Breaking news! Hungary offers 37 million euros in aid to Ukraine
Hungary is offering Ukraine aid worth 37 million euros, Péter Szijjártó, Hungary’s minister of foreign affairs and trade, said in Warsaw on Thursday.
Hungary opposes the war in Ukraine and wants peace to be restored in the region as soon as possible, the minister said at a donor conference organised by Poland and Sweden.
Hungary stands on Ukraine’s side and supports its sovereignty, he said.
“We can obviously make a clear distinction between the attacker and the attacked,” Szijjarto said, adding that Hungary condemns the Russian military aggression and its “gross human rights violations”, and joins calls for an immediate investigation of war crimes.
As a sign of solidarity,
Hungary has granted safe haven to 670,000 Ukrainian refugees and has offered jobs to those who wish to stay here in the long term, as well as schooling for their children, he said, adding that Hungary is taking in and helping all Ukrainian refugees entering the country.
Hungary is offering five types of aid: help in reconstructing a school and a hospital; delivery of mobile homes for internally displaced persons in western Ukraine; scholarships for one thousand Ukrainian university students; Hungarian hospitals are prepared to treat an unlimited number of wounded Ukrainian soldiers; and
Hungary is ready to provide care for 130 Ukrainian children in special hospitals, Szijjártó said.
Polish Senate vetoed Hungarian MOL’s expansion because the company is controlled by Russia
The Polish Senate accepted a new law blocking Hungarian MOL to buy 417 Lotos petrol stations in Poland. The two companies signed an agreement on the issue in January, but the upper house of the Polish legislation vetoed it.
Huge business plan in danger
According to Piac és Profit, Hungarian MOL announced on 12th January that they signed a 610 million dollars agreement to buy 417 petrol stations in Poland. The seller was the Grupa Lotos SA. If the agreement had been carried through, MOL could have become the third biggest fuel retailing company in Poland. They said then that the agreement’s prerequisite was the European Commision’s green light on the fusion of Lotos and PKN Orlen. The commission cleared earlier that they would allow the fusion only if Lotos sold at least 80 pc of their petrol stations to avoid the creation of a monopoly. Furthermore, Lotos had to sell its shares (30 pc) in the Gdansk oil refinery.
The Senate of Poland vetoed this business plan.
- Read also: Hungarian embassy reopens in Kyiv
They accepted a law modification that made the fusion of Orlen and Lotos impossible. Polish Energetyka believes that the legislation’s goal was to block MOL’s expansion in the country. Speaker Tomasz Grodzki said before the Senate’s session that their original plan was not to sell Lotos petrol stations to MOL, a company controlled by Russian money, especially not at the time of an ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
Poland’s Senate thinks Russians are behind MOL?
Grodzki also said that Hungary’s behaviour regarding the conflict was odd and incomprehensible. He expressed hope that the lower house of the Polish bicameral Parliament, the Seim, would accept the proposal of the Senate.
Many senators believe selling the petrol stations and the shares in the Gdansk oil refinery is against national interest. They added that MOL is in a close relationship with Russia. Government representatives and senators of the governing parties disagreed. Jan Kanthak, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of State Assets, said that the fusion of the two Polish companies could create an energy giant. That could help the diversification of the oil supply, they argued.
Finally, 53 senators supported, while 45 objected to the proposal. Opposition senators highlighted after the vote that they successfully suspended the purchase of Lotos to Hungary and the Russians standing behind them.
Read alsoOil embargo against Russia: big relief for Hungary
Preliminary date of Pope Francis’s visit to Hungary set!
Asked about a future visit to Hungary by Pope Francis, Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister’s chief of staff, said on today’s government info that a preliminary date had been set and this would be announced by the Vatican.
Regarding V4 cooperation, Gulyás said all four members of the Visegrád Group, Hungary and Poland in particular, aimed to ensure that the bloc continued to operate effectively. He noted differences of opinion on the issue of Russia, but these, he added, were not as sharp as appearances or portrayals in the international press suggested.
“Of key importance are good relations with Poland,”
he said, adding that Katalin Novák, Hungary’s incoming president, will pay her first official foreign visit to Warsaw.
Asked to comment on the opposition’s reaction to ruling Fidesz’s proposal to divide parliamentary positions based on a two-thirds to one-third formula, he said the
ruling side’s offer fairly reflected the election outcome
and it was now up to the six-party coalition to decide whether or not they wanted to participate in parliamentary business. He said recent left-wing proposals had tended to get entangled in their internal strife.
In connection with a range of planned amendments to the 2022 budget, Gulyás said
the government did not support any kind of austerity measure that may affect ordinary people.
At the same time, the deficit target of 4.9 percent remain unchanged. “The question is how long the war in Ukraine will last,” he said, noting that it was costing Hungary several hundred billion forints in additional spending each month. He said a deficit of below 3 percent would not be targeted before the 2024 budget.
Read also Hungarian president-elect: “points of reference are God, faith, family and friends”
Hungary and other V4 countries are in the top 12 investment destinations of the world!
