Russia

Government: Russia reliable supplier

Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó and Russian FM Sergei Lavrov (Copy)

The European Union is putting pressure on Hungary to curb its dependence on Russian energy yet the big barriers to diversification are Brussels’ policies, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said in Tbilisi on Thursday.

Ever since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia, the EU has faced uncertain energy supplies, Szijjártó told a panel discussion on the Silk Road Forum, according to a ministry statement.

The EU sees energy as a political instead of a physical matter, he said.

“You can’t heat houses and flats with political statements…” he said. Energy must be bought at the point where the infrastructure is available, and the infrastructure determines from where each state can get sufficient amounts of energy.

While diversification is vitally important, he said, the government cannot replace a reliable supplier but rather it must find as many new sources and transit routes as possible.

Szijjártó cautioned against putting states under pressure to act against their own national interests, adding that supplying Hungary with energy other than Russian sources would be “physically impossible”.

Azerbaijan, he said, is a supplier, but increasing imports depended on boosting pipeline capacity in south-east Europe. Yet Brussels will not provide financial support for this, he said, insisting the EU did not regard it as “trendy enough”, and besides “we won’t be using natural gas in fifteen years”.

“Firstly, we don’t know whether we will be using natural gas, but the question is not what will happen in fifteen years, but what will happen tomorrow.”

Endangering the supplies of a peer EU state and a candidate for EU membership is an massively hostile move

To reduce Russian supplies of crude oil, deliveries from Croatia would be feasible except for Zagreb’s refusal to grant Hungary’s request for long-term capacity reservation, while it has raised the transit fee of the Adria pipeline to five times the European average, he said.

Also, Bulgaria has hiked the transit fee for Russian natural gas delivered to Serbia and Hungary, he noted.

“How does this decision reflect solidarity?”

Endangering the supplies of a peer EU state and a candidate for EU membership “is an massively hostile move,” he added.

More nuclear energy is needed to satisfy energy security needs and partnerships with reliable suppliers must be maintained in the face of political pressure, he said.

The Caucasus region should be involved in the import of renewable energy, he said, welcoming an agreement whereby Hungary will be able to import green electricity from Azerbaijan via a new undersea pipeline also passing through Georgia and Romania.

Meanwhile, he said environmental protection was not a political or ideological issue but a practical one, which must go hand in hand with improving competitiveness.

Hungary, Szijjártó said, was among countries that had managed to boost their economic performance while reducing their emissions, and it would carry on doing so. But expanding nuclear capacities and importing green energy would be necessary to achieve this, he added.

Concerning energy, here are two articles we recommend. THIS one is about a new Hungarian law that may discourage using solar energy in the Hungarian households. Meanwhile, HERE the Hungarian foreign minister stood up for Hungary-Russia energy cooperation.

PM Orbán: Ukrainians will not win on the battlefield, EU leaders unfit

PM Viktor Orbán

Change is needed in Brussels because the current leaders of the European Union are unfit to handle the fluid situation in Ukraine and migration, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview to public radio on Friday.

National consultation starts again

Orbán who is attending a two-day EU summit, said a new strategy for Ukraine was needed, which is why changes were needed in the EU leadership, which may be secured in the upcoming European Parliament elections.

“In times of peace … these would be good leaders, but now when there are … giant waves, we certainly won’t succeed with the current leaders,” he said in the public media centre in Brussels.

European leaders able to coordinate the work of prime ministers in difficult times must be sought in the EP elections, he added.

Changes, he said, were also needed in the EU in connection with migration and economic policy because Brussels had come forward with “such impossible proposals” such as a demand that Hungary abolish its schemes subsidising household energy bills, taxing excessive bank profits and the interest rate cap “which protects families”.

Orbán said the seriousness of the situation called for another National Consultation survey. He said the public survey was “a good way of asking some very serious questions, of which there are 10-11 now, and to give an opportunity to people to express their opinion.”

The millions of responses regularly received in such surveys “establish broad support behind the government, and the government can then conduct talks in Brussels with a self-assured position against the hurricane headwinds from Brussels,” he added.

Meanwhile, Orbán said that the budget proposal put forward at the EU summit in Brussels was deemed to be “undeveloped and unfit” for serious negotiations. He said the European Commission must now “come up with a more serious proposal”.

Brussels demands money

The 7-year budget adopted three years ago was still in effect, he said in the interview given in the Public Media Centre in Brussels.

“We’re not yet halfway and the Brussels money-grabbers are already coming and demanding we give another 100 billion euros…” he said, noting requests for more money for Ukraine and funds for handling migration.

Some of the latter, he said, may be spent on protecting the external border, and this “may yet be discussed”. The rest would go towards distributing migrants already in Europe among member states and setting up migrant camps, he said.

Orbán added migration brought with it terrorism, crime and conflicts from places “thousands of kilometers from here”.

Such conflicts have already made their way to the streets of big European cities, he said. Hungarians, he added, did not understand their significance yet “because we do not have them”.

Commenting on financial support for the war in Ukraine, he said: “Hungary cannot afford it and does not want to afford it.” It sees no reason why Hungarian tax-payers’ money should be sent to a neighbouring state for anything other than humanitarian aid, he said.

Before spending money, the goal must be clearly defined and the resources allocated to it, he added.

