Poland

Polish Spring Film Festival to show The Primate, two Hungarian premieres

Sissi Romy Schneider movie
This year’s Polish Spring Film Festival, to be held from May 6 to 10, will feature five films, including one about Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, a mayor figure of 20th-century Polish history, the organiser has said.
 
The festival held online will open with the premiere of Jan Holobuek’s 25 Years of Innocence, a true-life drama film of a young Polish man wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 25 years for rape and murder of a 15 year-old girl, the Polish Institute told MTI.
 
The other premiere will be Never Cry,
written and directed by Piotr Domalewski, about 17-year-old Ola who travels alone to Ireland to arrange for the funeral of her father. The film will be shown as the closing event on May 10.     The drama The Primate – Three Years Out of a Thousand directed by Teresa Kotlarczyk will be streamed on May 9.
 
The film pays tribute to Cardinal Wyszynski, head of the Catholic Church in Poland from 1949 until his death in 1981. Wyszynski was one of the most important figures of Polish 20th-century history, and also one of the best-known victims of Stalinist-era repression in Eastern Europe. The film focuses on the period of September 1953 and October 1956 when the cardinal was imprisoned in an attempt to curb his staunch anti-Communist’s influence in Polish society.
 
For programme details visit: https://instytutpolski.pl/budapest/2021/04/27/27-lengyel-filmtavasz-online/
 

From Budapest to Warsaw in 5.5 hours: plans for high-speed railway revealed – Video

vonat train high speed railway budapest warsaw

If built, it will decrease traffic on the M1 highway and the existing railway lines in western Hungary, link Budapest to a number of European cities, and help meet climate goals by reducing CO2 emissions.

According to Telex, excerpts from the feasibility study concerning the new railway line were recently published by the National Infrastructure Development Corporation (NIF). As we wrote before, Hungary has applied for financial support from the Connecting Europe Facility, an EU program, to fund the construction of the Hungarian section of the tracks. Results are expected this summer, and if the support is granted, works are scheduled to begin in the early 2030s, except for the stretch between Kelenföld and Törökbálint, where the existing tracks could be refurbished earlier.

vonat train high speed railway budapest warsaw map
The planned route of the high-speed railway. Still from a video. Source: Youtube – NIF Zrt.

The trains are expected to operate at the speed of 320 km/h, except in urban areas.

Once completed, this new line would connect Budapest to the high-speed railway network of western Europe, making trains the quickest way to get to a number of cities, even faster than flying. Some projected journey times are:

  • Budapest to Vienna or Bratislava: less than 2 hours
  • Budapest to Prague: 3 and a half hours
  • Budapest to Warsaw: 5 and a half hours.

According to NIF, those more interested in travelling within the country would also benefit from the railway, as there is also a planned branch going towards Székesfehérvár that InterCity trains could use as well, which would make visiting Lake Velence or Lake Balaton much simpler.

The building of the high-speed railway would put an end to the never-ending traffic jams on the M1 highway and take some weight off the metaphorical shoulders of railway line number 1, which is currently being pushed to its limits by the 70 freight and 400 passenger trains passing through it every day.

In their video about the results of the feasibility study, NIF also highlighted the magnitude of CO2 emissions (400,000 tonnes) that could be prevented if we could decrease the number of trucks on Hungarian roads by freeing up capacity on the freight train network. However, as the Urban and Suburban Transit Association (VEKE) pointed out in their Facebook post, to achieve that,

it is not this line that we should build but V0.

V0 is the name of a freight railway line that would cross the Danube to the south of Budapest. As magyarepitok.hu writes, a government decision was made in late 2020 to begin preparations for its construction; however, not even its feasibility study is expected to be completed before 2023. That could be problematic, noted VEKE, since the EU climate goals include cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 55% and doubling the amount of goods transported by train by 2030.

