NGOs

Hungary to conquer the world with a brand new dessert!

Hungarian dessert

Hungary aims to conquer the world with a brand new dessert. Thus, four Hungarian organisations, the Hungarian Confectionery Association, the Organisation of International Protocol Professionals, the Hungarian Museum of Trade and Tourism and the Gróf Széchenyi Család Alapítvány (Count Széchenyi Family Foundation), announced a competition to select Hungary’s new top dessert. The winner will have the privilege to use the name Széchenyi thanks to the Count Széchenyi Family Foundation.

Brand new dessert using traditional Hungarian ingredients

According to Turizmus Online, a new Hungarian dessert will be born soon bearing the name of Count István Széchenyi, the “greatest Hungarian”. The aim is to create a top dessert or dessert family that can be offered on protocol occasions. The dessert should present Hungary’s traditional values and the creativity of the Hungarians, they said. Furthermore,

it should be “an ideal choice” for international guests.

The jury awaits dessert creations that are either made by using Hungarian ingredients or have a theme that is linked to Hungary. They recommend the use of traditional ingredients such as plum jam from Szatmár, cherry tomatoes from Újfehértó, apricots from Gönc or local herbs. Furthermore, they would like to taste famous Hungaricums in the desserts. In this category, they mentioned, for example, the Hungarian acacia honey, camomile flowers from the Great Plain and pálinka. In addition, the new dessert may consist of quality Hungarian wines such as Egri Bikavér and Tokaji aszú or paprika seeds from Kalocsa and Szeged.

The launch date of the new dessert

There will be a two-round evaluation, and the jury will consist of confectioners, protocol professionals, diplomats and celebrities. The Count Széchenyi Family Foundation

presents the winning applicant and dessert in September at the 2022 Széchenyi Award Ceremony. 

Everybody can submit their application, even small confectioneries or catering schools. Only private individuals are excluded. 

All applicants can submit two desserts, but there is room for cooperation between professionals. 

The desserts cannot contain aromas, margarine, harmful artificial additives or artificial food dyes.

Cake of Hungary Competition 2022
Read alsoHere are the most delicious cakes Hungary can offer; which one is your favourite?

Government-close think tank: six out of ten Hungarians back Orbán

Viktor Orbán military helicopter

Six out of ten Hungarians support Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a poll by the government-close Centre for Fundamental Rights released on Thursday shows.

The prime minister has seen his support rise significantly by mid-March, with 61 percent of active voters preferring to see him stay in power as against 26 percent in favour of the prime ministerial candidate of the united opposition, the think tank said.

Whereas Orbán’s approval rating has consistently been above the 50 percent mark in the past 16 weeks, Peter Márki-Zay has seen his popularity fluctuate between 22 percent and 28 percent and stagnate since the start of the war in Ukraine. According to the poll, Márki-Zay trails Orbán among all social groups, including young people and Budapest voters.

Orbán’s popularity has increased since the start of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, with the share of active voters backing him jumping from 52 percent to 61 percent in the last two weeks, the think tank said.

The prime minister is backed by 48 percent of voters in the 18-29 age group, with 34 percent of them supporting Márki-Zay. Orbán leads Márki-Zay 45-42 percent among Budapest voters and 72-15 percent among rural Hungarians.

The Centre for Fundamental Rights conducted its polls by phone between November 15, 2021 and March 10, 2022 with representative samples of 1,000 adults.

CPAC USA Hungary Trump
Read alsoTrump states support for Orbán in letter

EU condemned Hungary for illegal eavesdropping on journalists, politicians!

Spy Asia Hungary money

The European Parliament adopted a report at its plenary session in Strasbourg on Thursday, calling for the EU to do more to combat foreign interference and disinformation, while also raising concerns in connection with Hungary.

The report said: “A general lack of awareness of the severity of foreign interference and information manipulation is exacerbated by loopholes in legislation and insufficient coordination between EU countries.” It urged the EU to create a common strategy to face the challenge of disinformation, including by putting in place specific sanctions related to foreign interference and disinformation campaigns.

