Croatia

Coronavirus: All European countries publish the numbers of infections by area except for Hungary

coronavirus-Hungary

All members of the European Union update the territorial numbers of infected except for Hungary. Even Albanian authorities tell which city or county the infected people live in while Hungary says nothing.

On the Monday press conference of the Operative Board Cecília Müller said that they do so because they respect the personal rights of the patients and that is why they do not tell where they live. She emphasised that

if they did so those infected could be tracked down

– 444.hu reported. Meanwhile, the Austrian ministry for health regularly publishes the newest data in the issue. At the time 444.hu checked the altogether number of those infected was 959. 150 of them lives in Lower Austria, 122 in Vienna, 111 in Styria, 254 in Tirol, 196 in Upper Austria, 54 in Salzburg, 10 in Burgenland (the region near the Hungarian border), 55 in Voralberg and 7 in Kärnten.

The same happens in the case of Croatia: the number of the patients there is 57, and 25 of them live in Zagreb while near the Hungarian border, in Eszék-Baranya county, 8 infections were confirmed.

Until Sunday, the Romanian government told not only the county where the patients lived in but also whether they are male or female and added even their age.

From Monday on, they only tell how many patients live in the different counties of Romania. Anyway, the altogether number of infections there was 123, and the government publishes the latest news in the issue in two newsletters per day. Interestingly, the 69th patient’s daughter is the 70th patient, while the 65th one’s wife is the 68th. Romanian authorities told until Sunday whether the patient was abroad in the last few weeks and they even added the country where they were, too. 

The Belgian government updates a regional map containing the infections each day. The Polish government does the same. On their website, we can check each region. The Finnish government publishes the number of patients being treated in the big hospitals, and they do that in English and Swedish, as well.

The Albanian government gives information related to the epidemic on Facebook.

Foreign minister: Hungary, Croatia ties ‘excellent but could improve further’

hungary croatia

The ties between Hungary and Coatia are excellent but could improve even further, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Friday, after talks with his Croatian counterpart, Gordan Grlic-Radman, in Budapest.

Szijjártó said bilateral ties have been mutually beneficial but “could yield even more advantages”.

Hungary and Croatia agree on the nature of the major challenges facing the European Union, Szijjártó said, and both see it as important to keep cohesion funding at current levels.

Both countries see the EU’s enlargement in the Western Balkans and stopping illegal migration as of primary importance, he said.

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Read alsoCoronavirus in next door! Croatia confirms first case of COVID-19

Regarding the issues that “could be improved between the countries,” Szijjárt said Hungary is working for a comprehensive agreement with Croatia on the diversification of gas supply resources through the liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal currently under construction in Croatia.

Szijjártó said Hungary maintains its proposal to connect the gas pipe networks of the two countries and an offer to buy a minority share in the terminal.

Croatia is the prime target of Hungarian investment, Szijjártó noted.

Hungarian gas and oil company Mol has recently announced a 540 million euro investment at a refinery in Rijeka, and Hungary’s OTP bank owns the fourth most shares on the Croatian market, he said.

rijeka croatia
Read alsoCroatian port city Rijeka becomes European Capital of Culture

Trade between the two countries hit a record 2.5 million euros, and a record 644,000 Hungarian tourists visited Croatia last year, he said.

Hungary also proposes to declare a day of Hungarian-Croatian friendship and to open several new border crossings to bolster traffic between the countries, he added.

Grlic-Radman praised political cooperation but said “there was room for improvement” in economic ties.

The situation of Croatian minorities in Hungary and of Hungarian minority groups in Croatia should be improved, he said.

He praised Hungary’s contribution to concluding Croatia’s accession procedure with the EU in 2011.

Grlic-Radman said Hungary and Croatia both have an interest in a larger EU budget for the 2021-2027 financial cycle.

They also agree on the need for a new EU migration policy, that it is necessary to fight against illegal migration and to enlarge the EU on the Western Balkans, he said.

Coronavirus in next door! Croatia confirms first case of COVID-19

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Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic announced here on Tuesday that Croatia has confirmed the first case of COVID-19 infection.

The patient is a younger man who is, so far, feeling well and is admitted at University Hospital for Infectious Diseases “Dr. Fran Mihaljevic” Zagreb, the prime minister said at a press conference.