Cooperation among the four Visegrád Group countries based on mutual respect is more important today in all areas of the economy including competition law, the Hungarian foreign ministry’s state secretary said addressing the V4 Competition Law Conference in Budapest on Wednesday.
The V4 countries are at the forefront of a global competition for investment with all of them listed among the top 12 investment destinations, Tamás Vargha told the event. Hungary’s trade turnover with its other three V4 partners of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia last year amounted to 35.5 billion euros which provides a solid base for their cooperation, Vargha said.
The state secretary highlighted the importance of acting in unity to provide help to Ukraine and in tackling migration.
“When there is a crisis caused by a pandemic and a war, stable relations gain importance which is why one of the main goals of Hungary’s current V4 presidency is to strengthen the region economically,” said Vargha.
He underlined the importance of active cooperation between the V4 countries in the area of competition law to allow the investigation of violations in cross-border investments, joint ventures and outsourcing, noting that unfair market practices had become increasingly common.
Read alsoAverage gross wage in Hungary was almost 1,500 EUR in February
Rule-of-law mechanism was activated against Hungary but not Poland
Johannes Hahn, the Commissioner for Budget and Administration, is sending a notification letter to Hungary on Wednesday, activating the mechanism linking European Union funding to the rule of law, EC Vice-President Margaritis Schinas said.
Vera Jourova, the Vice-President for Values and Transparency, said on Twitter that the conditionality mechanism will be activated by the letter. “We identified issues that might be breaching [the rule of law] in HU and affect the EU budget,” she said.
Blikk.hu wrote that the EC did not find ground to start the rule-of-law mechanism against Poland.
Jourova said the EC decision was in line with an earlier ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU, under which the commission needs to prove a link between the rule of law and the impact of deficiencies on the European budget. Suspension of payments to Hungary could arise from deficiencies in the national anti-corruption strategy and could impact a large part of EU funding, including cohesion and agricultural funds. Hahn said on Twitter that under its obligation to protect the European budget, the commission would scrutinise each member state within the auspices of the mechanism.
- Read also: Hungary to lose significant EU funding?
Meanwhile, the parliamentary parties have failed to agree on staffing the leading positions in parliament, and so that task falls to the House Speaker, Fidesz group leader Máté Kocsis said on Wednesday.
The ruling Fidesz and Christian Democrat (KDNP) parties maintain their proposal that the opposition should appoint one-third of parliamentary positions, “despite the fact that the number of opposition lawmakers has declined since four years ago,” Kocsis told a press conference. He said the proposal was “fair and proportionate to parliamentary mandates”.
“The leftist parties never wanted an agreement,”
he said.
The opposition also requested an amendment to the proposal, “even though they accepted a very similar one four years ago,” he said. He accused the opposition of planning to “blame House Speaker László Kövér for their not getting enough positions, even though they will receive them”.
“Fidesz calls on the opposition to fill in all the positions they are entitled to and to fulfil their voters’
will and represent them rather than staying away from work in parliament,” he said.
After the meeting, Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) leader László Toroczkai said the opposition leaders’ absence was a “circus put on especially for the media”, as the opposition leaders have said they would send their proposals to the government.
Mi Hazánk is nominating party deputy leader Dóra Dúró for parliamentary vice-chairperson, and is vying to lead the committee on national security and investment development, Toroczkai said.
Following the talks, opposition DK, Jobbik, LMP, Momentum, Parbeszed and the Socialists said in a joint statement that Fidesz had made it clear that it continues to refuse the method of distributing committee leadership and membership places on the basis of the 30-year tradition and reflecting the size of the parliamentary groups.
The opposition parties consider it unacceptable that Fidesz “wants to rewrite voters’ wish by brute force and award the extremist Mi Hazank with parliamentary positions far exceeding its parliamentary presence, to the detriment of democratic oppostion parties”, the statement said. “This is the intolerable neglect of 1.9 million voters who supported the united opposition,” it added.
Read alsoFidesz EP group leader: Hungarian left wing ‘still on side of war’
Minister: gas delivery to Hungary unimpeded!
Gas deliveries continue to flow to Hungary on schedule, without obstructions and according to the country’s long-term contract with Russia, Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, said on Wednesday, commenting on news reports that Russia had stopped deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria.
Some 3.5 billion cubic meters of gas arrive in Hungary via Turkey, Bulgaria and Serbia every year, which is a “significant” portion of the country’s annual consumption, Szijjarto said in a post on Facebook.
While Russia has stopped delivering the gas intended for consumption in Bulgaria, transits are untouched by the measure, he said.
“I would like to put everyone’s mind at ease: the suspension of deliveries to Bulgaria does not include transits across the country,”
he said.
Meanwhile, Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom has decided to request payments in roubles, in view of the sanctions hitting Russia due to the war in Ukraine. “We have found a solution where [Hungary] will pay in euros to an account set up at Gazprom Bank, which will then exchange it to roubles and transfer it to Gazprom Export,” Szijjártó said.
Slovakia has chosen the same method of payment, according to a statement of the Slovak economy minister on Tuesday, Szijjártó said.
Read alsoBreaking – Russian plane carrying dangerous cargo landed in Hungary again!
