Budapest (MTI) – Hungarians do not find the neighbouring countries antipathic, a recent survey issued by Nezopont Institute on Monday showed.
Most respondents said that Hungary maintained good relations with the majority of its neighbours. More than half of the Hungarian adults interviewed said that inter-state relations were best with Austria, Slovenia and Croatia.
Some 48 percent said that Hungarian-Slovak relations were good, partly thanks to the “good-neighbourly links maintained in recent years”.
More Hungarians believe that inter-governmental relations with Ukraine and Serbia are good than those who believe that they are bad. However, when it comes to assessing Hungarian-Romanian relations, Hungarians are divided, Nezopont said.
“Whereas the partnership between (Hungarian Prime Minister) Viktor Orban and (Slovak counterpart) Robert Fico played a role in the positive assessment of Hungarian-Slovak relations, the often confrontational tone by the former Ponta government could have influenced the assessment of Hungarian-Romanian links which divided the sample,” Nezopont said. Some 52 percent said that Hungarian-Romanian relations should be improved.
The survey was conducted over the phone with a sample of 1,000 people between January 4 and 7.
Budapest (MTI) – Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen called 2015 “perhaps the most successful year” in terms of Hungary’s policy towards Hungarians abroad.
All the related programs launched by the government over the past five years operated “without hitches”, Semjen told public radio on Thursday.
As an example, he mentioned the Korosi Csoma programme designed to help Hungarian diaspora communities maintain their Hungarian identity and language.
As Slovakia and Romania are members of the European Union and their ethnic Hungarian communities have access to EU resources, too, the government continued to focus its financial assistance on Hungarians in Serbia and Ukraine in 2015, he said.
The government has launched an unprecedented 50 billion forint (EUR 160m) economic development programme in Vojvodina, northern Serbia, including preferential loans and grants, he said.
Hungary seeks to make similar capital injections in western Ukraine’s Transcarpathian region but the Ukrainian state has rejected the plan, he said.
Semjen said Slovak-Hungarian economic relations flourished in 2015 while political relations were better than earlier. He called it a “historic development” that Slovak soldiers had come to help Hungary defend its southern border during the migrant crisis. This episode, he said, may pave the way for further advances in minority issues.
Hungarian-Romanian inter-state relations, however, deteriorated and so did the Romanian government’s ties with Romania’s ethnic Hungarian community as Victor Ponta’s left-wing government “deliberately destroyed” what had been built during the previous governments, Semjen said.
Budapest, December 14 (MTI) – Central bank governor Gyorgy Matolcsy on Monday called for the creation of a Carpathian Basin innovation region to boost the region’s economic development.
Speaking at a conference organised by the central bank’s Foundation of Pallas Athene Domus Innovationis (PADI), the governor of the National Bank of Hungary (NBH) said small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), universities and trade chambers would have key roles in shaping the region of innovation.
Matolcsy said innovation was the engine of growth in the Carpathian Basin. He said the central bank must uncover the region’s “centres of knowledge” and dynamic SMEs that can help enhance innovation and economic development in the area.
The NBH governor noted that the bank’s Funding for Growth Scheme has helped 28,000 SMEs obtain loans, giving them the chance to grow. He said the central bank’s acquisition of a majority stake in the Budapest Stock Exchange was also aimed at strengthening SMEs.
Matolcsy said Hungary’s banking sector would undergo further changes to allow it to better contribute to the development of innovative companies.
He said Budapest is now an innovation hub akin to the innovation districts of London or Paris.
Budapest (MTI) – If Europe or Hungarians around the world give up their spiritual heritage they would lose not only their identity but an extremely important source of humanity, too, President Janos Ader said at a state dinner in honour of the religious leaders of Hungarian communities in neighbouring countries held at the presidential Sandor Palace on Thursday.
“People of faith have faced extremely difficult questions in recent months,” he said, drawing a distinction between refugees and economic migrants.