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Read alsoMinister: climate goals can be achieved only with nuclear energy

‘Zugzwang’: Polish draughts official apologises after removing Russian flag

russian flag

A Polish draughts official apologised on Wednesday for causing outrage in Moscow by removing the Russian flag from a player’s table during a world title match, but said he’d had little choice.

Match official Jacek Pawlicki removed the flag as Russia’s Tamara Tansykkuzhina played Poland’s Natalia Sadowska in the Womens World Championship in Warsaw on Tuesday.

Tansykkuzhina, a six-time world champion, went on to lose what was the latest round of the final. Organisers said they had been told to remove the flag immediately by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) because Russians are barred under doping sanctions from competing under their national flag at major international events.

Pawlicki said he had apologised to Tansykkuzhina, but had little option but to remove the flag.

“There’s this position on the board called ‘zugzwang’ which means there’s no good move to make … and that’s what we had yesterday, a zugzwang,” he told Reuters.

“Maybe we should’ve turned off the cameras at that moment. We didn’t think of that. We were really under pressure and we were afraid.” In an emailed statement to Reuters, WADA said it had requested action over the flag on Tuesday after a request earlier in the championship went unheeded.

It added: “WADA did not intend and did not ask for the flags to be removed during a match. The manner in which they were removed is not a question for WADA.” The incident caused outrage on Russian social media at a time of strained relations between Poland and Russia following tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions.

The president of Russia’s Olympic Committee called it a “gross mistake”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blamed the incident for Tansykkuzhina’s loss on Tuesday. Pawlicki said he did not believe his action had affected Tansykkuzhina’s performance. “I’m sure that many Russians are upset and for that I am truly sorry,” he said. “We never had any bad intentions.”

Budapest-Warsaw 320 kph fast rail line to branch off to Vienna, Székesfehérvár

Plans are for a high-speed railway line linking the capitals of the Visegrád Group countries to also branch off to Vienna and Székesfehérvár, in central Hungary, the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (ITM) said on Wednesday.

Trains on the planned rail line to be built over the next decade will be able to travel at speeds of up to 320kph, the ministry said in a statement. The line will also be used by domestic InterCity trains, it added.

The project is expected to

shorten travel times between Budapest and Vienna and Budapest and Bratislava to less than two hours,

the statement quoted Innovation and Technology Minister Laszlo Palkovics as saying. Meanwhile, the journey from Budapest to Prague would take about three-and-a-half hours and the full Budapest-Warsaw trip would be five-and-a-half hours, he said.

The rail line will be situated along Hungary’s busiest traffic corridor, running from Budapest to the north-west, the ministry said, noting that a large chunk of the traffic there consists of international transit traffic. Plans are to have the line branch off towards Vienna at the Hegyeshalom border crossing, while the route to Bratislava would go through Rajka, the statement said.

According to preliminary estimates, the rail line would serve over

20 million domestic and international passengers a year.

Citing the feasibility study, the ministry said the roughly 1,000 billion forint project would recoup its costs through its favourable impacts on traffic, the environment, the economy and tourism.

Given that the project is in line with the European Union’s goal to double high-speed rail traffic within the bloc by 2030 and to triple it by 2050, the investment is likely to be eligible for EU funding, the ministry said. Decisions on the financing of the parts of the project related to environmental protection may be made during the summer, it added.

Slovakia to open restaurant terraces and gyms next Monday

Slovakia will allow restaurant terraces and gyms to open from next Monday in a further step of easing coronavirus restrictions, the government said on Wednesday.

The country of 5.5 million has slowed the spread of COVID-19 infections in recent weeks amid tough restrictions after the latest wave of the pandemic hit it and central European neighbours hard in the past months.

The latest easing adds to the re-opening of shops, hotels, hair salons, churches, libraries, pools and zoos that already happened this week.

But capacity limits will remain, and customers or visitors have to show a negative COVID-19 test in most cases.

As Europe works through supply problems, Slovakia is looking to ramp up its vaccination programme. Daily COVID-19 cases in the country have dropped to a seven-day median of 642, after reaching around 3,000 in December and January.