It’s clear that the Ukrainians will not win on the battlefield

At the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the EU’s plan was “to start a defensive war” and Ukrainians “should give their blood, while the EU gives money and weapons, because there was a realistic chance to win on the battlefield”, he said.

Orbán said that whereas this may have once been a realistic scenario and it had been worth talking about giving money to achieve this strategic goal, “by now everybody knows, but they are afraid to say, that this strategy has failed”.

“It’s clear that the Ukrainians will not win on the battlefield and the Russians will not be defeated on the battlefield, and there is no talk about the Russian president losing his position,” Orbán said.

In such a situation, it is necessary to establish that plan A “has failed” and a plan B must be prepared, he said.

“Once there is a plan B, its costs and how to share the costs among ourselves can be discussed, but not the other way round,” he added.

Orbán said migration led to crime, terrorism, unmanageable political tensions and huge costs, adding that Hungary had pointed all this out in 2015.
“They almost crucified us” in Brussels at the time and Hungary’s fence was branded as “blood libel”, he said.

Almost all European countries now accept Hungary’s stance on migration

Almost all European countries now accept the stance on migration that Hungary represented in 2015, he added.

Hungary, Orbán said, had worked out a model for how to protect the country and Europe as a whole, one aspect of which was that applications for asylum should be assessed outside Europe while Hungary instituted border closure in the legal, military and physical sense.

He argued that the same should be applied throughout Europe. The point has been reached that mistakes have been admitted to, he said. It has been recognised that terror and crime were allowed in. “Some even dare to say what we say: there’s a clear, inevitable and close connection between migration, crime and terrorism.”

Instead of adopting Hungary’s model, “they are still attacking us”, he said, noting that the European Commission was suing Hungary to dismantle the only means of “successful border protection”.

Orbán insisted that Hungary would be forced to build migrant camps and migrants who attacked the police on the southern Hungarian border would be allowed in.

Mass coexistence of two worlds

“They live in a bubble in Brussels,” he said. “People arriving here must not be seen as the subjects of social experiments.”

He said Islam was a “great cultural achievement that lifts man out of barbarism. The only question is … who can guarantee that something good will emerge from the mass coexistence of the two worlds?”

He said the security of the Hungarian people would not be at risk while a national government was in power.

Good relationship with China

On the subject of his recent talks in China, Orbán said Hungary must cooperate with Chinese companies and make use of their technology to take advantage of green energy and secure its energy independence.

The “biggest question facing the world economy”, he said, was who would have the ability to store green energy and tap it when needed.

Chinese technology, he added, was now cutting-edge and Hungary, by harnessing the new technology in a timely way and with a head start, would quickly overcome many of its developmental shortcomings.

Orbán noted that Hungary “has an exceptionally good relationship with China” and this “should not be dismissed”, and he pointed to the many benefits of economic relations with the country.

Meanwhile, Orbán said that at the root of the government’s family policy lay the simple connection: “With children, there’s a future; without children, there’s no future.”

The government’s key task, he said, was to help people have children. Its job isn’t to convince or persuade people to have children but to help people bypass obstacles that prevent them from doing so, he said.

Orbán said the government had been working on the new form of support which adapts to the changed financial conditions. The new measures will replace the old CSOK system and will be introduced on January 1 next year, and with the introduction of Csok Plus, families with 1-3 children would receive “serious help” to create an independent home.

Fidesz politician: ‘It should be up to us whom to allow in’

hungary fence migration

“It should be up to us whom to allow into Europe, and this principle should inform European migration policy,” János Bóka, Hungary’s EU affairs minister told Portuguese daily Diario de Noticias.

In the interview published on Thursday, the minister said the EU’s external borders should be reinforced. “There’s no migration policy if you can’t decide who should and shouldn’t be let in,” he said.

Asked about Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s meeting with President Vladimir Putin in China, Bóka said diplomacy required “talking to partners, rivals, or even enemies”.

“It would be bad diplomacy to restrict dialogue only to those we see eye to eye with.”

Regarding the government’s position on the war in Ukraine, he said Hungary “firmly holds the line that Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected. We also think that military conflict must be stopped by way of a ceasefire.”

Concerning the war between Israel and Hamas, Bóka said: “We stand by Israel. These are terrorist attacks committed by a terrorist organisation … Israel has the right to defend itself.”

Concerning Hungary’s frozen EU funds, Bóka said European procedures against Hungary were unfounded because “those concerns about the rule of law” were inapplicable.

He said Hungary was committed to European unity “at a time when the geopolitical situation is extremely fragile, and the EU should reflect unity and strength to save our values and promote our interests.”

World’s richest Hungarian shares when Huxit is most probable

orbán and peterffy

In an interview, the richest Hungarian, Thomas Peterffy, shared when he thinks a Huxit (i.e. Hungary leaving the European Union) is most likely. He also talked about Russia’s war in Ukraine, the US political scene, Orbán’s visit to Beijing and his talk with Putin, whether Hungary will stay in the NATO and more.

The world’s richest Hungarian, Thomas Peterffy, gave an interview to Válasz Online. Among others, he shared when a possible Huxit could happen, what he thinks about the Russian-Ukrainian war, about Joe Biden and Donald Trump (the latter just called Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán “the leader of Türkiye” – read what he said HERE).

Huxit: when?