Polish and Slovak prime ministers: Hungary’s neutrality is outrageous!
Slovak PM Eduard Heger and Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki both criticised Hungary in recent days. The two leaders criticised Hungary’s position on the war in Ukraine. The two leaders of V4 member countries said Hungary’s opposition to sanctions against Russia was outrageous.
Criticism from the allies
Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger wants tougher sanctions against Russia over the war against Ukraine. Heger held talks with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in the Slovak town of Stara Lubovna. The Polish head of state agreed with his Slovak counterpart.
In other words, Poland and Slovakia are disappointed by the Hungarian attitude.
Hungary is not willing to supply arms to Ukraine. In addition, military units carrying weapons are not allowed to transit through Hungary.
Morawiecki says it is outrageous that Hungary and Germany are protesting against sanctions against Russia.
These remarks show that the gap between Hungary and the other countries in the Visegrád Four is widening, portfolio.hu reports. While Hungary remains neutral, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia are supplying Ukraine with heavy weapons. The Russian-Ukrainian war could easily drive a wedge between the allies.
Slovenia as the last ally?
Slovenia’s Prime Minister Janez Jansa is a conservative SDS politician and a great ally of Viktor Orbán. However, Slovenia holds parliamentary elections on 24 April.
Jansa may be replaced precisely because of his good relationship with Orbán.
Napi.hu reports that the latest opinion polls show that the centre-left party Slovoda is slightly more likely to win than SDS. Many voters fear the “Hungarisation” of Slovenia. This means that Jansa is ignoring criticism and influences the independent media. Slovenia’s GDP and labour market have returned to pre-coronavirus levels. Thus, analysts say that a crucial policy question could be what pattern the country wants to follow.
“If SDS wins the election, the Slovenian media could become similar to what the current Hungarian media is like,”
said Uros Esih, a journalist for the daily Delo. If Jansa does not win the election, Hungary will have one less ally in the European Union.
American diplomat: Putin wants to conquer Hungary
W. Robert Pearson, a former US ambassador to Turkey, published an unsettling article on Russian President Putin’s alleged goals concerning the Eastern-European region. He claims that Putin wants to restore the former glory of Russia. Therefore, he wants to “claw back for his imperial Russia: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, with Moldova leaning West, non-NATO and yet on Putin’s list.”
Hungary on Putin’s list?
Mr Pearson shared his opinion on the relevant issue on thehill.com. According to Wikipedia, in 2020, this site was the largest independent political news portal in the United States. Pearson serves as the president of American Diplomacy Publishers Inc. Moreover, he is a scholar at the Middle East Institute and a fellow at Duke University Center for International and Global Studies/Rethinking Diplomacy. He served twice at NATO during the end of the Cold War, at the time of Germany’s reunification, and he was also responsible for accepting new members of the Alliance.
The former US ambassador to Turkey is an opinion contributor, and he shared some paragraphs on the news website regarding Putin’s ultimate goals concerning Eastern Europe.
His title is thought-provoking: NATO must decide European security beyond the Ukraine war.
It asserts that the military block has more tasks on the European “front” than supplying Ukraine with the necessary weapons, intelligence and information to make Kyiv able to withstand Russian aggression.
Putin to reestablish the Iron Curtain?
Pearson writes that international media did not notice Turkish President Erdogan’s chief advisor and spokesman’s March 17 statement: “after this war, there will have to be a new security architecture established between Russia and the Western bloc.” He quotes Thomas Bagger, a senior German diplomat, who said that Putin was thinking in categories of a 1,000-year empire. “You cannot deter someone like that with sanctions.”
“NATO frontline states form a concave arc across the heart of Europe from the Baltic approaches to St. Petersburg to the mouth of the Danube. That is the territory Putin intends to claw back for his imperial Russia: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, with Moldova leaning West, non-NATO and yet on Putin’s list” –
the US diplomat writes.
Without security, there will be no prosperous economy
He argues that Putin will bolster Russia’s military presence as far west as possible. He will try to intimidate the Baltic states, Poland and Germany. Furthermore, Putin will try to drag Minsk as close as possible. Moreover, he will try to make Russia’s military presence in Belarus semi-permanent, like in Syria and Kazakhstan. Pearson says that demanding the non-NATO Ukraine is just the first step. “One of the clearest lessons of modern European history is that leaders of democracies should believe what dictators and autocrats say they plan to do” – the former US ambassador to Turkey claims.
Sanctions will not be successful for NATO or the USA if Russia does not retreat from Ukraine. Otherwise, there will only be a new frozen conflict. Pearson says that Europe cannot be free and economically prosperous without the security of its member states.
This is not the first time an ambassador suggests that Hungary is on Putin’s list. Lyubov Nepop, the Ukrainian ambassador to Hungary, said in late March that Hungary was the next target of the Russian president – 168 óra reported.
Read alsoHere is why NATO could kick out Hungary at any time!
Orbán cabinet: Hungary, Poland rule-of-law reports apply double standards
The European Commission’s reports on the rule of law in Hungary and Poland apply double standards, Justice Minister Judit Varga said after a meeting of the bloc’s General Affairs Council in Luxembourg on Tuesday.