“We have seen the refugee fleeing from war; the individual forced to leave his homeland in pursuit of safety for loved ones, looking to the future with anxiety in a strange land. We see them and feel compassion,” he said.
“And we also see the hundreds of thousands of migrants drawn here by their desire for a better life, whose anxiety and poverty can turn to hatred, even against their hosts,” Ader added.
The president also referred to the tragic historical experiences of the Hungarian nation, citing its refugees and “the sudden appearance of a group of people from another culture”.
“We know what it is like when there are so many newcomers that the recipient community is forced to give up its identity and adapt to the immigrants.” Ader added that Europe was just facing that possibility.
“The Christian sense of solidarity is wrestling with concern for the fate of Europe’s Christian-rooted culture,” he said. “Meanwhile, Europe is having to face up to all that a selfish desire for prosperity entails.” Confronting realities such as its demographic crisis, ageing society and a labour shortage is preferable to being led by ideology, the president said.
Europe must decide on how to deal with its nation states and with its indigenous cultures and nations while not forgetting that Europe has been supremely successful because it is built on a diversity of nations, languages and attitudes. Hungarian culture forms a part of this richness, he said.
“If Europe or Hungarians around the world give up their spiritual heritage they would lose not only their identity but an extremely important source of humanity, too,” he said, adding that the Hungarian nation should be taken care of both at home and all corners of the world.
It happened in the Transylvanian town of Hungarian majority, Sepsiszentgyörgy. Because she couldn’t speak Romanian, the doctor from the emergency department told her to go home – claimed by a woman from Sepsikőröspatak, who went to the emergency department of “ Dr. Fogolyán Kristóf Hospital” about a week ago.
The case was presented in the local newspaper by a letter sent by the victim to the editor, where she stated the following: “On that day, Dr. Alina Braţu was in charge at the emergency department and when it turned out that I can only talk about my health complaints in Hungarian, she told me that if I can’t speak Romanian I should go home”.
Not hiding her identity, Majos Mária also said that she had to wait for a long time until a nurse finally came to help her to translate her health complaints. Finally she received treatment, but she had to wait for half an hour until they took out the perfusion needle. Regarding this case, we reached the management of the„Dr. Fogolyán Kristóf Hospital”, and we found out that there were no charges filed in this case. The message of András Nagy Róbert, was conveyed by Nagy D. István spokesman, who told us: the woman didn’t report the case, nor she didn’t file a a complaint, neither personally or in writing, thus it’s difficult to control this situation. For the hospital’s management it is important, that any abuse or refuse of medical attendance experienced by patients to be also reported to the hospital’s management.
The “Mikó Imre Legal Aid Service”already knew about this case, and its staff is looking for an answer. They told us: ”cases like this are unacceptable and are against the law. We hope that we can solve this case, and find a proper solution as soon as possible”. The Legal Aid Service will release a newsletter about this case, if they will find out more details about what happened exactly.
Budapest (MTI) – The Hungarian government has welcomed a second-instance decision by the Covasna (Kovaszna) County Court in Romania to annul a fine against the Hungarian Civic Party for organising a commemoration on June 4, 2014, National Cohesion Day, where participants sang the Hungarian national anthem.
The official ruling of the court said the organisers did not break the law by singing the national anthem and rejected the county prefect’s appeal of the first-instance decision to annul the fine of 5000 lei (EUR 1,130).
Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen told MTI in a statement that the Tuesday ruling made it clear that the earlier decision by the county prefect to fine the party was unlawful.
Semjen said it would be “unacceptable” for anyone in a European Union member state to be punished for singing their national anthem. Such a mentality is reminiscent of Ceausescu’s dictatorship, which has now fallen for good, Semjen said. He said Hungarians living in Covasna County rightfully expect an apology from county prefect Sebastian Cucu.
Palic, Serbia, August 15 (MTI) – Justice Minister Laszlo Trocsanyi called for unity within the Hungarian diaspora south of the border at an early Saint Stephen’s Day celebration in Palic, Serbia, on Saturday.
