Poland

PM Orbán to form a new, European-level block with Italians and Poles?

orbán in mask
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will meet Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s right-wing ruling party Lega, and Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, for a trilateral meeting in Budapest on Thursday, Orbán’s press chief said, confirming Italian press reports.
 
Bertalan Havasi said on Tuesday that the meeting will focus on creating a European-level alliance between Hungary’s ruling Fidesz, Italy’s Lega and Poland’s PiS party, which is led by Morawiecki.
 
Salvini held consultations with Orbán over video link in early March
 
about vaccinations, the post-pandemic economic recovery, migration and family policy.

Salvini told MTI’s Rome correspondent that the meeting would be held to discuss how to build a post-coronavirus European Union and how to lay the foundations for the future of Europe. In an online interview Salvini said: “Europe will be different after Covid-19, and we’ll have a chance to rethink Europe’s identity.”

The pandemic, he added, offered the opportunity to create an EU with a “new role and a new meaning”. He said
 
the EU “must find its soul, its backbone, its mission.”
 
The EU cannot respond to the needs of 500,000,000 Europeans if it is simply a business bloc, he added. Salvini said his Lega, Fidesz and Poland’s PiS shared common European values.

“In Budapest we’ll discuss the vision for a future Europe based on work, welfare, security, identity, the family and education,” he said, adding that the formation of a new political family in Europe would not be on the agenda. “No common party group will be formed,” he told MTI. “We’ll be presenting a common charter with common values and aims.”

Salvini said Lega was not planning to join the European People’s Party. His dream, he added, was to unite the Identity and Democracy Party family and the European Conservatives and Reformists, as doing so would form the second largest EP group.
Speaking at a press conference in Warsaw on Tuesday afternoon,
 
Morawiecki said Thursday’s meeting in Budapest will address “various European issues”
 
with a particular focus on “political questions” related to the operation of the European Parliament.

The three leaders will also discuss “how the European programme can best be implemented in the interest of primarily Poland, Hungary and Italy,” he said.

Hungarian and Polish PMs to meet Italy’s League leader to discuss new alliance ?

Hungary Italy Russia money laundering Orbán

The prime ministers of Hungary and Poland will meet the leader of Italy’s rightist League party on Thursday for talks on forming a European political alliance, Hungarian state news agency MTI said on Tuesday.

The talks between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Italy’s League leader Matteo Salvini and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki will take place in Budapest, it said.

They will discuss creating an alliance involving the League, Orbán’s governing Fidesz party and Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, MTI quoted Orbán’s press chief as saying.

Fidesz quit the main pan-European centre-right bloc, the European People’s Party, earlier this month, two years after it was suspended for policies criticised by mainstream conservatives as authoritarian.

Orbán’s nationalist policies have long been widely seen as a better fit with smaller European blocs to the right of the EPP – such as the eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group that includes Poland’s PiS, or the right-wing Identity and Democracy (ID) group that includes France’s National Rally and Italy’s League.

Orbán has said he has held talks with like-minded parties about creating a new political alliance, and that Fidesz has been in talks with conservative political forces as it seeks a new group in the European Parliament.

He says

the goal is for there to be a political home for Fidesz and similar forces in Europe that do not want to host migrants and want to “protect” traditional families.

Orbán faces elections in 2022, with the opposition united against him for the first time.

orbán and salvini
Read alsoOrbán says Fidesz in talks with Italian, Polish parties on new European Parliament grouping

Salvini

Salvini said his Lega, Fidesz and Poland’s PiS shared common European values.

“In Budapest we’ll discuss the vision for a future Europe based on work, welfare, security, identity, the family and education,”

he said, adding that the formation of a new political family in Europe would not be on the agenda. “No common party group will be formed,” he told MTI. “We’ll be presenting a common charter with common values and aims.”

Salvini said Lega was not planning to join the European People’s Party. His dream, he added, was to unite the Identity and Democracy Party family and the European Conservatives and Reformists, as doing so would form the second largest EP group.

Morawiecki

Speaking at a press conference in Warsaw on Tuesday afternoon, Morawiecki said

Thursday’s meeting in Budapest will address “various European issues” with a particular focus on “political questions” related to the operation of the European Parliament.