European affairs ministers held “country-specific talks” as part of their rule-of-law dialogue, reviewing the enforcement of the rule of law in several member states, including Hungary, the Netherlands, Austria, Luxembourg and Malta, Varga told Hungarian reporters. Hungary has not received a legal reply to the concerns it has expressed over the use of double standards regarding the rule-of-law reports, Varga said, adding that this had reinforced Hungary’s concerns that the EC’s rule-of-law report deepened divisions among member states.
“The countries that have nationally minded conservative governments can never be good students,”
she said, adding that Hungary wanted the EC to acknowledge that Hungarian laws are consistent with European directives.
On April 3, 54 percent of Hungary’s electorate voiced its disagreements with the EC’s concerns over Hungary, the minister said. “Hungarian voters want to keep going in the direction Hungary is headed in; they want Hungary to preserve its national sovereignty, its national identity and self-determination as authorised by the EU treaties,” Varga said.
In the tense situation brought about by the war in Ukraine, EU member states should focus on the things that bind them together rather than the things that further deepen divisions among them, Varga said. Member states should talk to each other in the spirit of unity, solidarity and openness instead of stigmatising each other, she added.
As regards the EC’s recent announcement that it will launch the mechanism against Hungary that can suspend transfers of EU funding over rule-of-law violations, Varga said a decision on the launch of the mechanism had yet to be made according to the EC’s organisational and operational regulations. A decision, she added, was set to be made at the end of April.
Varga said that according to a December 2020 agreement on the bloc’s next seven-year budget and post-pandemic recovery fund, the so-called conditionality procedure could only be activated against a member state if its actions threatened the EU’s financial interests.
This, she said, meant that the mechanism could not be used for political purposes.
Slovak Government Spokesperson: Putin and Orbán may divide Slovakia’s borders
Boris Kollár, Slovak Government Spokesperson, fears that Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán will redraw Slovakia’s borders. While in the Czech Republic, the following question arose in connection with the Hungarian election: will the V4 continue its cooperation in the region? The conflict between the Hungarian Government and other countries in connection with the Russia-Ukraine war seems to escalate further.
Slovak Government Spokesperson is concerned
In a television debate on Sunday at noon, Boris Kollár, Slovak Government Spokesperson, expressed his concerns. According to Kollár
Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán and Russian President Putin may want to break up Slovakia.
Russian aggression could disrupt peace in the EU. According to the Slovak Government Spokesperson, Orbán could take advantage of this. In addition, Kollár fears the threatening pieces of information coming from Hungary.
“They talk about Greater Hungary, they buy real estate from us, they hand out passports! This is not a joke,”
said Kollár angrily. The Hungarian Government had previously purchased real estate in Kosice (Kassa), about which the Slovak leadership only learned from the press. As a result of the Slovak protest, Hungary has abandoned its takeover plans, writes index.hu.
Read more: Minister: ‘Hungary’s energy supplies secure’
Will the V4 cooperation end?
In the Czech Republic, politicians and experts have questioned whether the Hungarian elections could put an end to V4 cooperation since Hungary and the other countries in the region have a completely different approach toward the Ukrainian war. Jan Lipavský, Czech Foreign Minister, believes that
the Hungarian Government must make it clear whether they side with NATO/EU or Russia.
According to the expert, the Hungarian leadership is taking ambiguous steps. Fidesz votes for the sanctions against Russia yet stays away from the war conflict and avoids making a definite statement. Due to that behaviour, many people believe that the Hungarian Government’s communication may change after the elections, writes napi.hu.
The mission of the Visegrád 4, which includes the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, is to work together in a number of fields of common interest within the all-European integration. According to political scientist Pavlína Janebová, the V4 does benefit each country individually, therefore, it would be no use to end it. However, when it comes to significant issues the cooperation does not seem to be fruitful.
Read more: Breaking – NATO wants a permanent military presence on the Hungarian-Ukrainian border
These heads of government congratulated Orbán on his election victory – UPDATE
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday congratulated Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance’s victory in Hungary’s general election, the Kremlin’s press office said.
Putin
Putin said he hoped that “despite the difficult international situation, bilateral partnership ties will develop fully in line with the interests of the people of Russia and Hungary,” the statement said.
Morawiecki
Meanwhile, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told a press conference that the results of Hungary’s democratic election should be respected.
“Regardless of our relations with Hungary, we must note that the Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance won its fourth consecutive election with the best possible results, securing a two-thirds majority in the process,” he said.
Concerning sanctions against Russia, the Polish prime minister said “Hungary should not be used as a diversion” by the media when Germany had delayed strong sanctions. The European Union is not hindered in imposing more stringent sanctions by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban but rather “by large countries looking out for their business ties,” he said, noting that Orban had so far voted for all sanctions.
Answering a question, Morawiecki said he would ask Orban to support even stricter sanctions against Russia.
Zeman
Later on Monday, Czech President Milos Zeman wired a message of congratulation to Orban, saying “the Hungarian people support you because you have always put their interests first, and see serving your country as a calling.”
