Slovakia is guest of honour at the 27th International Book Festival Budapest to be held between 29 September and 2 October at Budapest’s Millenaris Park, organisers told at a press conference on Thursday.
The event to be held after a two-year hiatus will host 130 exhibitors and 150 programmes, with more than 40 foreign guests attending, Katalin Gál, the head of the Hungarian Publishers’ and Booksellers’ Association, said.
Guest of honour is Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich, a Belarusian investigative journalist, essayist and oral historian, who will also receive the Budapest Grand Prize presented by Budapest’s mayor, Gergely Karácsony.
The festival will showcase 29 Slovak books translated into Hungarian and 10 books by Slovak authors writing in Hungarian.
It will also host the European Debut Writers Festival on Sept. 30, with young authors from 20 countries expected to attend.
The interests of EU member states ought to be seen as important as unity, the Hungarian justice minister said at the Conservative Summit held in Bratislava (Pozsony) on Monday.
Addressing a panel discussion, Judit Varga discussed the “opinion hegemony” of progressive liberals in the European Union and their purpose, and conservatives’ tasks on the matter.
“The progressives are forging ahead as a steam roller tamping down whatever lies ahead […], aiming to eradicate national characters and questioning sovereignty and the traditional structure of society,” she said. “Meanwhile, national conservatives have failed to expand [their influence] globally, allowing the progressive opinion to dominate the discourse on the continent,” she said.
In Europe, where the issue of centralisation had been a controversial issue from the start, “a radically one-sided left-wing liberal concept has come to the fore which openly or covertly aims to create a United States of Europe” through “questioning national sovereignty, deeming national self-determination illegitimate and weakening the national powers of member states,” she said.
The method progressives use includes “attacking the building blocks of sovereignty, the historic churches, the family, the nation and regional cooperation”, the justice minister said, adding that the task of conservatives was therefore to protect “these natural communities”.
She said the European Union should be built on the cooperation of nations. “Europe cannot exist without nations, the nations are Europe’s foundation, let’s preserve them, because only strong nations can form a strong Europe,” Varga said, adding that rather than limiting the national powers of EU member states, their cooperation must be further strengthened and made more effective based on respect.
The justice minister called for respecting national sovereignty within the framework of treaties in order to ensure that diversity in Europe can be maintained.
The annual Conservative Summit was launched last year. This year’s event focuses on the vision of a conservative Europe, family policy and the war in Ukraine.
Hungarian government officials on Saturday greeted teachers and students of Hungarian schools across the borders at the start of the academic year, and pledged continued support for mother-tongue education from kindergarten to university.
State Secretary Árpád János Potápi attended the year-opening event of Hungarian schools in Slovakia in Drzkovce (Deresk) in southern Slovakia. Although the coming months may be fraught with difficulties, Hungary’s government is committed to continuing its programmes supporting mother-tongue education across the borders, as it has done for 12 years, he said. The subsidies have made quality mother-tongue education available for some 300,000 Hungarian children in the Carpathian Basin, he said. The government has contributed to the building and reconstruction of some 1,000 kindergartens, and regularly supports 50 institutes of secondary education and dormitories, as well as 8 higher-education institutes, he said.
This year, 3,675 children start learning in Hungarian-language schools in Slovakia, “which is cause for optimism,” he said.
Péter Szilágyi, a deputy state secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office, attended an event in Mali Hejivci (Kisgejoc) in western Ukraine. He said the opening ceremony was a “careful, tiny step towards peaceful daily life” in war-torn Ukraine. The Hungarian government has aided teachers’ efforts to bring stability into children’s lives in the region, and so all schools could start in-person education at the start of the academic year, he said. He thanked Ildiko Orosz, the head of the association of Hungarian teachers in Transcarpathia, for her work.
The Hungarian government’s support for kindergarten and schoolchildren, as well as “constant curricular and infrastructural development”, have made mother-tongue education across the borders competitive with “other education”, he said.