Health Minister Vili Beros told media on Tuesday that

the patient was in Milan, Italy between the 19th and 21st of this month.

He said that quarantine will be arranged for all people who have been in direct contact with the patient.

The minister noted that the country is raising the level of defense and measures. “The health system is ready and we will work to ensure the health of the nation,” Beros said.

On Tuesday, nine people were hospitalized in Croatian port city Rijeka after they returned from northern Italy where they had worked.

The minister said that Croatia is ready to close its borders if needed, but for the time being that measure is unnecessary.

Zoran Milanovic inaugurated as Croatian president

Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic

Former Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic was sworn in here on Tuesday as the fifth Croatian president at the President’s Office.

“I will invest everything I know and everything I have to build a presidential term that will benefit Croatia and all its citizens,”

Milanovic said in his inaugural speech after reading the oath before Constitutional Court President Miroslav Separovic.

Milanovic said he believes that the scientific community, the judiciary system and the media must improve the mechanisms for combating dishonesty and corruption.

This was the first time that a presidential inauguration ceremony in Croatia was not held at St. Mark’s Square in the city center of Zagreb, where the parliament and government buildings are located. Instead, Milanovic decided to forgo the usual pomp of the ceremony by inviting merely some 40 guests, including state officials, former presidents, his family and members of his campaign team.

Social-Democrat Milanovic served as Croatian prime minister from 2011 until 2016. He was elected on Jan. 5 in the second round of presidential election. With 52.7 percent of votes, he beat the incumbent president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic.

The 53-year-old new president will begin the first working day of his five-year term on Wednesday.

Croatian port city Rijeka becomes European Capital of Culture

rijeka croatia

Rijeka, Croatia’s largest port city in the Adriatic, has formally become a European Capital of Culture for 2020, with an opening ceremony held on Saturday.

“This is the largest cultural project in Croatia and through 600 programs Rijeka will present itself to many tourists who come to this city,” Croatian Culture Minister Nina Obuljen Korzinek told Xinhua.

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Read alsoCroatian port city Rijeka becomes European Capital of Culture

The minister said that Rijeka is also the first Croatian city to become a European Capital of Culture, which is a great opportunity for branding Rijeka not only as a port and industrial city, but also as a cultural center of great importance.

“This is an opportunity for Rijeka, which has a long and interesting past and is increasingly becoming a tourist city,” said the minister.

“We are very pleased that more and more foreign tourists are coming to Rijeka, and many Chinese tourists are among them,” Rijeka Mayor Vojko Obersnel told Xinhua.
Rijeka is the third largest Croatian city with a population of 191,641. The port of Rijeka is the largest in Croatia, and the shipyard on “Maj 3” has a long history in the construction of large ships. On Saturday, more than 60 locations hosted numerous citizen programs.

By the end of the year, as part of the Rijeka 2020 project, the European Capital of Culture will have completed the construction and renovation of several museums.

The idea of European Capital of Culture was designed in 1985 in order to celebrate the richness and diversity of European cultures and strengthen cultural connections among between European citizens.

Each year the European Union selects two cities to be the capital of culture which then organize a series of cultural events with a strong pan-European dimension. In 2016, Croatia’s Rijeka was awarded this prestigious title for the year 2020, along with Ireland’s Galway, for its program “The Port of Diversity”.

Croatian airports record passenger hike in 2019

More than 11 million passengers passed through nine Croatian airports in the first 11 months of last year, an increase of 8.3 percent over 2018, according to results released by Croatian Bureau of Statistics on Monday.

Last November, Croatian airports saw a 10 percent increase in passengers compared to the same month in 2018.

The largest increase in passengers after the tourist season was recorded at the Zagreb airport, through which 244,300 passengers passed in November last year, an increase of 5.4 percent, followed by the airports in Dubrovnik and Split.

Most passengers were from Croatia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Austria, Turkey and the Netherlands in November.

Despite the fact that more and more passengers are arriving at Croatian airports, the operations of the national airliner Croatia Airlines are fraught with losses and difficulties.

Last September, the Croatian government approved 250 million kuna (37 million U.S. dollars) to stabilize Croatia Airlines’ business ahead of a new recapitalization and possible privatization.