In connection with Hungary, the report said that

ruling Fidesz and the opposition Jobbik party had nurtured close ties with the Kremlin.

It also condemned state organisations in Hungary, Poland, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, among others, of illegally using the NSO Group’s Pegasus spy software to eavesdrop on journalists, human rights activists, and politicians.

The report

accused Hungary and Serbia of helping China and Russia achieve their geopolitical goals,

describing this as “alarming”. Further, it condemned the Hungarian government decision to allow the establishment of a campus of China’s Fudan university while closing down the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest. The report also

accused Serbia and Hungary of “playing a role in an extensive dissemination of disinformation on neighboring countries”.

Fidesz MEP Balázs Hidvéghi responded to the report by accusing its authors of attacking Hungary with “lies”. “It’s text is ideologically biased and explores the subject extremely unilaterally,” he said in a statement. “Even amid the current war, the EP’s left-wing majority can’t resist continuing their usual political smear campaign against Hungary,” he added.

He called it “absurd” that the report addressed foreign intervention in European democratic processes while “failing to mention the significant intervention” in these

processes by “the Soros network” over the past several years.

President János Áder and his Wife
Read alsoHungarian government spied even on the President with secret spyware?!

Peace march to come again on March 15 in Budapest – hundreds of thousands expected

Peace March in Budapest in 2021

A Peace March organised for Hungary’s March 15 national holiday will convey the message of a “clear no to war”, the founder of the pro-government Civic Union (COF) and head of the associated CÖKA foundation told a press conference on Wednesday.

László Csizmadia said the march will start out from in front of the Komjádi swimming pool on the Buda side at noon. The crowd will march across Margaret Bridge and reach Parliament via Szent István Boulevard and Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Avenue.

In front of Parliament, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will address a central commemoration of Hungary’s 1848-49 freedom fight in the afternoon.

Delegations from Poland, Italy, and Spain will join the march, Csizmadia said.

Meanwhile, Public Prosecutor Péter Polt has met the representatives of the election observation mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights has deployed a mission to observe the elections on April 3, and will remain in close contact with the authorities throughout, the statement said.

At the meeting, Polt briefed mission head Jillian Stirk and two members of the

crimes detected during the elections in 2014 and 2018,

as well as the outcome of the relevant criminal procedures, the statement said.

march_15_national_flag_parliament
Read also Family programs, concerts, gastronomy events on March 15 in Budapest!

What a twist: intl migration org praises Hungary’s handling refugees!

Refugees from Ukraine in Hungary

The Hungarian authorities are handling the migration crisis in the wake of the war in Ukraine “flawlessly”, Michael Spindelegger, head of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development, said in Beregsurány, near the Hungary-Ukraine border, on Wednesday.

Spindelegger told MTI that his delegation was studying the process of receiving and accommodating refugees, so as to gauage the kind of assistance ICMPD could provide. He said both civil organisations and individuals were working tirelessly to help refugees fleeing from war. He called Hungarian aid “a beautiful act of solidarity”.

ICMPD, based in Vienna, is active in ninety countries, and carries out research on migration and makes recommendations to governments and agencies.

Refugees from Ukraine
Read alsoOver 4,200 refugees received in Budapest on Tuesday

Opposition: Hungary “being Putinised”!

President Vladimir Putin

The opposition LMP party has accused Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of importing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policies to Hungary along with Russian gas.

If Orbán won the April 3 general election, then every government innovation would be stamped with “made in Russia” on it, LMP co-leader Máté Kanász-Nagy told an online press briefing on Wednesday.

He insisted that one example of this was that the ruling Fidesz party had subjected foreign-funded NGOs to the same kind of restrictive regulations that apply in Russia. Yet some of the same NGOs are helping government by supporting refugees from Ukraine, he added.