Hospitalisations, too, have fallen.

But Slovakia, like others in central Europe, has shown one of the highest per-capita death tolls during the pandemic, according to Our World in Data, with later waves of the pandemic being the most lethal.

The region had made it through the initial wave of the pandemic a year ago with relatively few cases and deaths compared with western neighbours.

Featured image: illustration

Poland to reopen hair salons and schools next week

Poland lockdown reopen

Poland will reopen hair salons and let some children return to schools in 11 of its 16 regions from April 26, the health minister said on Wednesday, as daily COVID-19 case numbers start to fall.

Poland has seen record daily numbers of cases and deaths during the third wave of the pandemic, and introduced a raft of nationwide restrictions, including the closure of cinemas, hotels and many shops, in March. However, Health Minister Adam Niedzielski told a news conference that the infection rate in many regions was now at a level where authorities believed they can lift some restrictions.

“We wanted to separate… those regions where the situation is the most difficult,” he said.

“However, in other regions we want to introduce some loosening (of restrictions).”

Children in the first three years of primary school will return to school for some lessons in the regions with lower rates of infection, Niedzielski told a news conference. Hair and beauty salons will also reopen.

In the remaining five regions, which include the southern industrial centre Silesia, the current restrictions will remain. Asked about the presence of counterfeit Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines in Poland, Health Ministry Spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz said authorities had not received any information about this.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Pfizer had identified counterfeit versions of its COVID-19 vaccine in Poland and Mexico.

“The risk of some counterfeit appearing in official circulation is practically non-existent,” Niedzielski added. “The entire logistic chain is built in such a way as to

ensure security, so that no counterfeit will appear in official circulation.”

V4 foreign ministers express solidarity with Czech Republic in rift with Russia

V4

The foreign ministers of the Visegrad Group expressed their solidarity with the Czech Republic, which has recently expelled 18 Russian diplomats over suspicions of espionage, in a statement released late on Monday.

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said earlier the Russian diplomats were suspected of having had a hand in explosions in an ammunition warehouse in Vrbetice, in southeast Czechia, in 2014.

In retaliation, Russia expelled 20 Czech diplomats.

The foreign ministers of Hungary, Poland and Slovakia said in the statement published on the Polish foreign ministry’s website that they “condemn all activities aimed at threatening security of sovereign states and its citizens”.

“We stand ready to further strengthen our resilience against subversive actions at both national level and together with our NATO allies and within EU. The Foreign Ministers of Poland, Slovakia and Hungary express solidarity with recent steps taken by our close partner, ally and neighbor, Czechia,”

the statement said.

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Read alsoHungary expects Ukraine to respect Hungarian community’s rights

‘You can’t clone us’: Polish doctors cry for help as COVID deaths spike

poland virus

When the pandemic began last year, Kinga Szlachcic-Wyroba, an anaesthesiologist in the Stefan Zeromski Specialist Hospital in Krakow, Poland, had to manage one COVID-19 patient and 10 others in intensive care with three other doctors.

Now the third wave has hit Poland and the number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care stands at 17, with just four non-COVID sufferers. Around 80% of the COVID patients are expected to die.

Szlachcic-Wyroba, however, is still working with only three other doctors.

“We are physically doing our best but we are frequently unable to secure the care that we would like to provide,” she said in the ward’s break room for staff, lined with couches and a stray sleeping bag, adding that when on shift they often can’t even take a break to sit down.

As COVID-related deaths in Poland surpass 800 a day and the country hits a European record for excess deaths, epidemiologists have pointed to a major medical personnel shortage as one of the culprits.

Szlachcic-Wyroba is exhausted from 24-hour shifts and comforting patients’ families, adding that the flood of critically ill patients in recent weeks surpassed “even my worst dreams”.

Across Poland, doctors have complained about long lines of ambulances at hospitals or rescheduled non-COVID surgeries for life-threatening illnesses.