Zoran Milanovic wins Croatian presidential election in runoff vote

zoran milanovic croatia

Former Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic won the second round of presidential election on Sunday, according to results from the State Electoral Commission.

With over 99 percent of votes counted,

Milanovic scored 52.7 percent of the votes in Sunday’s presidential runoff against the incumbent President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic who got 47.3 percent.

A total of 11 candidates competed in the first round of presidential election on Dec. 22, 2019.

Milanovic, who was running as the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and several other center-left parties, won in the first round with nearly 30 percent of the votes, while Grabar-Kitarovic, a conservative candidate supported by the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), came second with almost 27 percent. Since none of the candidates had obtained over 50 percent of the vote, a second round with the top two candidates was held on Sunday.

According to the State Electoral Commission, nearly 55 percent of over 3.8 million eligible voters had cast their ballots in the presidential runoff.

MOL Hernádi MOL President-CEO Zsolt Hernadi
Read alsoCroatia court finds MOL chief Hernádi guilty on corruption charges

Croatia‘s president is elected once every five years.

In his victory speech on Sunday night, Milanovic promised that he will listen and represent all citizens.

Grabar-Kitarovic congratulated Milanovic on his victory.

“I am giving my hand out to Zoran Milanovic to show the voters how a peaceful transition of the government looks like,” she said.

Milanovic, 53, served as Croatian prime minister from December 2011 until January 2016.

Croatia court finds MOL chief Hernádi guilty on corruption charges

MOL Hernádi MOL President-CEO Zsolt Hernadi

 A Zagreb court has found Zsolt Hernádi, chief executive of Hungarian oil and gas company MOL, and former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader guilty of corruption, Croatian public television reported on Monday.

Hernádi, who was found guilty of bribing Sanader with 10 million euros to obtain a majority stake in Croatian oil firm INA, was sentenced to two years in prison in absentia in a non-binding ruling. The former Croatian PM was handed a six-year prison term.

MOL and Hernádi have steadfastly denied the charges, insisting that the company had never bribed any politician. Hernádi was earlier acquitted of the charge by the Hungarian judiciary.

In a statement, MOL said it was “disappointed” with the verdict, as previous verdicts by the Hungarian courts and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) had all acquitted the company of any wrongdoing.

“We are disappointed but not surprised,” the statement said. “This was not the first unfair trial to be conducted in Croatia.”

The company noted that in 2015, Croatia’s constitutional court had annulled Sanader’s earlier conviction for accepting bribes relating to INA and ordered a new trial.

It also noted the Budapest Municipal Court’s refusal to execute a European Arrest Warrant for the MOL CEO, citing a “risk that [Hernádi’s] right to a fair trial would be infringed and an impartial judgement of the case would not be ensured”.

MOL rejected the charges and vowed to continue to defend itself against the “baseless accusations”.

MOL holds just under half of INA’s shares but has management rights in the company. The other big stakeholder is the state of Croatia. The sides have long been at odds over INA’s strategy.

Commenting on the verdict at a press conference on a different topic, Christian Democrat lawmaker Lőrinc Nacsa slammed the proceedings against Hernádi as a “witch hunt”. He said the matter was “Croatia’s own internal political dispute”, adding that it was not Hungary’s place to get involved.

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Read alsoRussian-Hungarian Summit: Ties between Lukoil and MOL will broaden

Croatia adopts program for upcoming EU presidency

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The Croatian government adopted a program for the presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) here on Friday.

Croatia takes over the rotating six-month EU presidency on Jan. 1, 2020, its first ever since its EU accession in 2013.

The slogan of the presidency will be “A strong Europe in a world of challenges”. The program is based on four pillars: a Europe that develops, a Europe that connects, a Europe that protects, and a Europe that is influential.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic stressed that the program contains Croatia’s national priorities and is in line with the new strategic agenda of the EU for the 2019-2024 period.

Based on the program, Croatia’s presidency will advocate “a balanced, sustainable and inclusive growth of the EU that takes account of the specificities and needs of all member countries, their regions and citizens,” Croatian news agency HINA reported.

Croatia will “encourage policies directed at promoting the EU’s infrastructure connectivity and at bringing its citizens closer, primarily through education, culture, and sports.”