Trocsanyi said it is a fundamental interest of Hungary that Hungarians living beyond the border live in unity with one another.
The minister said national unity had to be present in the everyday lives of Hungarians as otherwise “it remains but an empty word”. “We need to understand one another, even if we do not agree on everything. There must be dialogue among Hungarians at local levels,” Trocsanyi said.
The minister touched on Serbia’s accession to the European Union, the emigration of Hungarians living south of the border and Hungary’s ongoing migrant crisis along with its effects on Serbia.
Budapest, August 3 (MTI) – The state secretary for Hungarian communities abroad on Monday launched the Sandor Petofi scholarship programme aimed at strengthening the identity of ethnic kin in shrinking communities of the Hungarian diaspora.
Under the programme, 50 Hungarian youths will travel to diaspora communities to build social networks, Arpad Janos Potapi said.
He said the programme’s target areas include Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine and the southern parts of Poland.
Istvan Grezsa, ministerial commissioner for beyond-the-border investments, said 18 of the scholarship recipients are from beyond the border. The programme will receive funding of 350 million forints (EUR 114,000), Grezsa said.
Budapest (MTI) – Several ministers of the Hungarian government and leaders of ethnic Hungarian communities around the world marked the March 15 national holiday on Sunday.
Justice Minister Laszlo Trocsanyi said in Toronto that the fight for freedom needed to continue and always focus on new targets.
Development Minister Miklos Sesztak said in Satu Mare (Szatmarnemeti), NW Romania, that 167 years ago, Hungarians had fought for independence, a greater space of maneuvering in crucial issues and the right to decide about their own fate.
Hunor Kelemen, head of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, said that the ethnic Hungarian community in Transylvania is still fighting a war of independence against those who want to deprive it of the foundations of its national identity.
State secretary for church, ethnic and civil society relations Miklos Soltesz told an event in Szekler Land that both the Hungarian and Romanian constitutions provide for the protection of ethnic minorities and it is a natural expectation that the community of European countries should accept and respect these regulations.
State secretary for agriculture and rural development Miklos Zsolt Kis said at an event in Berehove (Beregszasz) in western Ukraine that the safety of ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia is a priority for Hungary. Plans are being made to increase support for the community in order to alleviate its troubles, he said.
Addressing a commemoration in Bratislava, head of parliament’s national cohesion committee said that Hungarians never fought against other nations, only for their own freedom and principles.
State secretary for culture Peter Hoppal said in Slovenia’s Lendava (Lendva) that it is the Hungarian state’s responsibility to care for those that inherited the Hungarian language from their ancestors and wish to preserve and nurture their culture.
Representatives of the Hungarian embassy and local Hungarian organisations held a wreath-laying ceremony in Paris.
A televised message of Prime Minister Viktor Orban was shown as part of the Turkish public television’s thematic day dedicated to Hungary on Sunday.
Budapest, March 15 (MTI) – Freedom and national independence have both been “guiding stars” throughout Hungary’s history, and were “benchmarks” for all generations of Hungarians, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in front of Budapest’s National Museum on Sunday.
The national flag was hoisted in front of Parliament before then to mark the start of the state celebrations of the anniversary of Hungary’s anti-Habsburg revolution of 1848.
“Together, or not at all” was the lesson of the 1848 revolution, Orban said. He said in the 167 years since the 1848 revolution, Hungary is still fighting for sovereignty. He added that Hungary is a part of Europe, but “while Europe is full of questions, Hungary is full of answers”.
Mayor of BudapestIstvan Tarlos joined Orbanat the National Museum in calling for cooperation to achieve national goals.
There was hissing in the crowd and anti-Orban slogans were chanted during the speeches; one man was detained.
Opposition leaders also marked the holiday in various locations.