Mr Peterffy said many are convinced that once Hungary becomes a net contributor to the EU, it will leave. According to the billionaire, Hungary has no choice but to cooperate with Russia on energy. However, this is becoming increasingly difficult to explain to people, as Russian dependence has been reduced or eliminated everywhere else in Europe. The Hungarian government seems to be seeking to be neutral between East and West, but Peterffy expressed doubts about this.

Hungary in NATO

“If I were Hungary, I would remain a member of NATO, even if the country were to leave the EU,” Peterffy said.

Russian-Ukrainian war

The billionaire believes that the areas affected by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which are predominantly populated by Russians, should probably belong to Russia. He believes this would also benefit Ukrainians, as it would make their nation more homogeneous.

Read also:

US politics

On the US political situation, Peterffy believes that a strong Republican candidate is needed. He said he doubted whether US President Joe Biden would even be able to run. His health has been deteriorating dramatically lately. If he had to guess today, he’d say Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo would be the candidate.

Peterffy is hoping that former US President Donald Trump can be persuaded to step aside because he is leading the Republican Party to disaster. He says it is impossible to win with only 35 percent of women supporting him, compared with 60 percent of men.

Orbán’s friendship with Putin

According to Peterffy, the dominant interpretation in Western Europe and the US is that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Beijing is a betrayal of Hungary’s federal system.

Government-close oligarchs, business environment

According to Peterffy, the enrichment of Lőrinc Mészáros and István Tiborcz is a serious problem. He says many people in Hungary do not realise how much it weakens the country. Free markets and competition strengthen the economy and increase people’s well-being, anything that goes against this is harmful.

Speaking about the Hungarian business environment, Peterffy believes that the price caps and restrictions imposed by the government are flawed. According to him, if you keep something at a low price through official means, people will buy more and more of it, so the price caps will cost the state more and more.

Read more:

Orbán: ‘Moscow a tragedy; Brussels bad contemporary parody’ – UPDATE

orbán october 23

Addressing a commemoration of the 1956 uprising, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in Veszprém on Monday that Brussels was “not Moscow”. Moscow, he said, “was a tragedy; Brussels is just a bad contemporary parody”.

“We had to dance to Moscow’s tune,” he said. But if “Brussels whistles”, he added, “we dance as we like, and won’t if we don’t want to.”

Orbán said “comrade training” was now a “conditionality procedure”. “Tanks aren’t rolling in from the east; dollars are rolling in from the west … to the same people,” he added.

Moscow, he said, had been “beyond repair”. “But Brussels and the European Union can still be mended,” he said, referring to the upcoming European elections.

The prime minister said the “sacrifice” of the 1956 revolutionaries was only worth it if “we also protect, live and pass on Hungarian freedom”.

“They didn’t die in vain if we don’t live in vain,” he said.

Orbán suggested that Hungary could “give something to the world that only we can give”. Veszprem, as the cultural capital of Europe, “is doing exactly that: showing the whole of Europe what Hungarian culture and freedom is like.”

Meanwhile, Orbán said Hungary was the “first and only” country trying to “hold back the European peoples from willingly marching into an even greater war”.

Referring to the “chivalrous Hungarian people”, Orbán said that “again and again those whom we saved turn against us” when “we are defending them”.

He said Hungary had defended Europe against migration “and we were the first to propose peace instead of war, which might well have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.”

Hungary, he said, had never got appreciation, “but often gets a slap” and “friendly fire”. “This is the Hungarian destiny, a pattern that repeats itself from time to time,” he added.

The prime minister said: “We must defend freedom or else we’ll lose it”. Orbán said this had been true in 1956 and in 1990, “and it’s true today”, adding that King St. Stephen and the revolutionaries of 1956 “knew that very well”.

Orbán said that it would be wrong to assume the revolution had taken place in the capital alone.

“Every town and village … is part of our great common freedom fight … and it is not only unfair and condescending but also wrong” to regard the revolution as an event that happened solely in Budapest, he said, adding that it was right to “bow our heads” in memory of the 1956 freedom fighters in Veszprem.

The prime minister said that around 3,000 people died and 20,000 were wounded in gunfights, while the communist retaliation saw more than 200 people sent to their deaths and 13,000 imprisoned. Fully 200,000 Hungarians fled the country, he added.

The people who suffered and were executed in prison were from all walks of life, he said. “They executed a priest, a worker, a farmer, a teacher and a Communist Party leader, the old, the young, men and women, people from Budapest and the countryside,” proving that the uprising was truly a common freedom fight of the nation, he said. “An entire nation stood in bloodshed.”

Orbán called the 1956 revolution and freedom fight a “spark of Hungarian genius”.

Orbán said 1956 had been the last chance for a European Hungary “to tear itself away from the world of Bolshevik socialism” which had banished “European culture, Christian civilisation and the right of nations to exist”.

“The Hungarian revolution and freedom fight wasn’t an inarticulate howl or a fit of rage of the oppressed, it wasn’t a gasp of those panting for revenge; neither was it an unbridled outburst of desire for freedom.”

Rather, he said, it was it was “a sober, moderate and responsible movement”, notwithstanding “the breathtaking heroism” and bravery of the revolutionaries.

He paid tribute to a local teacher, Árpád Brusznyai, who had ties to Veszprém, who at the age of 33 was executed after the revolution, saying he had protected youth against “the dictatorship’s marauders” and was the pure embodiment of Hungarian genius.