The three leaders will also discuss “how the European programme can best be implemented in the interest of primarily Poland, Hungary and Italy,” he said.

Jobbik MEP Gyöngyösi: Rule of law and democracy must be respected

Márton Gyöngyösi MEP Politician Politikus Képviselő Jobbik

Remarks from Jobbik MEP Márton Gyöngyösi:

In this article, the Hungarian politician formulates his opinion on the current situation of the European Union and the relationship of its Member States with close attention to Hungary and Poland and the rule of law mechanisms.

The European Union is often and rightfully criticised for being unable to get close to its citizens. Furthermore, the values that our community identifies with often seem rather abstract. As far as the institutions are concerned, such public sentiments should hardly be a surprise since the EU’s system is often based on overcomplicated and delicate balances between the institutions and the Member States. When it comes to values, however, it’s harder to be quite so forgiving since no community can remain functional if its members are not connected by some ideological binding force that would guide them in the same direction.

Of course, I did not become a politician to just lie idly by when I see processes and situations I am dissatisfied with.

On the contrary: I believe we must take action if we are to make any progress.

My view on the European Union’s situation is quite similar, too. There’s no way for such a large organisation to change overnight, but we must constantly strive for improving on it each day, even if the successes rather seem like half-measures at first. This week’s EP plenary session clearly proved it was up to us how much use we make of them.

When the EU’s seven-year budget and the economic recovery plan were passed last fall, many people were bitterly disappointed that the EU could only achieve no more than a half-success in terms of the rule of law mechanisms. As we all remember, Hungary and Poland, for political reasons, kept blocking the EU budget and the recovery plan for months. Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, who had made corruption an essential part of his regime’s functionality and had been using the EU funds to build his own clientèle of oligarchs, was afraid that if EU funds were coupled with some closer monitoring in the upcoming period, he might be running out of funding before the spring of 2022, i.e., the next Hungarian parliamentary elections. He needs these funds to finance his “feudal” system, whereby he uses local oligarchs, “businessmen”, and corrupt officials to make sure that the necessary number of votes are delivered.

Eventually, Orbán’s conditions were not met: the rule of law criteria were activated as of 1st January 2021. In a “typical European style”, however, the Hungarian PM was still able to strike a deal and gain precious months by appealing to the European Court and thus keeping control of the funds until the elections.

Understandably, many people were bitterly disappointed to see the European Commission going against European citizens’ feeling of justice once again.

To make matters worse, the EC made a compromise with a government that is more and more widely considered as the trojan horse of some non-EU powers.

I believe that the European Parliament, which is directly elected by the citizens and therefore has the greatest legitimacy of all EU institutions, has a particularly important role in situations like this.

I was happy to see that we did not miss the opportunity and decided on Thursday evening that we are willing to take legal measures if the European Commission fails to apply the rule of law criteria immediately.

We must make it clear that the balance between the EU and the Member States cannot be used for stealing money from the citizens or disrupting the unity of Europe by certain governments. However, that’s exactly what the Orbán regime does.

I am glad that the European Parliament understood the significance of this situation and decided to take the initiative for a better Europe. I trust that the future will bring more and more issues that can be solved the same way. As a person committed to democratic values, I believe if the European Parliament’s role is more highly appreciated, the representation of European citizens will be more highly appreciated, too.

If we take the representation of European citizens seriously, we must declare that European values are not bargaining chips, with special regard to democracy, the freedom of speech and respect for the rule of law.

ORBÁN Viktor
Read alsoOpinion: PM Viktor Orbán’s European career is over since the German big businesses will no longer protect him

U.S. Secretary of State Blinken warns allies not to cooperate with backsliding democracies like Hungary

anthony blinken

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that cooperation between allies was more important than at any time in recent history and that relations with NATO and the European Union would be crucial to overcoming challenges.

Speaking on the last day of his three-day visit to Brussels, Blinken continued what many European officials said was a charm offensive to win back the support of allies sidelined during four abrasive years under U.S. President Joe Biden’s Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.