Jozsef Tobias, head of the Socialist Party, said he would challenge Orban to a public debate on democracy and insisted that a small elite was “pushing millions into poverty, and restricted the freedom of the media” because “Orban’s rule is selfish and feudal”.
Ferenc Gyurcsany, leader of the leftist opposition Democratic Coalition (DK), said in 2015 Hungary was unable to celebrate press freedom, rather it was marking the “oppression of the press”.
Andras Schiffer, co-leader of the green LMP party, gave warning that “a new dependence will not eliminate another, but will steer the country into a fatally vulnerable situation”, referring to the contract on a Paks nuclear upgrade Hungary had signed with Russia. There is no democracy where “the country’s energy supply is consigned (to a foreign power)” based on a pact classified for thirty years, he said.
An anti-government demonstration was organised on the afternoon of the March 15 holiday in Budapest by civil groups and opposition parties. A march from Keleti railway station ended at the Astoria junction under the slogan “For a New Hungarian Republic!” Organisers said the march was for “freedom, civic equality, equality in burden sharing and independence”, and restoring the republic crushed by the Fidesz government.
They also announced 19 referendum questions that would be put to the national election board for approval on various subjects, including anti-corruption, economic, educational and social goals, the elimination of the state’s tobacco monopoly, opening up secret files on key state investments, and free use of motorways. The civil groups also pledged support for referenda against retail closures on Sundays and for transparent public procurements.
The opposition Egyutt (Together) party held commemorations in Debrecen (E) and Pecs (S). Deputy leader Peter Juhasz said in Pecs that opponents of the government needed to build grassroots movements and refuse to accept that those in power were impossible to overcome.
President Janos Ader talked about the importance of hard work in everyday life when he presented high state awards, including the Order of Merit, Grand Cross to Sandor Csanyi, CEO-president of OTP Bank.
March 15 in Hungary
Szeged Mayor of Szeged Budapest – Bem Square Budapest – Buda Castle Budapest – Buda Castle Budapest – Elisabeth BridgeBudapest – Elisabeth Bridge
Orban greeted Hungarians living beyond the country’s borders in a letter on the occasion of the anniversary of the 1848/49 revolution and freedom fight, Bertalan Havasi, the prime minister’s press chief, said.
Budapest, February 25 (MTI) – So far, 710,000 ethnic Hungarians have applied for Hungarian citizenship and some 670,000 have been granted that status, state secretary Janos Arpad Potapi told Parliament’s national cohesion committee on Wednesday.
Potapi said that 66 percent of those granted citizenship were from Romania, 17 percent from northern Serbia and 14 percent from western Ukraine.
Potapi said that the Hungarian government was planning to spend a total 17.6 billion forints (EUR 58m) on assistance to Hungarian communities abroad.
Concerning the government’s Korosi Csoma Sandor programme, Potapi said that in 2015 the scheme will involve Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, on top of 24 countries covered last year. The scheme seeks to strengthen ties between Hungarians through promoting national culture through language courses and other cultural activities. The programme used a budget of nearly one billion forints last year.
Budapest (MTI) – Hungary is set to have one million new citizens through its dual citizenship scheme by the end of the current government’s mandate in 2018, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen told MTI on Sunday.
The authorities have received 700,000 applications for Hungarian citizenship by the end of this year and 650,000 people have taken their oaths already, he said.
Semjen expressed “limited optimism” regarding cooperation with new Romanian head of state Klaus Iohannis. He said that Iohannis as a mayor of Sibiu (Nagyszeben) had not displayed much interest in the affairs of ethnic Hungarians, either.
Romania’s new president, however, cannot deny the legitimacy of autonomy, something beyond doubt in western Europe, he said.
Hungarians in Ukraine’s Transcarpathian region are in the most difficult and dangerous position among Hungarian minorities abroad because their country is involved in a war conflict and Ukrainian nationalism has re-emerged, he said.