“Today we know who Brusznyai and his fellow revolutionaries were, but we refuse to even utter the names of the killers,” the prime minister said. “We hold them in contempt and forget them, while bow our heads to and remember Brusznyai and the others.”

Orbán also said the Hungarian nation was strong enough to confront its faults. “We know that the traitors are also part of our nation, they’re also part of our history, just as ‘ill fate’ is part of the national anthem.”

October 23 was followed by November 4 when the county first party secretary appealed Brusznyai’s first-instance life sentence “from right here in Veszprem”, seeking harsher punishment. “We won’t forget that, either.”

The 1956 uprising was “finally won in 1990”, Orbán said, adding that those “who fought the political battles against the Soviet Union and the Communist Party leadership” in 1989 could not have won without the legacy of 1956.

“We fought in the name of freedom, and it was those executed in the freedom fight who hands us the strongest weapon, because those we opposed in 1989 had been put into power by their sins committed against Hungarians in 1956, making their power unstable,” he said.

During the change of regime, the only way the communists could enter the era of democracy with the hope of any political future was to first confess their biggest sin and then lose their power, Orbán said.

The communists had to publicly bury the remains of the victims who had been kept secret up until that point, and once they did “their souls were set free and hovered above the heads of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party’s (MSZMP) leaders,” he added.

“As stated in Hungary’s Fundamental Law, these were criminal organisations, and there is no statute of limitations on the responsibility their leaders bear for the crushing of the 1956 revolution,” the prime minister said.

Orbán, referring to the Socialist Party, said MSZMP’s successor was now “microscopic in size”, and “the last left-wing party planned as the last escape route of the communists will end up exactly where it should according to the spirit of 1956”.

The prime minister said “we only had to finish” in 1989 what had begun in 1956. Thirty years “of forced silence” was “not the same as forgiveness”, he said, adding that “the accounts of history will be settled and must be paid sooner or later”.

“The only courage we needed was to point them out and shout that the emperor has no clothes and can’t evade the judgement of the people,” which had been cast in the free and democratic elections that could be contested by anyone, “even the communists”, he said.

Orbán said that in 1989-1990 the communists were ousted from Hungary without a civil war and without the loss of a single life. “Even though there was pain and bitterness, we avoided economic and political collapse,” he added.

He said Hungary, in 33 years, was the only country in Europe where there had been no need to hold an early election, “and to this day we’re the safest and most stable country in the whole of Europe.”

Orbán said Hungary “rejoined the community of European peoples” on the back of the eventual victory of 1956, which, he added, had been a matter of “historical satisfaction”.

The prime minister said the place “to which we have returned, Europe,” was “no longer the place from which we were excluded and less and less so”.

“We wanted freedom and we are free,” he said. “Europe was also united in the name of freedom, but we have must face the fact that we mean different things by freedom and imagine the free world in different ways.”

Orbán said that from Hungary, it appeared that Westerners thought of freedom “as some sort of escape”.

“Rid yourself of yourself, of what you were born as, but the very least, change it,” he said, describing the Western view. “Grow out of your past … change your sex, your nationality, or at least leave it behind you. Change your identity and all your components and put yourself back together according to the latest fashion and then you will be free.”

“We, here in Hungary, desired the exact opposite of that: we desired to be who we are,” the prime minister said. “The thought that I shouldn’t be a man, a Hungarian or a Christian is as if our hearts would be torn out,” Orban said, stressing that freedom to Hungarians was not “running from ourselves … but rather finding our way home”. “Be who you are!” he added.

“Embrace the fact that you were born Hungarian, Christian, a woman or a man, that you are the child of your father and mother, the spouse of your husband or wife, the parent of your daughter or son; embrace that you are a friend and a son of your country and a patriot,” Orbán said.

“We weren’t aren’t willing to give this up in 1956, 1990 or 2023 for either Moscow’s or Brussels’s sake,” the prime minister said, adding that freedom was a life instinct for Hungarians.

That is what makes Hungarians a nation of freedom fighters and the strategy of the Hungarian nation to “stand at graves of every occupying empire”, he said.

Orbán said Hungarians had not lost sight of the most important law of survival, which he said was “knowing that the past isn’t behind us … but is what we’re standing on”.

Hungarian opposition parties mark 1956 anniversary

Gyöngyösi Jobbik

Hungarian opposition parties marked the anniversary of the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising on Monday.

Democratic Coalition

Ferenc Gyurcsány, the leader of the opposition Democratic Coalition, said at an event recorded earlier in Budapest: “October 23rd has ceased to be a joint celebration of the nation.” He said government officials and “we who preserve the [real] celebration” had marked the day in separate locations and in a different spirit.

Drawing a parallel between the present day and 1956, Gyurcsány insisted that the West had brought “the promise of a freer, more independent country”, while “Russia threatens the free peoples of Europe”. He said Hungarian powerholders “lied” by insisting the threat came from Brussels.

As we wrote today, the Hungarian foreign ministry said, the West watched with sympathy but forgot to help.

Jobbik-Conservatives

Márton Gyöngyösi, the leader of Jobbik-Conservatives, called his party “the spiritual heirs of the revolution”. Speaking at the monument of 1956 martyr Péter Mansfeld in Budapest, Gyöngyösi noted that at the founding event Jobbik had received a Hungarian flag from revolutionary fighter Gergely Pongrátz.