Gergely Gulyás, head of the Prime Minister’s Office, attended a ceremony on Wednesday at which the Rákóczi Association handed over 16 school buses to serve ethnic Hungarian children in Slovakia.
The new buses will be part of a network in southern Slovakia aimed to help Hungarian children get to school, Gulyás said. He also added that in wake of the pilot project the number of children going to Hungarian schools had increased by one third. In September, 266 ethnic Hungarian children will start the school year in Hungarian schools, he added.
“If there are more children preserving our language, there will be more people to preserve our culture,” Gulyás said.
Charges have been raised against a Slovak man who tried to use a fake Hungarian licence plate when refueling his vehicle in western Hungary so that he would be eligible for the capped fuel price, the Zala County Prosecutor’s Office said on Monday.
Earlier this year, the government limited the fuel price cap of 480 forints (EUR 1.19) per litre to top-ups of vehicles with Hungarian number plates to put the squeeze on petrol tourism.
The 29-year-old man in question was passing through Hungary on his way back to Slovakia from a holiday in Croatia early last month, Csaba Pirger, the spokesman of the prosecutor’s office, told MTI. When he reached Nagykanizsa, he wanted to top up his car, but replaced his licence plate with a fake plastic Hungarian one he had obtained in Slovakia so that he would be eligible for the capped fuel price.
When he got to a petrol station, he asked the manager how much fuel he could buy, but got scared and drove off without refueling. He put his real licence plates back onto his vehicle barely 50 metres from the petrol station and put the fake ones in the car’s passenger compartment.
The station’s manager notified the police of the incident. Police then found the man at another petrol station and seized the fake licence plates.
The Nagykanizsa district prosecutor’s office has charged the man with abuse of a unique identifier.
“Attila the Hun was gay” was the banner that Slovan Bratislava fans held for Ferencváros fans arriving from Hungary, according to a picture posted on the Slovan fans’ Facebook page.
A banner on an access road to Bratislava reads “Attila the hun was gay” in English. The picture was spotted by Hungarian sports news portal Nemzeti Sport on the Slovak ultras’ Facebook page.
The return match between Slovan and Ferencváros in Bratislava started at 8.30 PM on Wednesday, with Hungarian fans travelling to the Slovakian capital by private train.
Hungarian and Slovak police and special forces seized the largest gun arsenal in Hungary in the past 25 years, as well as drugs, cash and valuables, and arrested several people in an international operation against a drug trafficking ring last week, officers told a joint press conference on Wednesday.
Rudolf Patka of Slovakia’s National Criminal Agency (NAKA) and Zoltán Boross of Hungary’s National Investigation Office (NNI) said that operation PARKETAR was the result of an investigation started in December 2021. On July 12, police forces searched 12 properties in western Hungary, western Slovakia and Vienna. They seized drugs, cash, illegal firearms, gold bars and jewelry, among other luxury items, they said.
Altogether 16 people were charged with trafficking methamphetamines and cocaine to Slovakia via Mexican and Romanian drug cartels in Vienna. The organisation is alleged to have smuggled over 100kg of cocaine into the country since 2016, they said.
The charges are punishable with 20-25 years in prison, they said.
House searches in the properties of a Slovak national yielded the largest arsenal of firearms found in Hungary in the past 25 years, the officers said. Police have seized 59 live firearms, 45,000 ammunition and other equipment, as well as explosives, they said.
If one does not want any unpleasant surprises, it is worth paying attention. Some ATMs abroad convert HUF to EUR at an exchange rate of nearly 500.
In Slovakia, 1 EUR was nearly 500 HUF
A reader wrote to pénzcentrum.hu about the unfortunate incident. Last week in Slovenia he suddenly needed to withdraw money, as the IFA can only be paid in cash, and he went to the nearest ATM for EUR 60. Unfortunately, he only found a so-called non-bank ATM, and he was quite shocked at the exchange rate.
He paid HUF 29,227 HUF for EUR 60, even though on that day, 6 July, the average official exchange rate was HUF 409.98.
So it was HUF 77 more expensive as the machine changed it for HUF 487.