Semjen welcomed the results of the Slovak local elections and said there was a realistic chance for the Party of the Hungarian Community (MKP) to regain its mandates in the Bratislava parliament at the next general election, which would be crucial for Hungarians to have representation in the legislature.
The deputy prime minister said that Hungary should act just as Israel, defending its diaspora throughout the world.
Semjen, who is also head of the co-ruling Christian Democratic Party, said the popularity loss of the governing parties measured in recent polls could be attributed to a “natural lull” which follows some of the “unrealistic expectations” after an electoral victory. He said, however, that demonstrations must be taken seriously and communication should be encouraged.
Hungarians commemorated the August 20 national holiday nationwide, remembering the creation of the first Hungarian state by St Stephen. The Daily News Hungary editor staff collected the most beautiful MTI’s pictures from August 20.
Kossuth square
Celebrations of Hungary’s August 20 national holiday started with a flag-hoisting ceremony in front of Parliament on Wednesday morning. The ceremony was attended by President Janos Ader, Speaker of Parliament Laszlo Kover, members of the government, including Defence Minister Csaba Hende, as well as public personalities, diplomats and military attaches. August 20 is a holiday of St Stephen in honour of Hungary’s first Christian king and Hungary’s statehood.
Saint Stephen Basilica
President Janos Ader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban and deputy PM Zsolt Semjen attended a holy mass in Budapest’s Saint Stephen Basilica on Wednesday, marking the holiday of the canonised Hungarian king.
Addressing the congregation in front of the basilica, Cardinal Peter Erdo, Archbishop of Budapest-Esztergom, said that “we must insist on the values of truth and love, and pray for the grace of forgiveness and starting again” so that the developments of 1914 should not happen again. He warned that if selfishness, hatred and revenge take control over the people, a “devastating violence will flood the Earth”.
Budapest, August 19 (MTI) – Ten organisations and an elderly lady received the award for their work for Hungarian communities abroad at a ceremony held in Parliament on Tuesday, on the occasion of the August 20 national holiday.
Addressing the ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen highlighted the unity and integrity of the Hungarian nation.
“We can only thrive as a nation in full if each of our nation’s parts nurture their heritage,” he said.
Arpad Janos Potapi, state secretary for Hungarian communities abroad, said the honour is awarded to organisations, institutions and personalities in public life, education, culture, religion, science, mass communication and business in recognition of their outstanding work for Hungarian communities abroad.
The awardees include a Calvinist foundation and a Roman Catholic charity of Transylvania, the Szekler museum of Romania’s Cernat (Csernaton), the Hungarian Social and Cultural Association of Slovakia Csemadok, the Zele Tribe fostering ancient Magyar traditions in Slovakia’s Dolne Saliby (Alsoszeli), the Vojvodina Hungarian daily Magyar Szo, a Vojvodina organisation holding competitions for secondary pupils, the Transcarpathian weekly Karpatalja, a Swedish society set up to foster the Hungarian mother tongue and the Hungarian Cultural Council of Canada.
The only private individual was 101-year-old Ilona Tamas, a retired teacher who lost her Slovak citizenship after she had applied for and was granted Hungarian citizenship.
(MTI) – The whole of Hungarian society is in agreement that ethnic kin is entitled to Hungarian citizenship, voting rights and autonomy, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen told a roundtable at the 25th Balvanyos summer university in Baile Tusnad (Tusnadfurdo), in central Romania, on Friday.
Hungarian enclaves should be given territorial autonomy, while the diaspora should be granted cultural autonomy; the Hungarian government will not “dictate” any form of autonomy but will support the endeavours of each community, Semjen said. He added that “Hungary has never demanded anything that had no precedent in the European Union”.
“Autonomy is not a Hungarian invention, not an extreme Hungarian demand as suggested by Romanian politics; autonomy is a human right at a community level. As it is often referred to, the queen of human rights,” Semjen said.