The party’s mission, Gyöngyösi said, remained “resistance against Communists and to topple this regime one day”.

“Today Budapest is ruled by a government that receives its orders from Moscow … and it has the same approach to young people as its Communist predecessors.”

Fidesz, he added, had imposed “closed borders, dwindling education, ridiculous wages and cheap Russian propaganda” on Hungarian youth.

Socialists

Socialist co-leader Ágnes Kunhalmi has called for joint action against the “incumbent authoritarian rule” in Hungary, and insisted that the country was lacking “democratic conditions”.

Speaking at her party’s commemoration of the outbreak of the 1956 anti-Soviet revolt in Kaposvár, in south-western Hungary late on Sunday, Kunhalmi said “those that seek to play domestic democracy in a fundamentally anti-democratic environment have failed to understand . the message of young people fighting for freedom, prosperity, and progress back then.”

The Socialist Party fights for “freedom for the country and its society, a democratic rule of law, prosperity for the general public, and social security”, the politician said.

The Socialists consider Imre Nagy, prime minister in 1956, the leader of the failed revolution, and reject the government’s endeavours to “suppress, question, or even deny his political role”, Kunhalmi said. The martyred prime minister “always stayed a leftist and his taking the responsibility and all risks clearly refute the government’s claims that 1956 was exclusively a Christian nationalist, right-wing revolution,” she insisted.

István Hiller, the head of the party’s national board, said his party would support local governments that can “promote the interests of locals with assistance by the state”.

“We don’t want just elected representatives, we want self-governance, free cities, places for the people to meet freely, free deputies that will present their ideas to the electorate and then implement the will of the voters,” Hiller insisted.

“It is not acceptable that the gap between poor and rich is opening terribly and there is hardly any opportunity for social advancement, much less than we believed and wanted in 1989,” he said.

On the subject of the war in Ukraine, Hiller said “Russia has been the attacker, the agressor, and we cannot take sides with any other party than the one attacked … we want peace, but peace that will do justice to the attacked side,” he said.

Courting Macron? Orbán helps Chad, one of the world’s poorest and least democratic countries

Hungary helps Chad

Hungary supports Chad, one of the poorest and most autocratic states in the world with soldiers, a development centre, and even a model farm. What for? The connection may be Hungary’s developing ties with France.

We wrote in THIS article that Germany’s new political leadership no longer regards Hungary as a great ally as much as it did during the Merkel era. During their last summit, Scholz and Orbán did not hold a joint press conference and Orbán did not receive a military parade like close friends do. The frozen German-Hungarian political relationship does not mean that Hungary does not serve as the backyard of Germany’s economy, but the ties are slowly shrinking. Therefore, Orbán searched for new allies in Europe and found President Macron. Their developing friendship happens despite the fact that a government-close oligarch’s bank supported the presidential campaign of Marine Le Pen with preferential loans.

Surprising Hungarian help for one of Africa’s poorest, Chad

That developing relationship between France and Hungary might be the cause behind Hungary’s unique support towards an autocratic regime in Africa: Chad.

According to g7.hu, Hungary launched an unprecedented aid program for Chad, one of the most underdeveloped states in the world. 200 Hungarian soldiers will go there this spring out of the 800 soldiers serving abroad (500 in Kosovo, we wrote about them HERE). The Chad mission will precede the Bosnian (160) and the Iraqi (130).

Here is a video of the Hungary helps program in Chad:

Chad mission:

Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky, Hungary’s defence minister, said the reason behind the military operation is to help stabilise the autocratic regime. Otherwise, the Sahel region’s destabilisation would continue, and millions of people would leave their homelands.

Furthermore, Hungary will open a humanitarian and development centre in the capital, N’Djamena. Moreover, the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE) will create a model farm and a knowledge centre in the country to help local food production. They will test irrigation technologies because drought, lack of water and poverty are everyday challenges. Meanwhile, a ministerial commissioner will be responsible for the Hungarian programs carried out in the Sahel region.

Chad is one of the last French allies in the region. Other countries, also under anti-democratic leadership, already turned to Russia.

Hungarian FM: Estonia PM’s shock at Orbán-Putin meeting ‘hypocrisy’

Péter Szijjártó foreign minister

Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has hit back at Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’s recent expression of shock over Tuesday’s meeting between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling her reaction “hypocrisy at its peak”.

Szijjártó reacted to Kallas having called images of the meeting “very, very unpleasant” and saying it defied logic.

“It is with great respect that I’d like to note that this is the same Kaja Kallas whose husband was recently revealed to have owned a share in a company that supplied 30 million euros worth of raw materials to a Russian factory even after the outbreak of the war.” the minister said on Facebook late on Wednesday.

“Hypocrisy at its peak,” Szijjártó added.

PM Orbán: Connectivity, mutual respect bring hope for peace, economic development

Viktor Orbán China

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has talked about a decline in the Western world and Europe’s competitiveness, the importance of connectivity, and Hungary as a meeting point of eastern and western economies in his address at the Belt and Road Initiative summit in Beijing, his press chief said on Wednesday.

Orbán said that the era of the Western world holding an advantage was over, with the East having gained in strength. He said the European dilemma was whether to create blocs in the global economy and compete, while acting as protectionists, or to seek the opportunities for cooperation and connectivity.