Firstly, one needs to be careful with non-bank ATMs. Not only at home but also abroad. The exchange rate at these ATMs is 10 to 15 percent less favourable compared to banks or street money exchangers. They are actually not money exchangers, but DCCs, i.e. dynamic currency conversion facilities. This means that they provide a kind of convenience service and are, therefore, subject to different regulations. In case of foreign purchases or cash withdrawals, in addition to the local currency, the system also offers the deduction of the amount in HUF from one’s account. The exchange takes place in both cases. Although one does not pay in HUF, when choosing the HUF, the system uses an extremely unfavourable exchange rate from the customer’s point of view. Therefore, in almost all cases, it is worth choosing a deduction in EUR.
Be aware of the costs of ATM use abroad
Before travelling, one should be fully informed about the costs of using ATMs abroad. If someone withdraws money abroad with a Hungarian HUF card, their home card-issuing bank may charge them a significant amount in addition to the handling costs of the foreign bank. Moreover, it is worth checking the current policies of the bank that issued the bank card for purchases and cash withdrawals abroad. For example, there may be more favourable fees for cash withdrawals at foreign ATMs operated by the bank group.
The Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities is criticizing Slovakia on how they treat Hungarian minority in the country. Slovak authorities do not condemn political speeches inciting violence or hatred sufficiently or only late.
The Committee objected to several points in their document, summarizing its fifth recommendation in relation to Slovakia in a total of 306 points, reports ma7.sk. For example, they recommend improving the education of Roma children and the support mechanism for national minorities.
Violent speech against Hungarian minority
Although the Committee appreciates the fact that Slovakia has increased its support for minority cultures and the media in recent years, there are still some issues to work on, writes Index.hu. According to the committee, the Slovak authorities do not condemn incitement to violence and hatred in public or political speech. Even if they do so, it happens only after a long period of time. Not to mention the fact that there is a lack of data about these cases. Anti-minority rhetoric needs to be tackled more vigorously, experts say. What is more, respect for diversity in society needs to be actively promoted.
In paragraph 119, the EU-committee adresses one of the main issues. According to independent experts, the Slovak authorities could still apply the 1945 confiscation ordinance, which targets mainly Hungarian and German minorities, reports Mandiner.hu. After World War II, the infamous Benes decrees established the collective guilt of the Germans and Hungarians living in the country. They wanted to create a Czechoslovak nation-state. However, lands are still taken away from Hungarians, which creates legal uncertainty.
What is the position of the Slovak government?
The Slovak side does not agree with the fears of the Hungarian minority. They believe the issue has already been sorted out. Although these measures resulted in a number of individual grievances and tragedies, they were legal and legitimate.
As for the Hungarian minority, they want to start a dialogue on how to resolve this issue. The above mentioned decree was re-applied recently, which is unacceptable. In paragraph 125, the committee invites the authorities to enter into a dialogue with the representatives of the national minorities. They should have a discussion about the main problems concerning Hungarian minorities.
Transport officials of the Visegrád Group countries have agreed to speed up preparations for the construction of a high-speed rail network across their countries and to step up efforts to transport grain from Ukraine, the Ministry of Technology and Industry (TIM) said on Friday.
Europe’s current railway capacities are not enough to transport all the Ukrainian grain which until now had been delivered via the Black Sea to the west on schedule, state secretary Dávid Vitézy said. The V4 officials agreed at their meeting in Budapest that their countries will do their utmost to aid Ukraine as well as Africa and Asia, which rely on Ukraine’s exports, he said.
The V4 countries are exploring new areas for cooperation with a view to expanding their capacities for cross-border transport within the European Union as well as for mapping out transport opportunities via the River Danube, Vitézy said.
The TIM will assign top priority to the improvement of the international integration of Hungary’s rail network and the development of relations with areas beyond the border, the statement said.
