Orbán cabinet cleared their standpoint about anti-Israel sentiment

Hungary maintains a zero-tolerance policy against anti-Semitism, “including anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism and anti-Israel sentiment,” the minister for European Union affairs said in Budapest on Wednesday.

János Bóka told a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the deportation of Hungarian Jews that while holding the Council of the EU’s rotating presidency, Hungary will see it as a priority to cooperate with member states, EU institutions and European Jewish communities to further European Jewish communities and Jewish heritage.

At a time when Europe is facing rising anti-Semitism and intolerance, cross-border and cross-community cooperation against all forms of hate is especially important, Bóka said.

At the commemoration held at the Holocaust Memorial Centre in downtown Budapest and organised by the Hungarian presidency of the EU, Andor Grósz, the head of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities Mazsihisz, said the centre showed examples of what discrimination and hate led to. “We learned the lesson at the cost of 6 million lives, we need a lot of effort to vanquish anti-Semitism,” Grosz said.

Minister calls for ‘European solutions’ to strengthen competitiveness

European Union Affairs Minister Bóka said “European solutions” were necessary to strengthen the EU’s competitiveness, ones that were supported by cultural, political and historical traditions, in a presentation delivered at a meeting of the heads of the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Eurochambres) in Budapest on Wednesday.

Bóka said European values couldn’t be sacrificed in the interest of catching up with the United States and China. He added that Hungary’s presidency of the Council of the EU aimed to start the debate on steps to address the EU’s competitiveness. He said Hungary wanted to see a new EU competitiveness deal signed in Budapest in November.

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