“The country was unprepared for this scale of an epidemic… There are no beds, no personnel, simply no reserves,” said professor Krzysztof Simon, a regional epidemiology consultant from Lower Silesia.

According to Eurostat, Poland had only 2.4 doctors and 5.1 nurses per 1,000 citizens in 2017, among the lowest in the EU, even before the pandemic.

Many doctors have gone abroad in search of better pay, with health spending not enough to attract or retain staff.

“The healthcare system is now at its limit but it has been at this limit basically for as long as I can remember. The epidemic has just multiplied all of its shortcomings,” said Piotr Meryk, head doctor at the Zeromski hospital’s COVID ward.

That means deaths have spiked this year, doctors say, as COVID patients are reluctant to go to hospital, fearing poor conditions and patients suffering from other serious illnesses are neglected by specialists relocated to COVID wards.

After Brazil, Poland had the second highest cumulative number of confirmed deaths in the world the week of April 13, according to Our World in Data.

SOLUTIONS?

The government has promised to address the issue, but staff are hard to find despite efforts to recruit medical students and Ukrainian doctors.

“You can buy equipment, build temporary hospitals, produce more beds, but personnel is the element that is creating a bottleneck,” Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said in February.

In a statement to Reuters, the ministry said it had taken legislative steps in recent years to recruit more nurses and doctors.

But as patients flood wards, Meryk said these steps were not enough, and he urged the government to prepare for future pandemics.

“You can’t just make these doctors appear or clone them.”

poland virus
Read also‘You can’t clone us’: Polish doctors cry for help as COVID deaths spike

Finance minister: Visegrád countries poised to be Europe’s engines of growth again

visegrad group prime minister

The Visegrád Group countries aim to reclaim their place as Europe’s engines of growth once the coronavirus pandemic is over, Finance Minister Mihály Varga said after a video call with his V4 counterparts on Thursday.

The V4 countries are all on the same page when it comes to the question of how to reboot the economy, return to fiscal discipline and protect jobs, the finance ministry quoted Varga as saying in the call.

Concerning the European Union’s 750 billion euro Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), Varga said he and his V4 counterparts agreed that their countries all faced the same challenges when it came to planning their recoveries and their talks with the European Commission.

All four countries are concentrating their recovery efforts on areas such as education, health care, the transition to a green economy, digitalisation, transport and job creation, he said.

Varga said he and his counterparts had also discussed the state of their countries’ budgets and the EU’s so-called Own Resources Decision which all member states must ratify in order for the EC to be able to start borrowing. Hungary’s stance on the law, Varga said, is that it must not place additional burdens on national budgets and must respect member states’ sovereignty on taxation.

The ministers also discussed the EU draft legislation that will define environmentally sustainable economic activities. The ministry noted that the V4 countries have issued a joint letter to the EC expressing their concerns that the draft does not cover nuclear energy and does not recognise the role of natural gas in the transition to a climate-neutral economy.

Hungary will take over the V4 presidency from Poland in July.

Read alsoBlinken met the Foreign Ministers of the Visegrád Group in Brussels

Poland to vaccinate Olympic athletes, Hungary already did so in March

Orbán

Poland will vaccinate its Olympic athletes and national soccer team against COVID-19, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Wednesday, as the nation eyes medals with just 100 days to go until the Tokyo Games.

Prioritising athletes for vaccination has proved controversial in some countries, especially those that have experienced problems with their vaccination programmes. This month Japan denied it was prioritising its athletes after a media report suggesting this was the case sparked public outcry.

“To ensure the comfort of our athletes who are to give us joy and hope in Tokyo,

we decided to vaccinate the entire Olympic team… and also our national soccer team, which will represent Poland during the European Championship,” Morawieck told a news conference.

The biggest country in the European Union’s eastern wing is hoping to win gold in events such as hammer throwing and volleyball at the Games, which face a deluge of challenges and growing uncertainty as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage around the world.