The deputy prime minister also said that Hungary’s annual total of 21 billion forints (EUR 68m) to assist Hungarian organisations and programmes abroad was a record-high amount. He said that the government was planning to increase it even further, but it would not compromise the country’s economic growth or its capability to meet the deficit target.
Concerning the Hungarian community in Ukraine, Semjen said that “Hungarian blood must not be shed in a war Hungarians have nothing to do with. Hungarians have been no accomplices to developments (in Ukraine)”. The Hungarian state will always stand by Ukraine Hungarians, he pledged.
Budapest, July 14 (MTI) – The radical nationalist Jobbik party has called on the government to protest against the ongoing conscription of ethnic Hungarians into the Ukrainian army and the planned relocation of Ukrainian refugees to western Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region.
It is Hungary’s duty to protect the ethnic Hungarian community of Transcarpathia from the harmful effects of the situation in Ukraine, Istvan Szavay, the party’s deputy leader, told a press conference on Monday.
The Ukrainian government has appraised the potential number of refugees of the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine and plans to settle 250 refugees in Berehove (Beregszasz), Szavay said.
The move would forcefully alter the ethnic composition of the town inhabited by many Hungarians, he said.
(MTI) – The power relations which have emerged after the May European Parliamentary elections and plans to intensify lobbying of Hungarian affairs in Brussels were central topics of discussion between Fidesz MEP Jozsef Szajer and Slovak-Hungarian MEP Pal Csaky at the closing event of the Martovce (Martos) Free University on Sunday.
At the biggest summer event for Slovak Hungarians, the representatives in Europe of Fidesz and the Party of the Hungarian Community (MKP) were in agreement that Hungarians of the Carpathian Basin must make use of their strong representation in Brussels, and what has hitherto been an under-representation of Hungarian affairs should be turned round.
Such strength will expand the possibilities of interest-representation, though hopes should not be overly inflated either since the coming period is expected to be “bumpy and difficult”, they said.
Assessing the outcome of the European elections, Szajer noted that the Fidesz list had been drawn from the entire nation to include members of the ethnic Hungarian community. Accordingly, never before has the Hungarian community of the Carpathian Basin been so heavily represented in Brussels, he added.
Csaky said that the MKP had chosen a strategy not to ask for the top places on the national list since had they done so then, given the relations within Slovakia, there would have been a danger that no one would have got into the European Parliament from the party’s own list. Bela Bugar who led the Most-Hid mixed Slovak-Hungarian party’s list would have said that there’s no reason to vote for the MKP list since the Hungarian party would still be represented in Brussels, whereas later Bugar would have said that MKP failed to get voted into the EP by Slovak Hungarians.
“It is now clear that MKP’s strategy worked,” he said, adding that Slovak Hungarians had given the party a strong mandate especially since it had beaten Most-Hid.
Bratislava, July 10 (MTI) – All efforts must be made to promote the joint objectives of the Hungarian government and Hungarian communities abroad, state secretary Arpad Janos Potapi said and highlighted ties with Slovakia’s ethnic Hungarian MKP party.
Speaking at a roundtable on the opening day of the 2nd Martovce (Martos) Free University, Potapi said that the Party of Hungarian Community is the only party in Slovakia that represents the interests of ethnic kin. He said that Most-Hid is a Slovak-Hungarian party rather than an ethnic Hungarian organisation. Hungary strives for good relations with all parties of Slovakia, including Most-Hid, Potapi said, but added that those ties “cannot be the same as ones with a Hungarian party”.
Jeno Szasz, head of Hungary’s Institute of National Strategy, said that fundamental changes are needed to improve the situation of Hungarians in neighbouring countries. “Neither Bratislava, nor Bucharest or Belgrade are interested in ensuring the future of ethnic Hungarian communities,” he warned.
“The fabric of the nation must be re-woven so that that fabric could again swathe the Carpathian Basin,” Szasz said.
The Martovce free university, which opened on Wednesday, is the largest summer event for ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia.