He praised Hungarian-Czech cooperation, and called for the Visegrad Group to be given high priority. “I am convinced that central Europe has great potential in bilateral and international cooperation,” he said.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said he hoped Hungary would “take a more active part” in finding a solution to the situation in Ukraine. “Europe has to be united its support of Ukraine, where Russia is committing war crimes,” he said.
Jansa
Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa congratulated Orban and Fidesz in a tweet “on this historic victory for Hungary, Europe and the entire free world.”
Fice
Former Slovak President Robert Fico, the head of the opposition Smer-SD party, said Orban had “very clearly” built on Hungary’s independence and economic prosperity. Orban puts Hungarian interests first, and did not allow the country to be “dragged into” the conflict in Ukraine, he said.
Fico said the election results in Hungary were “not surprising at all”, and he noted that during his presidency, he and Orban had worked together to ensure stable Hungarian-Slovak ties.
Other leaders
Later on Monday that numerous other heads of state and government have also congratulated Orban. Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanjahu called him by phone on Monday, as did Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, and Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger, he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India congratulated Orbán on Twitter and Li Keqiang of China wired a message of congratulations.
Congratulations, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, on your victory in the Parliamentary elections in Hungary. Look forward to continue working with you to further strengthen the close and friendly India-Hungary ties.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 4, 2022
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic and French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, among others, published statements.
Read more news about 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election
UPDATE
Brothers of Italy
Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, congratulated Orban on his “remarkable victory”, saying Brussels needed to respect the will of the Hungarian voters.
She said “not even the disorderly election concourse of the entirety of the left and the … far right” had been enough to “defeat the Hungarian prime minister”. Meloni said Orban had been criticised for years “for his policies of protecting the borders and the concept of the family”, but “no one has thanked him for the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees taken in over the last few weeks”.
Zelenskiy: Orbán lacks honesty, he lost it somewhere in Russia
Zelenskiy sent another message to the Hungarian PM last night. Poland will not break off its ties with Hungary.
Zelenskiy’s message
As we can read in szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu’s article, the President of Ukraine has been more critical of the Hungarian Prime Minister than ever before. Zelenskiy said Orbán is virtually the only PM who still supports Putin’s regime.
In his speech last night, the Ukrainian President was referring to Orbán as a man who does not fully comprehend what Ukraine and Europe as a whole are going through. According to Interfax Ukraine, Zelenskiy was not asking Hungary to do anything out of its reach.
“We didn’t even get what everyone else is doing! They are doing it for peace. We did not receive the vital transit of defense assistance, we did not see moral leadership. We did not see a single effort to stop the war!”
protested Zelenskiy.
“Nobody in Europe wants the battlefield to be moved from Mariupol to Budapest, from Kharkiv to Warsaw or from Chernihiv to Vilnius,”
he added. As he put it, the entire Europe wants the end of the war and peace.
“The entire Europe is trying to stop the war, to restore peace. Why, then, is official Budapest opposed to the whole of Europe, to all civilized countries? For what reason?”
he asked outraged. The Ukraine president said that if there is a threat to the whole of Europe, it must be addressed.
“This is called honesty, which Mr. Orbán lacks. Perhaps he lost it somewhere in contacts with Moscow”
ended Zelenskiy his video message to Orbán.
“We will in no way sever our ties with Hungary”
In an excerpt of an interview with the conservative weekly Sieci, the president of Law and Justice, which leads the Polish ruling coalition, was asked whether Hungary’s stance during the war in Ukraine “breaks” the Polish-Hungarian alliance of recent years.
“Let’s look at this question from a distance,”
answered Jaroslaw Kacznyski.
- Read also: Breaking – Hungarian veto killed EU rebuff on Putin’s demand about gas payments in rubles
According to vg.hu, he stressed that Hungary supported all sanctions proposed against Moscow so far and condemned Russian aggression. Hungary is opposed to the ban on Russian gas imports, but
“so, unfortunately, is the attitude of Germany, as well as of several other important EU member states,”
he said.
“We know that Hungary has a different history, so it looks at certain issues differently,”
Kaczyński added.
He also said that they look at Hungary’s behaviour with a critical eye, expecting “greater engagement”. However, he stressed that this did not mean that “we should stop cooperating in areas where we can cooperate”.
“Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has never let his Polish partners down in the EU scene, Poland will never break off its relations with Hungary, and the Visegrád cooperation will continue.”
Read alsoHere is why NATO could kick out Hungary at any time!
Government misleading the EU with the number of Ukrainian refugees to get more money?
Hungary says that it welcomed more than 540,000 refugees. However, human rights groups claim that the government misleads the public since most people do not stay in the country. They mostly go further west to reunite with family members and relatives. Only a fraction of them settles down in Hungary.
Controversial numbers
According to The Guardian, Hungary has a far-right government that inflates “the number of Ukrainian refugees it is sheltering as it seeks to secure European funds to finance their welfare.”
The government argues that Hungary welcomed the highest number of refugees taking the country’s population of 9.6 million into account. Zoltán Kovács, the government’s international spokesperson, shared a figure that amounted to between five and six refugees for every 100 Hungarian inhabitants.