Culture Minister Piotr Glinski said 1,077 Olympians and trainers would get shots,

as well as over 60 people connected to the national soccer team, which is due to face Slovakia in their first match of the European Championships on June 14.

In common with other European Union countries, Poland’s vaccination programme has been hampered by problems with deliveries. The system was plunged into confusion earlier this month after a sudden change in vaccine eligibility.

To date, over 2.1 million people in Poland, which has a total population of 38 million, have received both shots of COVID-19 vaccine.

Poland has reported 2,599,850 cases of the coronavirus and 59,126 deaths since the start of the pandemic. Its health system has been badly stretched by a third wave of infections.

‘This is war’: Polish medics just taking naps between exhausting shifts

semmelweis hospital

Some Polish doctors and nurses are just taking naps between shifts as they fight a third wave of the coronavirus, the health minister said on Friday, amid reports of medical staff using oxygen and intravenous drips to boost their energy.

The country of 38 million, the largest in the European Union’s eastern wing, reported 768 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday, after the number of deaths hit a new record of 954 on Thursday.

“This is indeed a war and the situation requires non-standard behaviours,” he told private radio RMF 24.

“These are the toughest, the most difficult pictures, which reflect the burden of this work,” Niedzielski said when asked to comment on some doctors’ using drips and oxygen to regain strength to work.

“When I visited a temporary hospital in Katowice I saw doctors and nurses sleeping to rest in between their shifts. The intensity of work is significant, which results from the deficit of personnel,” Niedzielski said.

Poland reported record high numbers of new cases last week at around 35,000 a day and on Wednesday the government extended restrictions until April 18, keeping kindergartens, schools, shopping centres, hotels, cinemas and theatres closed.

The previous 24-hour death record was 674, reported in November. On Friday Poland reported 28,487 new coronavirus infections, bringing the total to more than 2.5 million.

“If we look at the course of the number of new infections, it seems that the apogee of infections is behind us,” Niedzielski told a press conference, warning against complacency.

“The pandemic is still a real threat and the fact that we see some slight falls is absolutely not a signal which would allow us to think that we have the worst behind… Now we will have to do with an apogee, so to say, in hospitals,” he said.

Polish judge’s tweet on transgender child stirs outrage

judge

A senior Polish judge put a transgender child in danger by tweeting about her and a complaint will likely be filed with prosecutors, an opposition politician said on Thursday regarding the incident which has outraged liberal Poles.

Gender and LGBT rights have become central flashpoints in a wider culture war unfolding in Poland between religious conservatives and liberals, with the former branding the fight for gay rights a dangerous ideology that seeks to subvert traditional values, and the latter calling for more tolerance.

Krystyna Pawlowicz, a Constitutional Tribunal judge and former politician from the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, tweeted the first name, age, and primary school of a transgender child in Podkowa Lesna, a town in central Poland.

She said the school had instructed teachers to use the student’s chosen name and gender, as per her parents’ request. “Data on official records was disregarded,” she said.

The tweet caused a social media outcry with users pointing out that the information given could be used to identify the child.

“Today we will probably file a notice to the prosecutor’s office in connection with what Krystyna Pawlowicz is doing because she knowingly put a… child in danger,” Cezary Tomczyk from the opposition Civic Coalition party told website onet.pl.

Pawlowicz, one of the judges whose ruling last year led to a near total ban on abortion in Poland, apologised later on Thursday, saying she had removed the tweet.

“The case is much more complicated than I was informed. I didn’t want to cause any distress to the child. I’m sorry,” she wrote on Twitter.

The PiS has long argued that Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) rights are part of an invasive foreign ideology that undermines Polish values and the traditional family. It also opposes sex education in schools.

Poland abortion law
Read alsoPolish abortion ban: women have to give birth even to unviable babies?