Also, Russia has outlawed the promotion of homosexuality since 2013, while the Fidesz government did the same in Hungary last summer, the LMP politician said.

putin orbán Will the Budapest meeting of eurozone finance ministers be boycotted?
Read alsoHungary on Russia’s list of ‘unfriendly’ countries

This is how the Hungarian-Ukrainian border looks now – a field report

hungarian_police_border_control

At the border-passage of Záhony 10-15 cars pass the Ukrainian border into Hungary per hour. On the Ukrainian side the waiting times are 8-10 hours on average, but this is not because of the Hungarian border patrols, they accept cars even on 4 parallel lanes. It is still on the Ukrainian side that the automotives are crammed in line, due to the Ukrainian controllers. Because of Military law, men 18-60yrs are not allowed out, but citizens with a double-nationality (e.g. incl. Hungarian) are, as well as citizens of 3rd countries. It is the control of these which slows down their exit.

On the Hungarian side 90% of arrivals are women and children. At the train statio of Záhony the situation is sometimes more critical, but mainly possible to keep in balance. Regularly approaching trains can bring you to the Nyugati (Western) Station in Budapest. For Ukrainian citizens this ride is free of charge. Because of the controls on the Ukrainian side, these trains usually are 1-2 hours late.

The challenge is with the late-comers via Csap who arrive at midnight, when there is no more connection to Budapest. In the past days these were 200-300 people. So they need to be taken care of until the next connective move to Budapest. This is partly taken care of in the local Educational/Cultural Center. Several charitable organisations have moved to the train station, offering water, food, hygiene goods.

70-80 Ukrainian Roma mothers and children are “stuck” on the train-station, who partly cannot, partly do not want to travel on, their fate is not clarified yet, but the local Roma self-governing organisations (in Záhony) are at the location. According to Police informations, some from this group are already returning to Ukraine.

The sitaution in Beregsurány and Tiszabecs is insofar different from that in Záhony that here there is also crossing on foot. The Hungarian border police are decently standing aside, the entry happens with remarkable speed and minimal bureaucracy. This is also the case for arriving pets. Among arriving pedestrians we already saw people arriving with cats.

Read alsoHungarian Forint reached its historic low against Euro today!

Right off the border crossing, a humanitarian aid base is beginning to be established. Here not only water and food, but also warming and baby-mother tents are available, which is necessary as temperatures are at the freezing point, especially after dark.

Here we would like to draw attention to something which many don’t understand:

mothers are sitting beside the road with their children, who however don’t ask for being given a trip or help.

The people who arrive at the Ukrainian-Hungarian border are to ca. 90% “organized refugees”, which means, they are meeting at the border with friends & relatives from Western Europe. This can take hours or even days, until the latter have arrived. And there are Western cars waiting along the road, with a variety of license-plates, and are waiting for those they agreed to pick up.

At present, thousands of refugees are appearing at the Hungarian-Ukrainian border-passages every day, and this number will not increase until the administrative work of the Ukrainian forces slows down their exit.

The Western Train Station in Budapest (“Nyugati”) has also become a place of picking up refugees, where the aforementioned people from Záhony are arriving. The arrival of the trains is difficult to calculate because of the delays. Many arrive in transit to elsewhere, meaning with the next chance they will travel on towards Western Europe. Here the mood is calm as well, there is caritative aid on location. In connection with these, the availability of 1-1 nightly sleepovers/accommodation around the train station have also risen in value.

Military-convoy-Hungary
Read also Orbán: Hungary won’t send weapons, soldiers to war zone

Secretary condemns NGOs attempting to gain a grip on political decision-making

Secretary Zoltán Kovács Nézőpont Institute

It is “highly dangerous” if organisations without democratic legitimacy have a decisive influence on political decision-making, Zoltán Kovács, the state secretary for international communication and relations, said on Thursday, referring to the activities of NGOs.

Kovács told a conference on a Nézőpont Institute 2021 study on international press reports about Hungary that the Hungarian government was fighting against people who tried to make decisions without the authority to do so.

He noted that the government won two-thirds majority three times in democratic elections and this

could not be questioned by either NGOs, their media collaborators, or other opinion-makers.

Kovács said that since 2010, no matter what the government did, the Hungarian left wing tarred the government, and the resulting effects could be felt on the international stage. He said the western European press had created a “monolithic” image of Hungary, and Hungary would have to create a framework in which to express its own position, adding that this endeavour was making progress internationally.