It will “work to further build the EU as an area of freedom, security, and justice based on shared values, democracy and the rule of law, including internal security, better protection of the external borders, achieving the full operability of information systems, strengthening resilience to external threats as well as to hybrid and cyber threats,” the government announced on Friday.

The presidency will advocate “the continuation of consistent, effective and credible enlargement policy, as an investment in the stability, security and further economic development and connectivity of the European continent,” the document states.

Foreign Minister Gordan Grlic Radman said on Friday that the presidency is a historic moment for Croatia and that the program is well elaborated. He noted that Croatia can be proud of the content of the program that highlights its priorities. The presidency, he said, will contribute to the strengthening of Croatia’s influence and visibility in international relations.

During its presidency, Croatia will work hard to reach an agreement on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), that is, the seven-year EU budget, which is one of the most important tasks facing the EU. It will focus on EU enlargement to countries in its southeast neighborhood.

According to the document, the presidency will advocate launching talks with Albania and North Macedonia, both candidate countries, as well as with Bosnia and Herzegovina to obtain its status as a candidate country. Croatia will encourage the fulfillment of the necessary criteria for the further progress of Montenegro and Serbia in their accession talks.

Croatia-Slovenia border crossing re-opens after false bomb alarm

migration - Hungary border fence army

The border crossing between Croatia and Slovenia has re-opened after a bomb threat that stopped traffic on Friday morning turned out to be a false alarm.

Slovenian news website 24ur reported on Friday that police discovered an explosive device on a bus, and that a passenger suitcase was isolated and a Russian suspect detained.

According to Croatia news portal Telegram.hr, the suspicious device was a piano-tuning device.

The report said the police had confirmed that the Russian citizen who was traveling on a bus is a pianist carrying this device in his suitcase.

Due to a bomb threat, traffic at the Obrezje-Bregana border crossing was suspended for about an hour.

Croatian presidential election to go to runoff in January

Zoran Milanovic

Former Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic won the first round of presidential election on Sunday, and will compete with incumbent President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic in a runoff two weeks later.

According to the State Electoral Commission, with over 99.8 percent of the votes counted as of Sunday midnight, Milanovic won nearly 30 percent of the votes, followed by Grabar-Kitarovic who garnered almost 27 percent of support.

Independent candidate and popular singer Miroslav Skoro came third with around 24 percent.

Croatia’s president is elected by a majority vote. If none of the candidates obtains over 50 percent of the vote in the first round of voting, a second round will be held on Jan. 5 for the top two candidates.

Over 3.8 million voters are eligible to choose their president for the next five years among 11 candidates. A record number of 24,270 observers oversaw the work of electoral committees on Sunday.

Milanovic, 53, who served as Croatian prime minister from December 2011 until January 2016 as the leader of the largest center-left political party in the country, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), is running as the candidate of the SDP and several other center-left parties.

During the campaign in which he ran under the slogan “Normality,” he criticized the incumbent president and promised to restore dignity, pride, modesty, and respect of the presidential office.

In his speech on Sunday night, Milanovic called on all voters to support him in the second round. “We are going in the second round, not in a war. Wars are over. Let’s go in a civilized race and let the better one win. I believe it’s me.”

Grabar-Kitarovic, 51, who is running as the candidate of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), led most polls before the election. However, she almost lost the second place to the other right-wing candidate Skoro.

The ruling party leadership hopes that Skoro’s voters will support the president in the runoff since both of them are conservative candidates.

“Go to the polls in the second round and vote for the better Croatia,” Grabar-Kitarovic told supporters on Sunday night. “Let’s look to the future.”

Both Milanovic and Grabar-Kitarovic are former diplomats who started their careers at the Foreign Ministry.

This is the seventh presidential election in Croatia since the southeastern European country gained independence from former Yugoslavia in 1991.

Jobbik slams Orbán cabinet over ‘wasteful’ spending on sports funding

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An opposition Jobbik party lawmaker on Wednesday criticised the government for billions of forints of “wasteful spending” on sports projects in recent years.

Problematic areas include how training programmes for young soccer players are implemented, the misguided creation of sports facility development projects in neighbouring countries in regions with Hungarian communities and the new sports digital data base called National Sportsinformation System, Ádám Steinmetz told a press conference.