Holocaust survivors join virtual March of Living ceremony at Auschwitz

march of the living

The March of the Living, an annual event that brings together Holocaust survivors and family members at the former Auschwitz death camp, was held online for a second consecutive year on Thursday due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Participants usually stage a march at the site in southern Poland but restrictions imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus have made that impossible. Nevertheless, organisers and participants say it is important that the event goes ahead.

“We have no other choice,” said 84-year-old Holocaust survivor Tzipora Freund.

“This time it has to be virtual because every year people march… Each and every year youngsters and elderly will march there and will not forget.”

Freund and her son, who were in Israel, laid virtual messages of remembrance in the railway track leading to the gate of the death camp as part of a computer simulation of the event, as did Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and others.

More than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, perished in the gas chambers or from starvation, cold and disease at Auschwitz, which the Nazis set up in occupied Poland during World War Two.

“We have to remember that the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and also hate and racism are things that are happening. It’s not something that is part of history,” said Baruch Adler, 70, co-founder and vice chairman of the March of the Living.

“So my message is: You have to know that you have to fight. That remembrance, it’s a fight”

Read alsoPope Francis visited Hungarian Holocaust survivor

Poland’s daily death report hits record after Easter weekend included

poland coronavirus

Poland’s daily coronavirus-related death report hit a new record of 954 on Thursday though a health ministry spokesman said the figure included deaths from over the Easter weekend and did not represent a 24-hour period.

The largest country in the European Union’s eastern wing has been grappling with a damaging third wave of the coronavirus pandemic that has pushed its health service to its limits.

Health ministry spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz said the reported figure included 100 deaths from Good Friday, around 130 from Saturday and 130 from Easter Sunday.

“This is not the result of the last day or the last two days…This report contains quite a lot of victims from the Easter period,” he said.

The previous 24-hour record was 674, reported in November.

On Thursday Poland reported 27,887 new coronavirus infections.

Poland coronavirus reopen
Read alsoHungary reopens while Poland extends curbs amid fears of Easter bounce

Wizz Air announces new routes for this summer

wizz air summer

Wizz Air, Europe’s fastest growing airline announced the addition of several new low-fare holiday routes from several of its bases in the past weeks.

Firstly, the company announced five summer destinations from Poland. All routes will start operating in June 2021. Wizz Air will operate twice weekly flights from Warsaw to Thessaloniki and Preveza-Aktion, two times weekly from Gdansk to the outstanding Greek island of Crete (Heraklion) and Santorini, additionally the airline will also start two-weekly flights from Krakow to Croatian city of Split.

To help passengers and crew travel safely and worry-free, Wizz Air has implemented additional hygiene measures to support physical distancing during boarding and enhanced cleanliness on board. As part of the measures to protect the health of customers and crew, customers should check-in and make any purchases online, such as paying for additional bags, to reduce non-essential interaction at the airport. In an attempt to contain the spread of possible infection, passengers are kindly asked to adhere to the new physical distancing rules both during boarding and disembarkation.

NEW SUMMER ROUTEs FROM SOFIA AND VILNIUS TO ZAKYNTHOS

Sofia – Zakynthos is yet another exciting route that the company will start operating from Bulgaria on 13 June 2021. Seats on the route are already on sale. Wizz Air’s new holiday route from Vilnius will be lauched on 13 June 2021 and will be operated twice weekly on Thursday and Sunday.

The island of Zakynthos, also called Zante, is the third largest among the Ionian Islands and one of the most interesting places in Greece.

Its divinely beautiful beaches and the abundance of natural wonders do not leave anyone indifferent. There are countless reasons to visit Zakynthos. The Blue Caves, located in the northern part of the island, are one of the must-see stops! Named so because of the stunning turquoise color of the water inside them, which is reflected on the rocks, the caves were discovered in 1897 and today are an extremely popular landmark.