Meanwhile, referring to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Kovács

accused Péter Márki-Zay, the united opposition’s prime ministerial candidate, of promoting a narrative created by the western European media regarding Hungary’s relations with Russia over the past 12 years.

He insisted that Márki-Zay had made statements concerning the situation in Ukraine that “jeopardises Hungary’s international standing”. “Not only is he telling lies, he is also behaving with immeasurable irresponsibility,” he added.

Viktor Orbán George Soros
Read alsoFidesz: this is how the Soros network manipulates public opinion

Fidesz: this is how the Soros network manipulates public opinion

Viktor Orbán George Soros

Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party on Wednesday said it had “irrefutable evidence” of the employment of manipulative tactis by US financier George Soros’s “network” to drive the use of double standards against Hungary.

“We Hungarians have been struggling against the use of disgraceful double standards against us for many long years,” Fidesz MEP Tamás Deutsch told MTI in a video message. But in recent days, irrefutable evidence has emerged that the left had institutionalised the use of double standards against Hungary, he added.

Individuals linked to Soros’s network “have come clean” on the “manipulative methods they use to spread blatant lies and smears about Hungary”,

he said.

Karolina Punset, a Spanish Liberal MEP, Andrei Nosko, director of the Open Society Foundations, Mátyás Kálmán, a journalist who used to work at news portals 24.hu and Index, and Dalibor Rohac, a research fellow at an American research institute, have admitted that — regardless of what they may say in public —

the “true enemies of freedom of speech” are not Hungary and Poland, but the “representatives of political correctness” in Brussels,

Deutsch said.

The mainstream media has been laying into Hungary and Poland without having presented any real arguments against them, he added.

Deutsch said Punset, Nosko, Kálmán and Rohac had conceded that most NGOs, “including the Soros-affiliate Amnesty International”, exercised control over foreign journalists, and that Brussels applied double standards against Hungary not just on political but also on economic issues. “One of them has even proudly admitted to having hired journalists on multiple occasions to promote the deceitful materials of the Soros organisations,” Deutsch said.

“So is it even a question anymore?” he said, adding that “this must not remain without consequence.”

migration
Read alsoStop supporting NGOs involved in the maritime transport of migrants, Hungarian FM says

First Lady: 1,200 children remained orphan due to COVID in Hungary

First Lady Anita Herczeg

“We Hungarians are a kind-hearted people; in times of trouble we pull together with enormous strength,” First Lady Anita Herczegh said in her address to the First National Civil Conference in Budapest on Friday.

Herczeg, a member of the board of trustees of the Istvan Regoczi Foundation which supports children who have been orphaned or semi-orphaned due to Covid-19, praised charity work undertaken by civil groups and volunteers, adding: “We must prove our love not with words but through actions.”

“Civil activists, volunteers, and donors will walk the cohesive path of love; we not only wish for the benefit of others but also serve that goal,” she said, adding “this goodwill service is our mission”.

The First Lady praised the efforts of the Hungarian Maltese Charity, the Catholic Charity, and the Hungarian Red Cross. “More and more people have helped the sick, health-care staff, those in [Covid] isolation and families of the victims,” she said.

Herczegh noted that 1,200 children had lost one or both parents in the coronavirus pandemic, and said that her and President János Áder’s initiative for the Regőczi István Foundation was aimed at helping those orphans in the long run.

Addressing the same conference, Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister’s chief of staff, said

“civil activists are those that recognise the hardships of individuals and communities and work to find actual solutions”.

“When we talk about the civil sector, we don’t mean NGO’s stuffed with funds from obscure sources … acting as the extended hands of speculators wishing to interfere,” Gulyás said, adding that such organisations “change their position according to the daily interests of their paymasters.” In leftist circles, “a civil organisation is one financed by George Soros”, he added. “But now, when Amnesty International, one of George Soros’s favourites, the new Israeli government has declared an organisation supporting terrorism, the left wing should reconsider the definition of a civil group,” Gulyás said.

Gulyás noted that in 2020 there had been 60,673 foundations, non-profit organisations and associations, while the number of “civil groups in the classical sense” was also over 53,000 in Hungary. “This is a huge number and civil activities cover all areas,” he added.