The opposition party lawmakers cited the example of Kisvárda soccer club, in north-eastern Hungary, that regularly plays matches with a youth team composed of ten foreign and only one Hungarian player.

Many of the players have Ukrainian names, he said, adding that the training of foreign players was likely to be commonplace elsewhere in the country too.

In the area of Hungarian government funding for sport infrastructure development projects beyond the borders, he noted the construction of a stadium in Osijek (Eszék), in northern Croatia.

“A Croatian city has received several billions of forints in Hungarian public money where the Hungarian community numbers less than one percent of the local population, and none of them play in a youth team,” Steinmetz said.

He also criticised the procedure for implementing the digital sports database, saying the government had wasted billions on its development that had “dragged on for several years by now with little to show for it”.

Orbán cabinet: December sees unprecedented migration pressure in Balkans

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Pressure from migration at Hungary’s southern border has been growing, with soldiers and police taking action in connection with almost 400 illegal migrants last weekend alone, the prime minister’s domestic security adviser told public television on Wednesday.

György Bakondi told current affairs channel M1 that the so-called Balkan route had witnessed in December the most intense migration activity since the start of the migration crisis.

Until a few months ago the Serbia-Bosnia and Albania-Montenegro-Bosnia-Herzegovina-Croatia routes were the two main paths for illegal migrants, he noted.

But ever since Croatia installed more sophisticated modes of deterrence at its border, migrants have been heading for Hungary, he added.

Bakondi noted increasing activity on the Greek islands and on the Turkish-Greek green border, with more and more Syrian migrants resettling from Turkey

Hungarian FM, Croatian counterpart discuss strengthening ties

hungary and croatia

Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s foreign minister, on Friday praised Hungary’s ties with Croatia, saying that the two countries are allies in many strategic issues, take an almost identical approach to several major challenges and rely on each other in crucial problems.

Speaking at a press conference after talks with Gordan Grlic Radman, the Croatian minister for foreign and EU affairs, Szijjártó noted that certain issues, however, cast a shadow on bilateral relations.

Croatia and Hungary continue to press for a focus on border protection in European migration policy, and vindicate themselves the right to decide “whom to allow into the country and whom they want to live together with”.

Both countries are “loud and active promoters” of the Western Balkan states’ accession to the European Union, Szijjártó noted, and see the enlargement as a measure with political, economic and security benefits.

Regarding energy security, Szijjártó said Hungary had proposed improving the region’s energy supply and opening further border crossings between the countries.

A stable energy supply has always been a crucial issue in central Europe, Szijjártó said, albeit the steps taken were too slow, Szijjártó said.

Hungary proposes to “turn a new page” in regional energy supply policy and connect the gas markets of the two countries by Hungary buying a minority share in the liquid natural gas terminal in Krk, and by negotiating procurements together, he said. This would give an opportunity to substantially improve energy security by involving new resources and new routes, he said.

Radman said inter-state relations with Hungary were excellent and noted that Croatia and Hungary’s support for ethnic minorities was “unprecedented”.

Ties are extremely strong between the four Hungarian and Croatian counties lying along the border, he said.

Radman noted that Croatia is about to take over the EU’s rotating presidency in January and that the present talks also touched on the presidency’s programme. He called it “regrettable” that the enlargement project is stalling. Croatia will work to give it new momentum and counts on Hungary’s help in the process, he said.

Ahead of the press conference, Radman and Szijjártó signed an agreement on diplomatic training.

Hungary, Croatia sign cultural agreement

Human Resources Minister Miklós Kásler discussed ways to strengthen Hungarian-Croatian cultural relations with Minister of Culture Nina Obuljen Korzinek on Monday and signed an agreement on Hungarian-Croatian cultural cooperation.

The ministers agreed that bilateral cultural relations were developing fast in the recent period in the areas of performing arts, heritage protection and the cultural education of ethnic minorities, Kásler told a joint press conference after the meeting.

The new agreement expands a previous document on cooperation, he said. Kásler added that

Croatia would take over the rotating presidency of the European Union from January next year and several joint events would be held during the presidency.

A new area of cooperation will be archeology which will involve using state-of-the-art technologies for instance in archeogenetics, he said.