The beautiful local beaches, of course, are another attraction – with their fine, white volcanic sand, turquoise blue water, bright sun, white rocks and water fun attractions, they will live up to not just your expectations, but to your dreams. For example, Navagio Beach, or Shipwreck Beach, is an utterly amazing place. Located near the picturesque mountain village of Volimes, this is one of the most beautiful (and photographed) beaches in all of Greece, where you can see the remains of a real shipwrecked ship. It is also worth visiting the island of Marathonisi, which is located in the middle of Laganas Bay. Not only is its shape reminiscent of a tortoise, but it is also one of the places where the famous large sea turtles nest, which are an endangered species.

WIZZ AIR ANNOUNCES NEW ROUTES TO CROATIA AND SPAIN

The company now offers connections between Lublin and Poznan with a wonderful Croatian Split,as well as Warsaw and capital of the Balearic Islands – Palma de Mallorca.

Wizz Air’s new holiday routes include three summer destinations from Poland. All those routes will be lauched in June 2021. Wizz Air will operate twice weekly flights from Lublin Airport and Poznań to Split and two times weekly from Warsaw Chopin Airport to the outstanding spanish island of Mallorca.

The new routes are expected to stimulate aviation and hospitality sectors in the regions, while allowing passengers from Poland to travel on WIZZ’s lowest fares to the Croatia and Spain. 

WIZZ AIR ANNOUNCES TWO NEW ROUTES FROM BELGRADE TO GREECE

Wizz Air also announced two new routes from Belgrade to Santorini and Crete in Greece. 

Wizz Air has created a new, constantly updated WIZZ travel planning map so that passengers can see which destinations in the WIZZ network can be flown at any given time. It is also a source of information on applicable travel restrictions caused by the coronavirus.

WIZZ AIR ANNOUNCES NEW LEISURE ROUTE FROM RIGA

Wizz Air’s new holiday route from Riga to Santorini in Greece will be lauched on 12June 2021 and will be operated weekly on Saturdays.

WIZZ AIR ABU DHABI LAUNCHES ITS FIRST FLIGHT FROM TEL AVIV TO ABU DHABI ON 18 APRIL

Wizz Air Abu Dhabi, the newest national airline of the United Arab Emirates, has announced that it starts the operation of the Tel Aviv – Abu Dhabi route on 18 April 2021, following the announcement that Israel has been added to the green list, meaning travelers will no longer need to quarantine upon arrival in Abu Dhabi.

The connection between Tel Aviv and the capital of United Arab Emirates will open new opportunities for Israeli travelers and will strengthen connections between the two Middle Eastern countries. The new route will carry 3 weekly flights in April 2021. Starting from May 2021, Wizz Air Abu Dhabi will operate flights between the two destinations on a daily basis.

Hungary reopens while Poland extends curbs amid fears of Easter bounce

Poland coronavirus reopen

Poland will extend COVID-19 restrictions until April 18, its health minister said on Wednesday, as the country struggles to cope with a third wave of infections that authorities fear could be aggravated by people mixing at Easter.

Like its central European neighbours, Poland has seen its health service pushed to the brink by spiralling COVID-19 case numbers. Some regions have come close to running out of ventilators and the government has imposed tougher restrictions on daily activity nationwide to try and contain the contagion.

“We have a difficult situation in hospitals

– yesterday over 34,500 beds were occupied and over 3,300 ventilators were in use. These levels, which are close to 80%, are dangerous levels,” Health Minister Adam Niedzielski told a news conference.

“…We have decided that the restrictions in place will be extended by a period of over a week…The extended safety regulations will be in place until April 18.”

Niedzielski said that the consequences of increased mobility during the Easter weekend would be evident in next week’s statistics, and that an increase in case numbers was possible.

Kindergartens, shopping centres, hotels, cinemas and theatres will remain closed under the restrictions.

Poland’s nationalist government drew praise for its swift action during the first wave of infections in 2020, but has come in for mounting criticism over its handling of the later stages of the coronavirus pandemic.

