Hungarian government buys a EUR 200,000 luxury piano for a luxury building in Brussels

Responding to a question on reports that a concert piano designed by Hungarian pianist Gergely Bogányi would be purchased for HUF 80 million (EUR 209,450) and exhibited at the headquarters of the Hungarian EU presidency in Brussels, Zoltan Kovacs, the government commissioner responsible for the preparations, said that the government had a duty to support cultural innovation. A Bogányi piano would greatly help the success of the Hungarian presidency, he added.

Gulyás said the prospect of Hungary losing the right to take over the presidency in the second half of 2024 “is not realistic”.

“Nowadays the most corrupt European institution, the European Parliament, is one to talk about corruption prevention and it judges member states, while the gravest corruption cases of the most repulsive and most spectacular kind are connected to MEPs,” he said.

Regarding Hungary’s support of Sweden joining NATO, Gulyás said parliament would approve its accession this year should two-thirds of Hungarian lawmakers support the proposal. Asked whether the Hungarian or Turkish parliament would be the first to adopt it, Gulyás said: “We have said we wouldn’t be the ones to hinder Sweden’s accession to NATO.”

Gulyás said Hungary continued to expect answers from Sweden on “why they would want to become our allies in another alliance if they continue to be hostile to us in the EU“.

On the topic of the extraordinary session initiated by the opposition for Monday, he said the parliamentary group of ruling Fidesz would stay away from the session. “There is currently no reason to hold an extraordinary session,” he added.

Gulyás rejected press reports that Sándor Pintér would be replaced as interior minister from September as “untrue and utterly unfounded”. The government was set up for a four-year term, and changes are always connected to developments such as the resignation of Justice Minister Judit Varga from Aug. 1, who is slated head Fidesz’s list for the European parliamentary elections next year.

Gulyás was also asked about Slovakia and Romania’s summoning of respective Hungarian ambassadors in light of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s recent speech at the Bálványos summer university in Baile Tusnad, in central Romania.

Responding to Slovak Prime Minister Lajos Odor’s statement that it was “unacceptable for Hungary to question Slovakia’s territorial integrity”, Gulyás said that Odor’s criticism had been “in line with international law but totally unnecessary”, and Orbán had not given any grounds for such criticism.

Regarding the phrase “territories separated from Hungary”, which Slovakia took objection to, Gulyás said it was a historical fact that Hungarian territories had been cut off from the motherland. The two world wars were followed by a “system of peace that brought the greatest trauma in Hungary’s history”, he said. “We respect and accept that, but we cannot be expected to celebrate it.”

Asked whether a Slovak prime minister of Hungarian ethnicity would improve ties between the two countries, Gulyás said long-term strategising and plans were not on the table in respect of the interim government. He welcomed Odor’s being of Hungarian ethnicity, but said that Hungary was hoping for a stable government after the September elections that would be open to “progress” in bilateral and Visegrad Group issues.

Regarding the state of the Hungarian railway system, Gulyás said that while “prices and the quality were higher in the West”, he thought it was “unlikely” that the Hungarian railway system would collapse. Scrapped railway lines must be replaced by comparable services such as buses, he said. At the same time, the ministry of construction and traffic has launched a HUF 1,200 billion railway development scheme, he noted, with suburban railway developments focusing on the most popular lines to be partly EU-funded, he said.

Source: MTI