Budapest, Warsaw mayors mark Polish-Hungarian Friendship Day

Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony and Rafal Trzaskowski, his Warsaw counterpart, marked the Day of Polish-Hungarian Friendship in a joint video on Wednesday.

In the video, published on his Facebook page, Karácsony noted that Polish and Hungarian patriots had helped one another in the uprisings of 1848 and 1956, and in efforts to topple communist dictatorship in the 1980s, and the two countries joined NATO and the EU at the same time.

“Today, Polish and Hungarian democrats should fight together against the governments of their countries, which have systematically dismantled democracy and the rule of law and weakened the international alliance which has been a firm guarantee for democracy and prosperity for the longest time in their history,” Karácsony said.

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Karácsony also referred to the “Russian military aggression deeply imprinted in the historical memory of Hungarians and Poles” and called for joint solidarity with Ukrainians. “In spirit, we all are also Ukrainians,” he added.

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The city of Budapest will do everything to provide decent services to Ukrainian refugees and supports international efforts seeking “an early end to Putin’s aggression and the terrible war”, Karácsony said.

Trzaskowski slammed the Hungarian and Polish governments for “jointly trampling on European and democratic values” and said they had “betrayed the values that served as a basis for friendship between the two nations”.

The two governments “usually focus on their own, short-term interests and violate the rule of law”, he said, adding that “the two country’s alliance has collapsed as a house of cards in the past few days”.

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Source: MTI