EU prefers Czech or German students to Hungarians?

Addressing the issue of a possible shortage of teachers, Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister’s chief of staff, said the government expected the start of the school year would be problem-free throughout the country. The number of teachers, he added, was sufficient, though it was harder to find a teacher in certain areas.

Commenting on the EU Erasmus programme, he said the government was waiting for the European Commission to communicate its position. He added that it was “baffling” that the EC “prefers Czech or German students to Hungarians”. Asked why certain leaders of EU member states such as Poland and Slovakia had not been invited to Hungary’s August 20 national holiday celebrations, he said Slovakia and Poland were allies, and he cited Slovakia as having a caretaker government, while Poland was in the midst of an election campaign.

Referring to President Katalin Novak’s recent visit to Transcarpathia and Kyiv, he said it was welcome that the sides discussed the “disenfranchisement of Transcarpathian Hungarians caused by the Ukrainian state” and how this must be rectified. Hopefully Ukraine would take substantive measures to restore the rights that Transcarpathian Hungarians had been stripped, he added. Asked whether the government agreed with Novak’s view that the war in Ukraine should end with the liberation of the Crimean peninsula, Gulyás said the government had consistently condemned both the annexation of Crimea and Russian aggression as violations of international law. However, respect for international law was relative, he added, arguing that powerful actors relativised it.

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“We’d like to see an immediate ceasefire and peace negotiations,” he said. On the subject of large amounts of weapons getting into the hands of mercenaries, he said “this always carries a risk”, but it was unlikely that he region or Russia would be destabilised as a result. Commenting on the situation in Niger and the direct impact of migration on Hungary and Europe, he said both had an interest in the region’s stability. A Hungarian citizen was evacuated from Niger on Aug. 2 thanks to the coordination of the Tripoli and Rome embassies, he noted.

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Meanwhile, Gulyás said that each day 420 migrants tried to come to Hungary on average between Jan. 1 and Aug. 22. Regarding proceedings related to the beating in Budapest of a man by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s security team, Gulyás said everyone must abide by the law, and he condemned violence as “unacceptable”. He added that no serious injuries had been sustained, however, and the Hungarian police’s actions to remove the aggressors from the Hungarian man had been “exemplary”. Guylas noted that the Prime Minister will go on holiday at the end of August and take part in a citizens’ picnic “on the first or second weekend of September”.