He also said that Europe had cut cooperation with Russia and this was a big step towards the development of blocs. Currently, there are efforts to go even further with discussions of decoupling and de-risking, which would result in the isolation of European and Chinese economies, he added.

Supporters of connectivity including Hungary reject the policy of creating blocs, he said. Central Europe suffered for decades from the existence of blocs which was “not good, illogical and inhuman”, he said.

Orbán said Hungarians wanted an era of connectivity instead of the formation of blocs because connectivity would give Europe a chance for regaining its competitiveness. “Our history proves that a return to connectivity and mutual respect in international politics can bring the hope for peace and economic development,” he added.

Hungary’s goal is to become the meeting point for eastern and western economies and technologies, he said. The most important eastern and western investors for the new era of technology meet in Hungary today, he added.

“We are proud that Hungary has become the number one central European destination for Chinese companies’ investments,” he said.

Hungary is ready for further cooperation with China and all countries that support connectivity, he added.

Hungary and Serbia protest Bulgaria’s tax on transit gas from Russia

The governments of Hungary and Serbia said a decision by Bulgaria to levy a tax on the transit of their gas from Russia was “an adversarial step” that put “the safe supply of energy at risk” for both countries, in a joint statement issued on Tuesday.

“This decision goes against European solidarity, endangering the energy security of a fellow EU member state and a candidate country,” the sides said in their statement.

“Hungary and Serbia will coordinate their positions and will not leave this hostile Bulgarian decision without a proper response,” they added.

Szijjártó: Gazprom will continue fulfilling gas supplies obligations

Russian President Vladimir Putin and the director of Gazprom have confirmed that the company will continue fulfilling its contracted gas supplies obligations in the direction of Hungary despite increased transit fees by Bulgaria, the foreign minister said on Tuesday.

The ministry cited Péter Szijjártó as saying in Beijing following Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s meeting with Putin that the situation in Ukraine was an important topic on the agenda of talks. Hungary faces the negative consequences of the war on a daily basis, in the form of the migrant crisis, high inflation and soaring energy prices caused by the policy of sanctions, while ethnic Hungarians are among those that die in the fights, he added.

“The prime minister talked about the possibility of peace at today’s talks, as well, and stood up for peace,” Szijjártó said. “The answer we received and the message of the entire meeting, all that was said there, offer no reason for too much positive hope,” he added.

The other focal point of the talks was energy cooperation between the two countries because Hungary must maintain relations based on common sense and mutual respect in order to guarantee the security of supplies, he said.

“Whether we like it or not, Hungary’s energy security cannot be guaranteed without Hungarian-Russian cooperation,” he said. “The question of energy supplies is not a political or an ideological question,” the foreign minister added.

“Concerning energy cooperation, a review of the situation established that the country’s energy supplies are secure and Hungarian-Russian cooperation serves this,” he said.

Commenting on Bulgaria’s increasing the transit fees on Russian gas in a measure introduced without preliminary warning, he said the decision was unfriendly towards Hungary and Serbia because it threatened the security of energy supplies. The measures go against European solidarity and may violate community rules on the introduction of duties and the free movement of goods, he added.

Szijjártó said that he had held several talks with Serbian deputy Prime Minister Sinisa Mali about the issue and agreed to coordinate steps in the future.

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This is what Orbán and Putin talked about in Beijing

orbán and putin in china

It would be most important for Hungarians and the whole of Europe to have an end to the wave of refugees, the sanctions and the fighting in a neighbouring country, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a video on Tuesday.

Orbán, who travelled to Beijing on Sunday, said he had met Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier in the day to discuss bilateral economic ties and held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the afternoon.

He said in Europe everybody was asking the same question whether there was going to be a ceasefire in Ukraine.

“For us, Hungarians and for the whole of Europe, it would be most important that the flow of refugees, the sanctions and the fighting should end in the neighbouring country,” Orbán said.

The answer received from the Russian president was “the least assuring”, he said, adding that Hungary had to plan its steps accordingly in the coming months.

“This is why it is important for us, Hungarians to maintain Hungarian-Russian cooperation in energy and in other eonomic areas,” the prime minister said.

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PHOTOS: Orbán meets Putin in China for first time since start of war

orbán and putin in beijing china propaganda

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán held bilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing on Tuesday.

The two leaders discussed Hungarian-Russian cooperation in the areas of oil and gas deliveries as well as nuclear energy, MTI reports.

Orbán emphasised the importance of peace, saying that an end to the flow of refugees, sanctions and the fighting was key for the entire continent, including Hungary.

orbán and putin in beijing china
Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin meet in Beijing, China for the first time since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Source: MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Fischer Zoltán

Orbán and Putin last met in person in Moscow on 1 February 2022 (read our article HERE), before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. After five hours of talks, the two leaders held a joint press conference to discuss the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, gas supplies, the Hungarian vaccine factory and Paks II.

Read about the Belt and Road summit that is being held in Beijing:

Israeli Ambassador to Hungary: Hamas attack ‘watershed’ moment

Jewish Hungary israel flag

Hamas’s attack on Israel was a “watershed” moment for the Middle Eastern country, Israeli Ambassador to Hungary Yakov Hadas-Handelsman told parliament’s foreign affairs committee on Monday.