“However, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights NGO dedicated to helping refugees,
called the statistics “misleading” and said most of those arriving subsequently travelled on to other countries.
The number of refugees in Hungary was much lower than the official figures” – The Guardian wrote. Furthermore, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee argued that the Hungarian Government did not provide adequate information for those who wish to remain in Hungary. For example, Poland and Slovakia provided online forms to apply for protection.
More refugees – more funds
Not surprisingly, only 7,749 people had applied for temporary protected status in Hungary until the 27th of March. This status is required to get social welfare support, including housing, the right to work and access to education in the country. This number clearly shows that most of the refugees just passed through Hungary.
“In its quest for additional funds from the EU, the Hungarian Government uses the most impressive number it can find”
– Márta Pardavi, the Helsinki committee’s co-chair, said.
International government spokesman Zoltán Kovács said that he did not know how many refugees the country was currently hosting. “Many of them have biometric passports, which means they have visa-free movement within the European Union,” he said. “We can only have a relationship with those who apply for refugee status or asylum.” In addition to those seeking protected status,
another 80,000 had applied for 30-day temporary residency permits,
Kovács told The Guardian.
Approx. 10 thousand refugees per day to Hungary
A recent statement the British paper quotes said that Hungary had provided 5.4m euros (£4.6m) in humanitarian aid within the framework of the Hungary Helps programme. Furthermore, they earmarked €8.1m to support six charities. Moreover, 758 Ukrainian children have been enrolled in Hungarian schools, and individual tutoring is being provided to help with integration. Meanwhile,
in the Czech Republic, 240,000 refugees have already registered for Czech state health insurance.
Therefore, Prague is seeking European funding to help deal with the crisis.
According to MTI, in total 5,728 people crossed the Hungarian border directly from Ukraine on Thursday, while another 4,620 Ukrainian refugees came from Romania,
the national police headquarters said. Police issued temporary residence permits valid for thirty days to 1,599 people, the police website wrote on Friday. Holders of such permits must contact a local immigration office near their place of residence within thirty days to apply for permanent documents, it added.
Budapest police received 1,717 refugees, out of which 808 were children, by train, according to the municipal police website. Refugees arriving on special train services at Kőbánya Felső Railway Station, in Eastern Budapest, were taken by bus to the BOK Sports and Events Centre which serves as a humanitarian transit point.
The authorities transported 96 people, including 56 children, to accommodation in the capital and outlying areas.
Read alsoCNN: Despite Orbán’s duplicity, will he still win Hungarian elections?
Minister: Hungary’s left and Ukraine agreed to drag Hungary into war
The Russia-Ukraine war is “not Hungary’s war”, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said after talks with NATO counterparts in Bratislava on Thursday. The Hungarian government will do everything it can to protect Hungarians from the conflict, he said.
Hungary is sticking to its policy of not sending weapons to Ukraine or allowing the transit of lethal aid across its territory, while opposing sanctions on Russian oil and gas, Szijjártó said. The foreign ministers of the Bucharest Nine countries — Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary — condemned the military aggression at the meeting, stating that they wanted to live in peace, Szijjártó said.
Szijjártó told his counterparts about
“an agreement between Hungary’s left wing and Ukraine”
which, he insisted, entailed weapons being sent to Ukraine if it won Sunday’s general election. “This is unacceptable and runs contrary to the interests of the Hungarian people and the country’s security,” he said, adding that the transport of weapons would risk Hungary being dragged into the war.
While “it is in Ukraine’s interest that Hungary should have a left-wing government that sends weapons”, Hungary must ensure security for its people, the minister said.
Szijjártó said there was a “strong pressure” on the European Union to impose sanctions on Russian oil and gas imports, and he was “aware that the Hungarian left wing would support those sanctions”, but this was a “red line” for the government, he added, as such sanctions could seriously jeopardise Hungary’s energy supplies and its economy.
The minister also said Hungary was implementing
“the largest aid programme in its history”
in which several hundred tonnes of food and toiletry products have been sent to Ukraine and 548,000 refugees have been accommodated in Hungary.
Hungary respects the decision of countries that send weapons to Ukraine, but in turn it expects them to respect its decision against facilitating such transports itself, Szijjártó said.
Read alsoZelenskiy: Europe should not listen to any excuses from Budapest! – VIDEO
V4 cooperation to freeze? Czechs, Poles remain home, Hungary cancels defence meeting
Hungary would have hosted the next defence meeting of the Visegrád Four cooperation consisting of Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland. However, the Poles and the Czechs already cleared they would not come because of the Ukraine policy of the Hungarian government. As it is well-known, Warsaw and Prague are among the hardliners regarding Putin’s war against Russia.
Anti-Russia, pro-Russia?
Poland even offered its MIG-29 warplanes to Ukraine, but the United States baulked that plan fast. However, two days before, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said Washington supported the idea. Therefore, it is up to Warsaw now whether they will send those planes or not. The Czech Republic is also among the hardliners when it comes to sanctions against Russia. For example, they would like to implement sanctions on Russian energy. Furthermore, both nations support weapon transports toward Ukraine though the Czechs do not share a border with the war-stricken country.