At the conference, the For Value-building Communities awards were handed out. The two awards went to Piroska Kontha, founder of a hospice operated by the Reformed Church in Majosháza, south of Budapest, as well as the Reformed Church for Szatmar association in north-eastern Hungary.

False immunity certificate
Read alsoGP, nurses issued false vaccine certificates – even police bought some

Hungary in the foreign media: Soros network holds all the cards?

George Soros CEU Hungarian

A former journalist of left-leaning news portals 24.hu and Index.hu in a leaked interview has spoken candidly about how international NGOs “hold all the cards” when it comes to reporting on Hungary in foreign media, the state secretary for international communications and relations has said.

Citing an article in the daily Magyar Nemzet, Zoltán Kovács said on Twitter on Thursday: “Why am I not surprised? Partly because these statements are not the only ones made recently by liberals on the topic of biased reporting about Hungary. I honestly can’t wait to see what’s next.”

Most NGOs, including Amnesty International and “the ones financed by George Soros, exercise huge influence over foreign reporters writing about Hungary in the international press,” Kovács said said in an English-language post on abouthungary.hu. “For example I was invited to Brussels and Strasburg to report on individual events. Usually, in these cases, journalists were really instructed where they should go, who they can talk to,” Kovács said citing the journalist.

According to the journalist,

“it is not good” that press workers are so dependent on NGOs, and it is difficult to work transparently in such circumstances,

Kovács added. Meanwhile, in an interview in Friday’s Magyar Nemzet newspaper, the state secretary for communications and international relations said the “Soros network” had affected the way Hungary was being portrayed in the international media.

Hungary had been in the receiving end of such distortions since 2010, Kovács said, adding

the best way to combat misimpressions among the western public was to correct them in the international press.

Nevertheless, it was hard to get through to them, he added.

Kovács said the journalist in question who is a former head of the Soros Foundation had recently conceded that Hungary and Poland were being “attacked” on the international stage “with many unjust accusations”. The Soros network’s modus operandus was now clear, he said, adding that western readers, by default, couldn’t understand “what makes the Hungarian government so popular”.

Kovács said hundreds and thousands were “actively involved” all over the world in peddling “distorted facts or opinions”. “We’ve seen this … for the past twelve years … ever since the media law, the fundamental law and the cardinal laws were passed.”

In the run-up to the April 3 general election, he added, Hungary’s electoral system would be “attacked yet again by the Soros network”.

Read alsoOrbán against making ‘Soros man’ European Commission president

Stop supporting NGOs involved in the maritime transport of migrants, Hungarian FM says

migration

The European Union should launch a comprehensive financial and technical programme to support the North African and Mideastern countries in defending their borders, Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs and trade, said in Barcelona on Monday.

Addressing a regional forum of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), Szijjarto said he expected growing migration pressure from the southern regions of Africa.

“While Europe is facing several simultaneous challenges, more and more migrants arrive in the continent, already from three directions,” he said.

The position of the Hungarian government has remained unchanged, Szijjarto said. Rather than encouraged to leave their country, those in need should be assisted by eliminating the root causes of migration in their homeland, he said.

Europe should aim to halt migration as far as possible from its borders, for which effective cooperation with the North African nations is indispensable, Szijjártó said.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that the EU’s security starts with the security and stability of North Africa,” he said.

As the issue is crucial, the EU “should free its financial support from all artificial political preconditions,” the minister said, referring to Egypt, which halted migration over the past five years but had no access to EU funds for “certain human rights issues”.

Szijjártó called for discontinuing support for NGOs involved in the maritime transport of immigrants,

saying that their actions undermine the partner countries’ efforts to defend their borders.

Budapest Airport collected 10 thousand EUR for foundation helping disabled people

Budapest Airport donation

Budapest Airport handed over more than 3.8 million HUF to the SUHANJ! Foundation, which supports sporting opportunities for handicapped and disabled people. The donation was collected from the entry fees of the Runway Run charity race, organized at the airport for the 9th time this year.

At the beginning of September, the Runway Run charity running race started off for the ninth time. Nearly 700 runners competed on runway I of the airport, closed for the occasion.