Hadas-Handelsman thanked Hungary’s parliament for its support, and asked for international support for Israel’s self-defence.

What happened on October 7 was not a terrorist attack but a “pogrom”, and even Holocaust survivors say they had not experienced such actions even during the Holocaust, the ambassador said, adding that Hamas’s terrorists had tortured people and murdered children. The attack was total destruction and a “barbaric act”, he said, adding that Hamas was as big a threat as the Islamic State terrorist group, with neither distinguishing between nationalities.

Hadas-Handelsman said Israel had been caught in a surprise attack. He said putting an end to this “barbarism” was not just in the interest of Israel, but also that of the international community, arguing that Hamas’s actions were being celebrated in multiple parts of the world. Israel wants to end Hamas’s political and military rule in the Gaza Strip in a way that this has minimal effect on those it does not concern, he said, adding that this was why Israel had called on civilians to leave northern Gaza.

He said Israel aimed to rescue all of the hostages held by Hamas.

Meanwhile, the country is prepared to have to defend itself on two fronts in the event that a second on opens up from Lebanon, he said.

The ambassador also said that while the reasons behind Hamas’s attack were unknown, it was possible Hamas had thought that Israel had been weakened and was divided by the ongoing internal social dispute, giving them a good opportunity to strike. One other possibility, he said, was that Iran could have been the one behind the attack because of its concerns over the United States’ taking a leadership role in the process to normalise the situation in the Middle East, and the significant changes this could bring to the region.

Some also interpret the attack as Iran and Russia working together to create a more difficult situation in the Middle East with the aim to divert attention from Ukraine, he said.

Ruling Fidesz’s Zsolt Németh, the head of the committee, said there was broad consensus on the condemnation of Hamas’s actions and the recognition of Israel’s right to defend itself. Hamas’s attack had been aimed at the destruction of Israel, so the world cannot be indifferent in this situation, he said, stressing the importance of supporting the existence of the state of Israel.

Németh also said there were no pro-Hamas demonstrations in Hungary, and that the Jewish community could count on the Hungarian state’s protection.

Ágnes Vadai of the leftist opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) said her party had submitted a draft resolution aimed at parliament designating Hamas a terrorist organisation in line with a resolution adopted by the Council of the European Union.

Lőrinc Nacsa of the co-ruling Christian Democrats said the events had “shocked” everyone.

Hadas-Handelsman said in response to Nacsa that the pro-Hamas rallies held across several cities was the exact reason why they did not think that the attack was solely Israel’s problem.

Opposition Jobbik’s Koloman Brenner said the reason why Hamas’s actions could be considered “barbaric” was because it demonstrated the group’s brutality and had been part of a pre-planned strategy.

Zita Gurmai of the Socialist Party said they condemned Hamas’s attack, but stressed the need to take civilians into consideration.

Hungarian Foreign Minister stands up for energy cooperation with Russia

russia szijjártó

Hungary’s energy supplies are safe, with natural gas reserves at 62 percent of the annual demand, as Russian suppliers are committed to fulfilling their contractual obligations, the minister of foreign affairs and trade said in Moscow on Friday.

Péter Szijjártó said it was “natural” that he attended the Russian Energy Week forum and was holding talks on future cooperation in energy supplies, as fulfilling Hungary’s energy demand “remains physically impossible without Russian resources”.

Ensuring energy supplies is not a political issue but that of resources and delivery routes, he said. “We can’t heat with press conferences and thunderous declarations or political statements.”

Hungary also needs Russian technology and fuel for its nuclear industry, he said.

So far, Hungary has received all natural gas, crude oil and nuclear fuel contracted with Russian companies, he said.

Crude deliveries are uninterrupted through Ukraine, Szijjártó said, expressing hope that the route wouldn’t be “ruined through financial, political or physical means”.

While Hungary has already stored 62 percent of its annual demand in natural gas, the EU average of reserves is 29 percent, he said.

At the same time, “attempts are ongoing to make Hungarian-Russian cooperation impossible,” Szijjártó warned.

Szijjártó insisted that one of those attempts was a Bulgarian draft legislation that would drastically raise the transit fees on Russian gas and would cease deliveries should payments fall out.

He called the Bulgarian legislation “unacceptable”. “For one European Union member state to endanger another’s gas supplies clearly runs afoul of European regulations and solidarity,” he said.

Szijjártó said he was in talks with Bulgaria and Serbia on preventing that Bulgarian laws should pose difficulties for Hungary and Serbia.

On another topic, the minister welcomed that construction work had started on Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant expansion.

International cooperation remains broad in the nuclear industry, he said. A US company is working on the plant upgrade besides others. Also, “in the first half of this year, the US bought a record 416 tonnes of Uranium from Russia,” he said.

The Paks upgrade has gained new momentum as international cooperation started there, “so connecting the two new blocks to the electric grid in the beginning of the next decade remains a realistic goal,” the foreign minister said.

“Hungary maintains its sensible politics, where representing national interests and the security of energy supplies are the only priority,” he said.

Earlier in the day, Szijjártó met Russian Deputy Prime Ministers Denis Manturov and Alexander Novak, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko and Oleg Matytsin, the minister of sports.

