewish children. Decades later, I returned to Hungary during the years of Communism. As a journalist writing for major […]
Will far-right populist “peroxide-blond crusader” Geert Wilders be the Netherlands’ new prime minister? And why does he spend so much time in Hungary? On March 15th the Netherlands will elect its new Parliament, the Tweede Kamer or Lower House. According to opinion polls the far-right Freedom party might come out ahead and Wilders has a good chance to become the […]
Polak, Węgier, dwa bratanki, i do szabli, i do szklanki – Poles, Hungarians, two brothers, they fight together, they drink wine together. (Polish proverb) There were few relationships between right-wing political parties closer than the alliance of the ruling Polish PiS and Hungarian Fidesz. Party bosses Orbán and Jaroslaw Kaczynski have pledged to wage a “cultural counter-revolution” and reform a […]
Editor’s note: Joschka Fischer was Germany’s foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998 to 2005. This article was published about a year ago by Project Syndicate/Institute for Human Sciences. Fischer’s parents were ethnic Germans from Hungary; his father a butcher in the town of Budakeszi, just outside Budapest. The family was expelled from Hungary after World War II and Joschka […]
László Botka, the Hungarian Socialist Party’s (MSZP) candidate for prime minister, is statistically tied in popularity with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, according to a poll by the Republikon Intézet. Mr. Orbán’s favorability rating rests at 46%, followed by Mr. Botka at 44%. Gábor Vona, the leader of the Jobbik party, stands at 31% among the main contenders for prime minister […]
One of the tricks used by Hungarian diplomats is to walk up to a prominent US politician, snap a photo as proof of their “close relationship” and distribute it with a misleading caption. A couple of days ago an American Red Cross charity ball was held at Mar-a-Lago, the sprawling Palm Beach, Florida, estate owned by Donald Trump. The President […]
Republican Congresswoman from Tennessee Marsha Blackburn is pleased with President Trump’s executive order to bar Syrian refugees and block citizens of seven countries, among them Iran, from entering the US. Rep. Blackburn considers Iran an enemy of the United States and two years ago she expressed strong concerns over Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal. She wrote that the Iranians were […]
Many Budapest residents were stunned to see tanks and other armoured vehicles in the streets of the Hungarian capital on Tuesday. The Counter-Terrorism Centre’s (TEK) personnel were instructed to guard key commercial locations in central Budapest following Monday evening’s terrorist attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, Germany. Hungary’s terror risk remains unchanged at “3”, but Minister of Interior Sándor […]