Last week a surprise overnight decision to widen eligibility for COVID-19 vaccines triggered the crash of an online registration system, just as new infections soared to a new daily high.

In Poland, 12.1% of the population have so far received at least one dose of vaccine,

according to the Reuters COVID-19 Vaccination tracker.

Italian, Polish leaders call for renaissance of traditional European values after meeting PM Orbán

hungary italy poland

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Matteo Salvini, the head of Italy’s right-wing ruling party Lega, argued in favour of Europe’s renewal and a renaissance of traditional European values after talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Budapest on Thursday.

In a press statement, Morawiecki said they have trust in the future of Europe and the European Union and hold the firm conviction that they together would be able to build a road for Europe.

European integration can further develop but “for it to bear healthy fruits, its roots should not be neglected either,” the Polish premier said, stressing the need to return to Europe’s Christian roots.

Morawiecki said common targets included Euro-Atlantic cooperation and deepening European integration while respecting national sovereignty, individual freedoms and protecting traditional European values and Christianity.

He added that they believed Europe was “completely disintegrated” and damaged by various forces.

The Brussels elite views Europe as a project for elite groups, he said, adding that “we would like to represent a wide range of people”.

Salvini said they were working to help European nations get out of their darkest post-WWII period into a new era in which freedom, rights and family would once again get into the focus.

Salvini said that the EU had made a grave mistake when it rejected its Judeo-Christian roots in the basic treaty.

He added that they did not want European nations to stand against each other but to establish a common European force which can protect the continent’s borders.

Salvini said he believed European politics would not be the same after the coronavirus pandemic.

Salvini said “left-wing cultural groups” should not be allowed to single-handedly determine the future because culture, the family and health are nobody’s monopoly.

Orbán: Hungary, Italy, Poland have joint plans for future

hungary italy poland

Christian Democrats are currently not properly represented in European politics “so we are making efforts to have their voices heard”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said after talks with Matteo Salvini, the head of Italy’s right-wing ruling party Lega, and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in Budapest on Thursday.

Orbán, who is also the head of ruling Fidesz, said that they had discussed the most important issues for their respective countries and concluded that there were no topics where a consensus could not be reached or where the interests of their nations conflicted.

Orbán said they had agreed to get involved in the debates about the future of Europe and prepare a programme to this effect in the next few weeks.

“The debate will be a good opportunity to promote and strengthen our values in Europe,” he said.

Orbán said he had met Salvini and Morawiecki now because Fidesz decided to quit the European People’s Party (EPP) and they were planning a common future together, discussing the future of Europe.

Orbán cited Salvini as saying that they wanted a European renaissance and were working together for it to start.

He said there were many million European citizens left without proper and effective representation because the EPP had dedicated itself to cooperation with the European left in the long term.

Orbán said it was symbolic that their cooperation would be launched on Holy Thursday, with a meeting that represents the first stop of a long journey.

Much has been discussed about common values, such as the values of freedom, dignity, Christianity, family and national sovereignty, in addition to Euro-Atlantic commitment, Orbán said. He added that they all say no to a European empire run by Brussels, communism, illegal migration and anti-Semitism.

Orbán said they would next meet probably in Warsaw in May, depending on the pandemic situation.

He also said that they would not be taken in by provocation of any kind, having clear values and positions.

Orbán said they wanted to put an end to the “ridiculous political approach” which qualifies the right wing always as extremist and the left wing always as centrist.

He said they supported freedom, traditional European values, human dignity and more successful European policies.

Orbán described Morawiecki as Hungary’s most faithful friend and Salvini as a hero, for proving as a member of the Italian government that illegal migration could be stopped on sea.

He also said that the pandemic was currently the number one topic in all international meetings and he had also shared his experiences with his negotiating partners, all of them urging the European Commission to speed up vaccine procurements, which is a precondition for stopping the pandemic.

Orbán said they wanted a more transparent and faster vaccination drive in Europe.

matteo salvini
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