All of the V4 states are working on
the development of the high-speed railway line linking Budapest and Warsaw via the Czech and Slovak capitals,
Vitézy said. Hungary can obtain the environmental permit for the Budapest-Győr section of the line within the next year, he said. Slovakia is currently planning the route of its section of the line while the Czech Republic and Poland are in the detailed planning stage, the state secretary added.
According to the statement, the project will shorten travel times between Budapest and its neighbouring capitals to less than two hours. The journey from Budapest to Prague would take three-and-a-half hours and the full Budapest-Warsaw trip will be five-and-a-half hours, with the trains on the line reaching speeds of up to 320kph.
Both Hungary and Slovakia have benefitted a lot from their cooperation in the current rather tense global economic situation in which stable and predictable ties are of high value, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Budapest on Friday, after talks with Ivan Korcok, his Slovak counterpart.
Szijjártó told a joint press conference that both countries were facing threats and challenges posed directly by the war in neighbouring Ukraine.
“Both countries have taken in several hundreds of thousands of refugees.
Hungary has offered entry to and catered for 800,000 people fleeing Ukraine and will continue to provide these forms of assistance as long as needed,” the minister said. He thanked the Hungarian charity organisations and their staff for their efforts provided in the largest ever humanitarian programme in the country’s history, also thanking the work of their Slovak counterparts.
Turning to economic issues, Szijjártó noted
soaring inflation, energy prices and banking interests rates as the most pressing challenges, adding that all those factors “could easily trigger a global economic crisis”.
“There’s a lot of tension in the global economy, and one clear sign of it is coming at us in the form of an incredible international pressure that Hungary should back the introduction of a European global minimum tax,” Szijjártó said. Such a tax would however have “a tragic effect” on the European economy, including the Hungarian one, he said.
Szijjártó said that in the current tense global economic situation stable and predictable economic cooperation such as the one developed by Hungary and Slovakia over the past years must be particularly valued. He noted that bilateral trade last year reached a record 13 billion euros and increased in the first three months of 2022 by 49 percent.
On the topic of energy and challenges faced by the sector in both countries, Szijjártó noted similarities not only in their geographical and infrastructural situation but in their energy policies.
“Nuclear energy for example plays an important role in Hungary and in Slovakia, too,”
he said.
Both Hungary and Slovakia “have done their homework” as partners and have built their natural gas interconnectors, Szijjártó said, adding that its capacity was planned to be increased in the direction of Slovakia.
Concerning Ukraine, Szijjártó said the Hungarian government had expressed support for granting Ukraine candidate membership when most western European countries were still hesitating.
The minister said
the Hungarian government does not oppose sending weapons to Ukraine.
“But dictated by the country’s security interests, it has decided neither to send weapons nor to allow their transport directly through the country’s territory. Others may choose to decide otherwise and we will respect their decision”, he said.
Speaking about Hungary’s humanitarian efforts, Szijjártó said “it is not a problem that nobody has thanked us for the assistance, but we cannot accept that we are constantly being provoked and insulted by Ukrainian policy-makers.”
Commenting on the future of the Visegrád Group (V4) cooperation, the Hungarian foreign minister said that despite strong cooperation between the four countries, it cannot be ruled out that they disagree on certain issues.
“But despite the differences of opinion, we will continue to respect each other’s viewpoint,”
The head of parliament’s sustainable development committee said on Thursday he expected Slovak authorities to state when they will order a stop to pollution of the River Sajó which flows from the neighbouring country into Hungary.
At an online press conference, László Lóránt Keresztes, a lawmaker for green opposition LMP, summarised his talks on the matter with the head of Slovak parliament’s environmental and agricultural committee earlier in the day.
“Disputes over the scope of authority in the Slovak government are still hampering efforts to stop pollution on the Sajó, and it is still hard to know when pollution that has been going on for months will stop,” he said.
Keresztes said the pollution “has caused shocking destruction, wiping out living organisms along a 10-15km section of the river” in Slovakia, while arsenic content on the Hungarian section, he added, was above safe limits.
He said that although the amount of toxic water released from an abandoned mine into the river had dropped by 70-80 percent over the past two weeks, water flowing into the Sajó on the Slovak side still had a high content of hazardous materials. “Ecological balance can only be retained by fully eliminating the pollution,” the LMP politician said.