Meanwhile, the Hungarian government said they would not support the extension of sanctions on Russian energy because that would mean rising heating prices and Hungary’s industrial breakdown. In that respect, Budapest follows Berlin’s standpoint. Furthermore, the Orbán government does not allow lethal military equipment to cross the Hungarian-Ukrainian border. They say such shipments would endanger the Hungarian minority that lives on the Ukrainian side.
Defence meeting postponed
We wrote earlier that János Áder was supposed to visit the city of Bochnia in Poland on 23rd March, on the occasion of the day of Polish-Hungarian friendship. However, the Hungarian president did not go because the Polish president did not want to meet with him because of Hungary’s standpoint regarding the Russian invasion.
Blikk.hu wrote today that Hungary is to cancel the defence meeting of the Visegrád Four countries planned for this Wednesday in Budapest. Both the Czech and the Polish governments cleared they would not come since they disagree with the Orbán cabinet’s Ukraine policy.
According to the information from the Slovakian Ministry of Defence, Hungary received harsh criticism from Poland and the Czech Republic. Wojciech Skurkiewicz, the Polish Deputy Minister of Defence, said that observing what goes around the V4 cooperation does not give a reason for optimism.
The Czech Minister of Defence, Jana Černochová, cancelled the defence meeting in Budapest last Friday. Her Polish colleague, Mariusz Błaszczak, did the same Monday evening. “I am very sorry that cheap Russian oil is more important for Hungarian politicians than Ukrainian blood” – Černochová said.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said it was hard to understand PM Orbán’s attitude towards Ukraine. The Polish Foreign Minister added Orbán made a mistake regarding its Russia and Ukraine policy.
Read alsoIs Orbán really Putin’s lapdog? Here is what Hungary does and does not do for Ukraine
Budapest, Warsaw mayors mark Polish-Hungarian Friendship Day
Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony and Rafal Trzaskowski, his Warsaw counterpart, marked the Day of Polish-Hungarian Friendship in a joint video on Wednesday.
In the video, published on his Facebook page, Karácsony noted that Polish and Hungarian patriots had helped one another in the uprisings of 1848 and 1956, and in efforts to topple communist dictatorship in the 1980s, and the two countries joined NATO and the EU at the same time.
“Today, Polish and Hungarian democrats should fight together against the governments of their countries, which have systematically dismantled democracy and the rule of law and weakened the international alliance which has been a firm guarantee for democracy and prosperity for the longest time in their history,” Karácsony said.
Karácsony also referred to the “Russian military aggression deeply imprinted in the historical memory of Hungarians and Poles” and called for joint solidarity with Ukrainians. “In spirit, we all are also Ukrainians,” he added.
The city of Budapest will do everything to provide decent services to Ukrainian refugees and supports international efforts seeking “an early end to Putin’s aggression and the terrible war”, Karácsony said.
Trzaskowski slammed the Hungarian and Polish governments for “jointly trampling on European and democratic values” and said they had “betrayed the values that served as a basis for friendship between the two nations”.
The two governments “usually focus on their own, short-term interests and violate the rule of law”, he said, adding that “the two country’s alliance has collapsed as a house of cards in the past few days”.
Read alsoRussian disinformation campaign targets Hungarians in Transcarpathia?
Jobbik MEP: Orbán keeps stumbling in the battlefield
Press release by Jobbik MEP Márton Gyöngyösi:
There are three places left where they are either unaware or in denial of the obvious fact that today’s Ukraine is the theatre for a clash between freedom and oppression. One such place is Russia, the second is Belarus and the third is Viktor Orbán’s circle in Hungary.
People are not surprised that Russia and Belarus, where Putin’s alternative reality has taken full control of the public discourse, do not tolerate the honest statement of facts about the ongoing events in Ukraine although, on a side note, the Russian dictator’s denial of reality is not always helping his his communication efforts, either. As to why Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party hesitates to acknowledge the obvious, we can only guess at this point. What we see in Hungary is dreadful, even though when it comes to formal decisions, Orbán is still moving together with the other EU member states..
I have said it many times, but let me say it again: there is no excuse for what the Russian army is doing in Ukraine.
There’s no “geopolitical interest”, badly written law or ethnic tension that could justify taking the lives of innocent people, destroying cities or forcing your rule on people who reject it. Yet that’s exactly what is happening in Ukraine now. What the Ukrainian people want is clear: they reject Moscow’s rule. Regardless if their native tongue is Ukrainian or Russian. Moscow is using military action to take revenge on them. Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine is the victim. That’s the truth, the rest is double talk.
The gravity of the situation is clearly shown by how even the far-right and authoritarian European politicians who’ve had good relations with Moscow are now realizing the facts, and they are trying to salvage whatever political capital they have left.
Matteo Salvini is trying to help Ukrainian refugees (when he’s not sent away, that is), while Mateusz Morawiecki and Janez Janša are travelling to Kyiv despite the dangers of the war. Viktor Orbán is wandering aimlessly in the battlefield on his own. After talking for years about battles, fights and gunpowder smell in Brussels, he’s now trying to sell his February trip to Moscow as a peace mission, while he’s contemplating about buffer zones and precious Russian relations among his loyal followers.