Hungary strives for cooperation based on mutual respect with Russia, says Szijjártó in Moscow

russian szijjártó

Hungary strives for cooperation with Russia based on mutual respect, even amid the current geopolitical situation, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said on Facebook on Friday.

Cooperation with Russia in the key strategic areas is crucial for Hungary, the minister said, noting that the country’s energy security would not be guaranteed without maintaining ties with Russia.

Health care and agriculture are two sectors not subject to sanctions, so Hungary continues to support its agricultural and health companies looking to expand on the Russian market, and promotes closes cooperation in health care, too, Szijjártó said.

He praised Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko, the head of the economic mixed committee, for his contributions to strengthening bilateral cooperation in areas such as gas supply and the delivery of coronavirus vaccines.

“Sports, geopolitics have nothing to do with each other”

Sports and geopolitics “have nothing to do with each other; at least they shouldn’t,” Szijjártó said after meeting Russian Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin in Moscow on Friday.

“The Hungarian athletes whose decades of hard work were wasted because they could not attend the Los Angeles Olympics would have a lot to say about this,” Szijjártó said on Facebook.

Hungary’s government supports the International Olympic Committee’s efforts aimed at organising a “complete Olympics” in Paris.

Hungary agrees with the position that an athlete’s participation in the Olympics or any other international competition should depend solely on their performance, he added.

“We believe that sports can bring about peace, which is why we support the chance for athletes to compete against each other amid peaceful circumstances,” Szijjártó said. “This isn’t something we just pay lip service to, but we also follow up our words with actions,” he said, noting that the Belarusian national soccer team and the Ukrainian handball team both played their respective European and world championship qualifiers in Hungary.

Hungarian FM: Govt wants guarantee that OTP not returned to International Sponsors of War list

OTP Bank Hungary megabank

Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Wednesday that a decision by Ukraine to remove OTP from the International Sponsors of War list was “a step in the right direction”, but the government wants a guarantee that the bank will not be returned to the list.

Szzijjártó told the press that he had invited representatives of Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP) to discuss the matter.

Answering a question at a joint press conference on a different subject held with his Moldovan counterpart, Szijjártó said in that the removal of OTP from the list was a welcome move but it also showed that the NACP had essentially admitted that the bank had been put on the list for “unfounded, deceitful and laughable” reasons.

He said it was an unfounded claim that OTP was a decisive player in Russia’s banking system when the bank’s market share there was only 0.17 percent. The claim that OTP was operating in Donetsk “belonged to the category of laughable” considering that it had a branch in a town with the same name in Russia but several hundred kilometres from the Ukraine border, he added.

“So, all the four reasons that the Ukrainian agency named were deceitful, laughable and unfounded claims…” he said.

At the same time, OTP may very well end up returning to the list, and this remains a cause for concern, he added.

“That’s why we’ve asked the Ukrainian ambassador … to bring an NACP delegation to Budapest as soon as possible to negotiate an agreement that can serve as a guarantee that this kind of decision will not be taken in future,” he added.

“If satisfactory agreement is reached we must naturally weigh what steps are justified to take on our part,” he said.

Szijjártó added that NACP also maintained a list of proposed sanctions and this still included OTP’s Russian unit and four Hungarian bankers.

“We expect that the four OTP leaders and the Russian unit also to be removed from the Ukrainian anti-corruption agency’s list,” he added.

Hungary’s largest bank removed from list of international war sponsors

OTP Bank Hungary Uzbekistan

In recent days, during 24/7 discussions with the European Union’s External Action Service, OTP Bank has made a number of commitments regarding its future plans for the Russian market.

The National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (NACP), fulfilling its part of the agreement, has removed the bank from the list of international supporters of the war.

The NACP expects the bank to comply immediately with the agreement reached.

As we said before, at the request of the Hungarian government, the Ukrainian anti-corruption agency has removed OTP Bank from the list of international donors to the war. With the decision, the Ukrainian side expects the Hungarian government to lift its veto on the half-a-billion euro grant, thus allowing the European Peace Facility funds to be disbursed to Ukraine.

As we wrote before, the largest Hungarian bank expanded in a surprising country, details HERE.

Hungary-Russia contract concerning Paks NPP upgrade still kept in secret

Paks Nuclear Power Plant

Benedek Jávor, the European Union adviser of the opposition Párbeszéd-Greens, expressed concern over the government’s secrecy concerning the insurance contracts of the upgrade of the Paks nuclear plant on Saturday.

At an online press conference broadcast on Facebook, Jávor said it was one of the key issues of the Paks upgrade whether the project is adequately insured. This is important so that the financial consequences of unexpected events are not burdened on Hungarian taxpayers, he said.

Jávor said it was reason for concern that in this year’s amendment to the contract between the Hungarian and Russian partners, “the Hungarian party waived its right to consent regarding the contracts concluded by Rosatom, and gave the general contractor a free hand on how to guarantee financial collaterals in the event of a delay or accident”.

He said it was also problematic that a brokerage tender was called for the Hungarian insurance of the project, which was won by a unit of the group owned by the businessman Lőrinc Mészáros as a single bidder. The deadlines set in the original tender were modified several times, and it is still unclear whether the company fulfilled the public procurement requirements and the appropriate insurance has been taken out, he added.

Parbeszed-Greens have asked these questions in writing but the government only gave “cynical” one-sentence answers stating that the Paks project had all the necessary contracts, Jávor said.

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