Obuljen Korzinek thanked Hungary for excellent cooperation in the protection and promotion of cultural events for national minorities in both Croatia and Hungary. She cited the Croatian National Theatre of Pécs, in southern Hungary, as an example.

She added that during Croatia’s presidency the Várkert Bazár in Budapest will host an exhibition of Croatian painter Miroslav Kraljevic in March and the Hungarian National Museum will show an exhibition on Hungarian-Croatian fine art heritage in the 12th-20th centuries.

Kasler also met Minister of Public Administration Ivan Malenica during his visit.

Orbán’s security advisor: Frontex gradually beefed up at border

migration - Hungary border fence army

The European Frontex border agency is being beefed up and its staff are helping countries guard their borders, György Bakondi, the Prime Minister’s security adviser told public television in an interview on Wednesday.

Bakondi noted that once the Regulation on the European Border and Coast Guard is enforced with the aim of better protecting the EU’s external borders, Frontex will be enlarged over several years to 10,000 personnel.

He underlined

Hungary’s standpoint on migration in terms of its rejection of mandatory quotas for relocating migrants, securing the EU’s external borders and deporting people who are in Europe illegally.

Bakondi said the Italian government had broken its election promises and had withdrawn strict measures enacted by Matteo Salvini, the former deputy PM and interior minister, and ships carrying African migrants were arriving non-stop.

In a later interview to public radio, he said

the pressure of migration on the Hungary-Croatia and Hungary-Romania borders had grown significantly, with hundreds on their way to those borders.

Also, attempts are being made to cross from Ukraine, he added.

border Hungary
Read alsoOrbán cabinet: Illegal migration situation similar to 2015

Orbán urges Hungary-Croatia border regional developments

hungary croatia border

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called for new development projects in Hungary and Croatia’s shared border regions on Thursday.

Addressing the inauguration on Thursday of a new Hungarian-run student hostel in Osijek (Eszék), in north-eastern Croatia, Orbán underlined the importance of intensifying ties between Croatia’s Slavonia region and Hungary’s Baranya County.

At the event jointly held with his Croatian counterpart Andrej Plenkovic, Orbán said that 80-100 years ago Slavonia and Baranya County had been the most prosperous areas of their respective countries.

“They envied us, not just for our cultures but also our high standard of living,” Orbán said.

He said Croatians living in Slavonia and Hungarians living in Baranya County tended to think of themselves as living on their countries’ peripheries. “People and communities that think they live on the periphery will never be successful. Only those who believe that their home is the centre of the world can be successful.”

Orbán said Croatia’s accession to the European Union’s passport-free Schengen zone would greatly help the two countries intensify their cultural, sports, business and political relations. He added that if Croatia and Hungary continued to elect “nationally minded” governments for another ten years, they could bring about “a whole new world” in the border region.

Plenkovic said ethnic minorities played a major role in fostering friendly and good neighbourly relations between Croatia and Hungary.

Citing the latest censuses, the Croatian premier said that over 14,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Croatia and close to 26,000 ethnic Croats live in Hungary. He added, however, that unofficial estimates put both figures higher.

Plenkovic said that both countries were obliged to promote whatever can be preserved of the identity, culture, education and traditions of their ethnic minorities.

Meeting of parliamentary speakers of southeast European countries held in Budapest

meeting of parliamentary speakers of southeast European countries

Hungary will continue to support the Euro-Atlantic integration of the western Balkan countries which is in its national interest, the house speaker said in Parliament on Monday.

László Kövér spoke at the 9th meeting of parliamentary speakers of southeast European countries.

Hungary’s strong support over the past years played a role in Croatia’s accession to European Union, and in the accession of Albania, Croatia and Montenegro to NATO, Kövér said in his opening address.

“Despite all the crises in the European Union, we believe that the process of reuniting Europe must not stop and that there should not be white spots left as regards EU membership in the continent’s southern region,” he said.

“There is currently no political alternative for the EU in terms of European peace and prosperity,” House Speaker Kövér said, adding that Hungary’s interest lies in a strong EU formed by sovereign nation states capable of cooperation.

Kövér noted that

the parliamentary speakers of the Visegrad group, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, have been invited to attend this year’s event because for them the enlargement of the EU is as important as for the Hungarians.

The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.