Keresztes criticised the Slovak government for failing over many months to take any measures to prevent the disaster. He also criticised the Hungarian government for failing to take sufficient diplomatic action.
Army leaders attending a meeting of Visegrad Group chiefs of staff discussed current issues in cooperation between national armies on Tuesday, the Hungarian chief of staff said on Tuesday.
Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi said Ukraine’s chief of staff was also invited but the war situation prevented him from travelling to Debrecen for the meeting.
Poland’s chief of staff was also not in attendance,
he added.
“In the current situation, national interests may have priority,”
Ruszin-Szendi said.
The Czech, Slovak and Hungarian army leaders attending the meeting reviewed the situation that has developed in light of the war in Ukraine and tasks resulting from the European Union battlegroup entering service next year, he added.
As we wrote yesterday, German arms and French helicopter plant to open soon in Hungary, read details HERE.
According to press reports, an 81-year-old man has threatened to bomb on the anniversary of Trianon. He wanted to carry out his plan at Maramaros Bridge, which also serves as a border crossing. The man informed the police about his intention by calling 112. The traffic was suspended immediately.
Bomb threat in Romania
On Saturday evening, traffic had to be suspended for a couple of hours at the Tisza Bridge, between Máramarossziget (Sighetu Marmației) and Aknaszlatina (Solotvyno), due to a bomb threat.
The elderly caller who dialled 112 to make the threat barely spoke Romanian.
He reported to the operator that he had planted a bomb at Maramaros Bridge. The traffic was suspended immediately after the report and the police started the investigation to identify the caller. It turned out that the man who made the threat was an 81-year-old resident living in Aknasugatag (Ocna Șugatag), index.hu reports. The elderly man explained his action by saying that
he wanted to commemorate the anniversary of Trianon.
According to foter.ro, unfortunately, there is a bomb threat more or less every day in the region. However, Saturday night’s announcement was different because of the anniversary of Trianon.
The Romanian authorities were not impressed by the man’s explanation. The pensioner from Aknasugatag was fined RON 4,000 (EUR 809.49). Based on reports, the man had already caused headaches to the police and pyrotechnicians in the past.
The Romanian news outlet found the story so intriguing that they tried to interview the retired man, but he refused to collaborate with the press because his Romanian was poor.
Is life better after Trianon?
Péter Niedermüller, a member of the Democratic Coalition, shared his divisive opinion on the incident on Facebook. “Let us also think of those Hungarians who, thanks to Trianon, are better off in Romania, Slovakia and other neighbouring countries than we are in Hungary. ”
For instance, per capita consumption is higher in Romania than in Hungary.
Niedermüller said that in Romania and Slovakia there was “freedom, an open society, the hope of belonging to Europe and the promise for a better life and a brighter future.”
The peace treaty of Trianon, signed on June 4, 1920, is regarded as one of the greatest tragedies in Hungarian history. That is understandable since millions of Hungarians were separated from their motherland. Now, almost 2 million Hungarians live in Slovakia, Romania, Ukraine, and Serbia, who still suffer disadvantages because of their nationality. Of course, the problems of ethnically mixed regions are not the specific challenge of the Carpathian Basin but of every country in Central-Europe to which the governments, NGOs, and citizens have to find answers in the future. But was it inevitable to lose 2/3rd of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1920?
Trianon, one of the greatest national tragedies
On June 4, 1920, life stopped for a minute everywhere in the “mutilated”, “small” Hungary. At 4.32 pm, two Hungarian officials, who planned no further political career, signed the Peace Treaty of Trianon at the Grand Trianon in Versailles. The Hungarian society regarded the act as one of the greatest tragedies in Hungary’s history, and everybody was shocked in the country even though the new borders were more or less known by then.
The Hungarian delegation on their way to sign the Peace Treaty of Trianon. Photo: Wikimedia
Everybody asked why the great powers were so brutal with Hungary? Why did Hungary suffer the greatest territorial loss after WWI?