- read also: Is this why Orbán did not go to Kiev with the Czech, Polish and Slovenian prime ministers?
His out-of-touch approach was tragically manifested in his speech delivered on 15th March, Hungary’s national day. While his former allies signed in from a Kyiv bunker, Orbán talked about how the outcome of the Ukraine war didn’t actually matter for Hungary and suggested that Hungary’s main interest was basically to stay under the radar in the hope that Moscow will continue to do business with Budapest. Seeing how Orbán keeps blurring the line between the aggressor and the victim, many analysts wonder why the Hungarian PM is doing this, even going against the whole of Europe and his former friends, too. At this point, we don’t know if Orbán, who used to be known for his sense of strategy, is simply getting tired and detached from reality and that’s why he can’t change course in his communication as smoothly as he used to, or perhaps he is getting scared of his own creation, i.e., the extremely pro-Russia echo chamber, or he is simply blackmailed by Putin somehow…
Orbán’s statement that the outcome of the war would not matter for Hungary is a gross misrepresentation at best.
Putin clearly declared his goals: he wants to occupy Ukraine and block NATO in Central Europe, thus turning the NATO membership of the region’s countries into nothing but a blank sheet of paper.
According to Putin’s plans, Ukraine will not be a buffer zone, because it will be devoured by his empire. The buffer zone countries would be Poland, Hungary, Romania and the others, just as they were in 1956, 1968 and during the Brezhnev Doctrine. By still defending Putin and talking about understanding Russia’s needs, Orbán is actually talking about submission to Russia. By doing so, he ignores his own countries rightful security needs as well as those of Europe as a whole.
The mask is falling off Orbán’s face.
It’s more and more evident that the European Union (especially the German industrial lobby and the European Commission, which consistently fudged on the anti-Orbán sanctions) nurtured a snake in its bosom, while the politicians who suggested to keep Orbán and Fidesz in the European political system, were simply wrong. Viktor Orbán is a threat to Hungary. Furthermore, every day this man spends in office is a threat to Europe’s countries.
On 3rd April, Hungarian voters will hopefully oust Orbán’s government and Hungary will return to the European path.
If it doesn’t happen (and have no doubt that Fidesz will do whatever it can to rig the elections), Europe will have to respond to the threat posed by Orbán, if it wants to avoid having another Lukashenka-type regime within its own borders and decision-making mechanisms.
- Read more news about war in Ukraine
Hungarian Pres. not visiting Poland on the day of Polish-Hungarian friendship?
János Áder would have been expected to visit the city of Bochnia in Poland on March 23, on the occasion of the day of Polish-Hungarian friendship, but now it seems like the Hungarian president will not travel.
A statue would have been inaugurated, but it looks like the whole program will be cancelled in Poland
The statue of St. Kinga, the daughter of Hungarian King Béla IV, would have been unveiled on March 23 in the southern Polish city of Bochnia by Hungarian President János Áder and Polish President Andrzej Duda, but the organisers cancelled the program, Azonnali.hu was informed.
According to the news, the current Hungarian president, János Áder, is not travelling to Poland at all. (Katalin Novák, the new Hungarian president, will take office on 10 May.)
By Friday afternoon, the Polish side still had not received a request for permission from the Office of the President of the Republic of Hungary to allow the armed bodyguards of János Áder to cross the Polish border.
This is, of course, a formality, and on a friendly presidential visit, the host country quasi-automatically grants permission, but it is a “mandatory circle” to be run between the official bodies of the two states.
It seems likely that the program will be officially “postponed” because of the war, but many say the reason was that Andrzej Duda did not want to show up publicly with his Hungarian counterpart at such a protocol event because of Hungary’s pro-Russian stance.
The day of Polish-Hungarian friendship
The Hungarian and Polish parliaments declared March 23 as the day of Polish-Hungarian friendship in 2007, and since then, both countries have been celebrating with special programs. Due to the pandemic, personal meetings were cancelled in 2020 and 2021, but, for example, a virtual commemoration was held in 2021 by János Áder and Andrzej Duda, the presidents of the two countries.
Although the current political situation does not affect the people who will surely carry on the friendship, it seems that the Polish-Hungarian relationship has been strained due to the Russian-Ukrainian war.
The situation of the Visegrád Four
The Visegrád Four Alliance has so far worked in two ways: as a Central European association capable of representing the 4 participating states (the Czech Republic and Slovakia besides Hungary and Poland) in the European political arena, and between the 4 states.
It has provided an opportunity for political and professional cooperation. However, the Visegrád Four have not been completely united: while Hungary and Poland have resisted some policies within the EU, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have shown a much friendlier approach to the political elite in Brussels.
Can Orbán isolate himself internationally?
If the current Polish-Hungarian political alliance weakens, Orbán’s position on the international political scene will certainly become more difficult. He will have difficulties asserting his will if he loses his main ally, and Poland will obviously look to new allies.
The Polish prime minister, for example, along with the Czech and Slovenian prime ministers, recently visited war-torn Kyiv, while Orbán did not join them.