The 3 845 486 HUF collected from entry fees were handed over to the SUHANJ! Foundation by the representatives of the airport operator.

Budapest Airport has been supporting the SUHANJ! Foundation for 7 years; the airport has donated half of the proceeds from entry fees to this organization since the beginning. Amongst others, the SUHANJ! Foundation uses the donation to develop the SUHANJ! Fitness, an integrated gym for disabled and able-bodied athletes, operated by the organization. Budapest Airport would like to contribute to improving the quality of life of visually impaired and physically and mentally disabled people, through the SUHANJ! Foundation, providing regular and integrative sporting opportunities.

Budapest Airport to temporary reopen Terminal 1 and build a new Terminal 3!

 

Upon handing over the donation, Katalin Valentínyi, chief communications and government relations officer for Budapest Airport said:

“It has always been important for Budapest Airport to promote socially significant causes and to support initiatives and organizations, which help our fellow human beings who are disadvantaged for some reason.

Besides providing the joy of running in a special location, an airport runway, the Runway Run is also a charity event, since every runner lining up at the starting line completes the distance for a common cause. We are especially delighted that we could continue this 9-year tradition during the years of the pandemic, and that the SUHANJ! Foundation could count on us this year as well.

Péter Gusztos, the founder and director of the SUHANJ! Foundation said about the donation:

“We are proud that Budapest Airport has placed its trust in the SUHANJ! Foundation for 7 years now, and supports its public benefit objectives.

This initiative helped us to create and develop Hungary’s first and so far only completely accessible, integrative gym, the SUHANJ! Fitness. He added: “This long-term support helped us weather the difficulties of the COVID pandemic, develop further and start establishing a country-wide organization and the rural units of the SUHANJ! Foundation. Our goal is to share the joy of exercise with as many disabled and handicapped people as possible – and Budapest Airport is our key partner in this endeavor.”

Similarly to previous years, the participants of the invitational Runway Run charity race included the representatives of the aviation industry, authorities, airlines and other international companies, notable athletes and the runners of the SUHANJ! Foundation.

Budapest Airport donation
Read alsoBudapest Airport collected 10 thousand EUR for foundation helping disabled people

Minister: international organizations helping migration lost their common sense

Migration-Latvia
Poland and the Baltic states are having to contend with forced and organised migration from the East, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.
 
The minister, who is meeting in Estonia the foreign ministers of the countries on the eastern wing of NATO, said mass illegal migration was the single item on the meeting’s agenda.
 
Szijjártó said migration in itself posed a threat to the region, but this was compounded by the policies of
 
“international organisations that have lost their common sense completely”.
 
Referring to the “anti-fence standpoint” of Brussels last week, he said, “here’s another gem: Yesterday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees dared to say that Latvia, which is having to mobilise all its resources to protect its borders, should change its attitude and let migrants in,” he said. “So we should let them in; let them into the territory of the European Union and then give them loads of social support,” he added.
 
50 Czech policemen help Hungary’s border patrol


He said those same migrants injured Polish border guards at the weekend. The minister added that “international bureaucrats living off European taxpayers’ money” were encouraging migrants who were “trashing our rules, laws and standards of conduct” and wanted to “aggressively to impose their own way of life on us”.
Hungary foreign minister
Read also Minister: border protection is not a human rights issue!

Hungarian left wants to allow LGBTQ propaganda in schools?

lgbtq transgender

By challenging the government’s referendum initiative on child protection issues, the leftist opposition has “admitted that they all support bringing LGBTQ propaganda into schools and kindergartens”, the Government Information Centre (KTK) said on Tuesday.

The KTK’s statement comes after the National Election Office (NVI) on Monday said it had received requests for the government’s referendum questions to be reviewed by a court. The KTK said the government would stand firm in its support for the referendum, adding that there was a real danger that Hungary’s leftist opposition

wanted to provide a platform to “LGBTQ propaganda”.

Hungary will be the first country in Europe where the people will get to decide who should have a say in the sex education of children, the KTK said.