Legends were born about freemasons, the French president’s Hungarian daughter-in-law and Romanian prostitutes to explain the inexplicable collapse of “Greater Hungary”.
If we try to forget these and would like to find the real reasons, we should concentrate on at least three hubs of causes.
First, we should not forget the entente’s prime goal after WWI: weakening Germany. Every politician in Paris, London or Rome knew that Germany, despite their defeat, would remain a great power. To prevent Berlin from starting a war, the entente agreed they should destroy all their possible allies in Europe. That is why they decided to dismantle the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and Hungary itself. They wanted to create a corridor around Germany that could stop Berlin’s future expansion.
As a result, Czechoslovakia, “Greater Romania” and Yugoslavia were born and received huge territories from Hungary with millions of Hungarians.
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson wanted otherwise but realized already by 1918 that the high principle of the self-determination of people would be neglected at the peace conference. As a result, their delegation travelled home, and they never ratified the Peace Treaty of Trianon.
The consequences of the peace treaty. Photo: Wikimedia
Armed resistance?
Second, the Central Powers, including Hungary, were defeated. Starvation, coal shortage, and the collapse of state institutions followed. Moreover, revolutions came one after the other between 1918 and 1920. The Károlyi government formed after the victorious Aster Revolution on October 31, 1918, started quick disarmament
to prevent a civil war or a Bolshevik-style coup d’état.
Furthermore, they thought that a new, pacifist and democratic Hungary would receive favourable terms in Paris. The people also believed in Károlyi since his good relations to French leaders were widely known. One of his fellow party member, for example, shouted in the parliament in 1918 that they were the friends of entente. Historians today state that provided Károlyi was a more characteristic leader committed to defending Hungary with armed forces, he could have saved 5-10,000 square kilometres more. But he could not have prevented losing huge territories anyway because of
the French plan of creating a corridor of Germany in the region.
The post-war period in Hungary was an apocalypse-like world. Therefore, the support for Károlyi and his governments faded away fast after the failures and the advancement of foreign armies. Károlyi wanted the Social-democratic Party to form a government since it had almost 1 million party members by early 1919. He did not know that Socialdemocratic leaders made a pact with Béla Kun’s Communists and when he realized, it was too late.
The Trianon memorial in Békéscsaba. Photo: Wikimedia
Even Western-Hungary lost
The formation of the Hungarian Soviet Republic on March 21, 1919, was a shock in Paris. As a result, the peace conference did not invite Hungary, though the final borders were determined in 1919 May when the Communist regime ruled in Budapest.
Thanks to the Soviet Republic, Austria got Western-Hungary, today’s Burgenland. The aim of that decision was to make a viable Austria that does not inevitably have to join Germany. However, Austria was also defeated, but Hungary’s soviet republic solved that moral dilema.
The entente’s decision on Western Hungary was corrected only once, in 1921 December in the Sopron plebiscite. Sopron and some settlements decided to remain part of Hungary.
To sum it all up, the partition of Hungary was inevitable after the Central Power’s defeat in WWI.
The “Red Map” showing Hungarians with red colour. Photo: Wikimedia
Work will start at the end of the week to curb the environmental damage on the River Sajó, Slovak Agricultural Minister Jan Budaj told his counterpart, István Nagy, on Monday.
Some 2.5 tonnes of contaminated water has flowed into the Sajó from an abandoned mine over the past three months,
the authorities said last week, with the pollution flowing downriver into Hungary.
At a video conference, Nagy welcomed Slovakia’s steps and said Hungary was ready to help in any way to curb the damage, the ministry said on Monday.
Slovakians coming to fill their tanks with petrol in Hungary can save up to 200 HUF (EUR 0.52) on each litre. Therefore, it is not surprising that petrol tourism is at its peak near the northern and western borders. A petrol station owner in Balassagyarmat (Slovakian- Hungarian border) loses 5 million HUF (EUR 13, 054) per month because of the price cap introduced by the state and the government’s support scheme does not compensate for that.
According to rtl.hu, one of their favourite evening magazines, Fókusz, visited the Slovakian-Hungarian border to gather information on the current situation. The direct reason was a letter stating that half of the cars arriving at local petrol stations are Slovakian.
The magazine’s experience in Balassagyarmat supports the writer’s claim. The 480 HUF per litre (EUR 1.25 EUR) price is very attractive for Slovakian customers. Currently, they can save up to 200 HUF (EUR 0.52) on each litre. András Tóth, a petrol station owner, said he has been losing 5 million HUF (EUR 13, 054) per month because of the price cap despite the government’s 16 HUF ( EUR 0.042) per litre subsidy.
There were times when his company had to operate with a purchase limit: people could buy only 10 litres per day because they had less than 2,500 litres of fuel, while other stations had none in the Northern Hungarian city of 15, 000 residents. Furthermore, they received no news about supply.
Eszter Bujdos, an expert of holtankoljak.hu, foreign customers drive even 10-15 kilometres from the border to buy cheaper petrol. In Sopron, locals have been complaining for months that Austrian petrol tourists made their city uninhabitable. Ms Bujdos estimates the increase in traffic around 15 percent because of the petrol tourism.
Interestingly enough, petrol importers temporarily ceased operation in order not to accumulate further losses. Therefore, only Hungarian MOL supplies the petrol stations. That is the reason why stations may run out of petrol even in Budapest.
The government prolonged the price cap until mid-July. András Tóth believes that sooner or later, Hungary will return to global market prices. “I think we will adapt to the prices of the neighbouring countries, whether we like it or not” – he said. Mr Tóth added that the government should have helped only the people in need of cheaper petrol instead of all customers, including foreigners and luxury car owners.
There is not much ground for hope if we look at the current European petrol prices. In Austria, 95 petrol costs 670 HUF (EUR 1.75), in Croatia, that is 630 HUF (EUR 1.64). Meanwhile, in Greece, Denmark, Finland or Norway, we would have to pay 800-900 HUF (EUR 2.09-2.35) per litre. Compared to that, Hungarian car owners are in favorable positions.
Fókusz compared current average petrol prices in Europe, here is their chart on which the second column indicates the price of the 95 petrol while the third shows the price of the diesel:
The Black Swan 2022 international special operations military exercise concluded in Szolnok, in central Hungary, on Thursday, with a day of drill demonstrations.
The NATO exercise involved over 700 troops from nine countries, along with 15 aircraft and other equipment, according to a statement. Major General Tamás Sándor, inspector for Special Operations of the Hungarian Defence Forces Command, said at the Szolnok helicopter base that all partner countries of the Regional Special Operations Component Command (R-SOCC) were involved in the exercise led by Hungary, including Austria, Croatia, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and the US were also participating,
he said.
Sándor said the R-SOCC last year reached initial operational capability. He said the aim of the Black Swan exercise was for the R-SOCC to deepen that capability and to be able to carry out special operations on the territories of three countries. The command also aims to achieve full operational capability by the end of 2024 and to be able to go on stand-by from 2025, he said.
The 12-day exercise is being held in Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia with some 715 soldiers having carried out more than 40 special operational tasks,
Sándor said. The tasks are being synchronised and led by the Hungarian R-SOCC command, he added.
Unlike last year, this year’s exercise also saw the participation of Czech and Romanian troops in the performance of tasks in Hungary, Slovakia and Norway, the major general said.
The exercise mainly covered military areas, but operations were also carried out in 13 civilian areas,
Sándor said.
He said the R-SOCC set up an international, Hungarian-led staff in Szolnok to lead the operations, with the Árpád Bertalan Brigade playing a key role in their execution. The brigade stationed one unit each in Slovakia and Romania for the event, the major general said. Also,
for the first time, Hungary’s counter-terrorism force TEK was included in the exercise,
he added.
Brigadier Rob Stephenson, Deputy Commander of NATO Special Operations Headquarters, attended the exercise, among others.