According to press reports, the opposition Momentum Movement, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ) and the satirical Two-Tailed Dog party

have all challenged the government’s referendum initiative.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced last month that the government had decided to initiate a referendum with a view to defending Hungary’s new child protection law from “attacks” by Brussels.

Government: George Soros avoided paying taxes

George Soros CEU Hungarian
Csaba Dömötör, a state secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office, on Friday hit back at US financier George Soros for “insulting Hungary”, citing US media reports that Soros had avoided paying taxes by tucking billions of dollars into his charity organisation.
 
“George Soros is insulting Hungary again; this time by calling it a mafia state,” Dömötör wrote. “These sort of insults ring totally false from a billionaire who pays no taxes.”
 
Citing recent press reports, Dömötör said Soros had
managed to avoid paying federal income tax for three years.
“Foundations play a key role in these tax evasion manoeuvres,” the state secretary said, adding that Soros had moved 18 billion dollars into his Open Society Foundations alone.
 
“The Wall Street Journal is calling this transfer of wealth the single biggest tax dodge in US history,” he added.
 
 
Meanwhile, Dömötör said, Soros was calling for others to pay more taxes. He cited the Project Syndicate website linked to Soros as calling corporate tax increases “the best solution” to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. However, a low corporate tax rate is one of Hungary’s biggest competitive advantages, he added.
 
“If he [Soros] attacks us a hundred times, we’ll defend ourselves a hundred times,”
Dömötör said. “And we will add each time that an unelected tax-dodging godfather shouldn’t lecture us on democracy.”

Minister: NGOs are capable to influence public life and debates

judit varga

The Hungarian government agrees with the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) that transparency is a legitimate, democratic expectation, especially in the case of “non-governmental organisations which … are capable of exercising a significant influence over public life and public debate,” Justice Minister Judit Varga said on Friday.


Referring to the CJEU’s ruling regarding Hungary’s law on the transparency of non-governmental organisations, Varga said in a bilingual Facebook post that the Hungarian government also agrees with the Court “that the transparency of the

funding of these organisations is in the interest of all of us, i.e. it is a public interest.”

“So far, the debate between Hungary and Brussels has not been about the goal, but about the choice of means. Subject to these considerations, and noting and respecting the decision of the Court, the Government proposes to establish new regulation in line with EU law while also repealing the Law on Transparency, thus resolving the conflict to the satisfaction of all parties.

This proposal does not impose any greater burden on NGOs than before, moreover, it does not require more than what was previously expected: a transparent operation,” the minister said.

At the same time, Varga noted that some 60,000 NGOs are currently thriving in Hungary.

Their key role in Hungary makes their transparency a public interest, she added.

Varga lamented that the leftist opposition, in the meantime, is “considering the proposal as a group of sanctions and other nightmares”. “They have been crying wolves many times, but they have not yet come. Now, they won’t come either,” she said.

Justice minister: critical NGOs “share a common backing”

minister varga judit

The “hypocritical” debate about the rule of law should not serve to create divisions between European Union member states at a time when they are busy fighting against the coronavirus epidemic, Justice Minister Judit Varga said in an interview with daily Magyar Nemzet on Wednesday.

“The current period should be dedicated to building alliances, so that common efforts enable us to leave behind the coronavirus,” Varga said after a video meeting of EU justice ministers on Tuesday.

The ministers assessed the rule of law in Germany, France, Spain, Ireland and Greece. Varga said that even though such “big shot” states had been under review,

“this type of dialogue on the rule of law is hypocritical and primarily serves to enable the European Commission to pressurise member states with views that deviate from the mainstream”.

She added that EU treaties do not authorise the EC to assess the rule of law in member states and it is the EU Court of Justice that should rule over such debates. Additionally, neither Hungary nor Poland have approved the launch of a debate on the rule of law in the General Affairs Council, she said.

Commenting on the upcoming group of rule of law reports scheduled for July, she said that based on her experiences so far,

these reports tend to rely on the opinions of NGOs that “share a common backing”.

Varga also said that an Article 7 procedure launched against Hungary was a political witch hunt that was “obviously not meeting the expectations that had been attached to it”.