“I came here very much with one particular focus in mind, and that was to make clear the United States’ determination to revitalise our alliances and partnerships,” Blinken said alongside Belgian Foreign Minister Sophie Wilmes.

Biden later addressed EU leaders via videoconference, the first such gesture since President Barack Obama did so in 2009. The White House said in a statement that Biden told EU leaders that Washington and the EU must ensure that “democracies rather than autocracies set the rules of the road.”

EU summit chair Charles Michel vowed to work with Washington to uphold democracy around the world.

Blinken told U.S. diplomats in Brussels he wanted to mend and “modernise” relationships to focus on new challenges, which he has listed as China’s rise, COVID-19, climate change, a newly assertive Russia and keeping a technological edge on rivals.

“There’s a greater premium than any time since I’ve been involved in these issues, on finding ways to work together, again,” said Blinken, a longtime Biden confidant involved in U.S. foreign policy for decades.

Blinken won European Union support on Wednesday for a U.S. plan to confront Chinese power together through a formal dialogue that Beijing had hoped to avoid, praising EU officials whom Trump sought to undermine.

“A basic tenet of the Biden-Harris administration is consulting with our friends, early and often,” Blinken said.

Issues remain, including Turkey’s purchase of Russian missiles and discussions with Moscow to buy more, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline under construction between Russia and Germany, which Blinken reiterated Washington opposes.

“Some of our allies are moving in the wrong direction,” he said on Wednesday, referring to backsliding on democracy in Hungary, Poland and Turkey, although he did not name countries.

He stressed that alliances needed to serve U.S. interests and that NATO allies must help pay for their own security, saying: “We can’t sustain effective alliances without showing how they deliver for the American people.”

But China’s decision on Monday to retaliate strongly against Western sanctions over human rights abuses has appeared to bring Europe and the United States closer together. European governments have summoned Chinese envoys asking to explain measures against EU nationals that were seen as going far beyond what Brussels imposed.

“We’re convinced that it is (through) enduring relationships, like the one between our countries, and like the ones that exist through the European Union and through NATO … that we can overcome any of these challenges,” Blinken said.

Citing the “devastating” COVID-19 pandemic, Blinken promised to work with the EU and NATO on the global distribution of vaccines, and to ensure they are prepared for future pandemics.

BLINKEN, Antony; STOLTENBERG, Jens
Read alsoIn Brussels, Blinken offers boost for NATO, cooperation on Afghanistan

Lewandowski’s late strike rescues point for Poland in Hungary

poland vs hungary

Robert Lewandowski struck a thunderous 83rd-minute equaliser as Poland fought back to earn a 3-3 draw with Hungary in a pulsating World Cup Group I qualifier at the Puskás Aréna on Thursday.

Hungary grabbed a sixth-minute lead when Roland Sallai latched on to Attila Fiola’s through ball, raced down the right and fired a low shot inside Wojciech Szczesny’s near post.

The home side doubled their advantage in the 53rd minute when Ádám Szalai slotted home from inside the box and Marco Rossi’s Hungary looked well in charge against a Poland side who hadn’t managed a single shot on target.

Poland manager Paulo Sousa made a triple substitution in the 59th minute and two of those introduced, Krzysztof Piatek and Kamil Jozwiak, made an instant impact.

Piatek connected with a low cross from Gregorz Krychowiak to beat Peter Gulacsi with a confident finish and moments later Hungary’s defence crumbled, allowing Jozwiak to burst into the box and slot the ball into the net.

Hungary regrouped, restoring their lead when Szalai crossed from the left and defender Willi Orban turned the ball in at the back post.

But Poland’s danger man, Bayern Munich forward Lewandowski, earned his side a point with a rasping drive when he was found inside the box by Bartosz Bereszynski and hammered the ball past Gulacsi into the top corner.

Fiola was sent off for Hungary in stoppage time after picking up a second yellow card.

hungarian national team football
Read alsoWorld Cup 2022: Can Hungary Qualify?

Hungary hospitals under ‘extraordinary’ pressure as pandemic sweeps eastern Europe – UPDATE

covid coronavirus hungary hospital

Hungary’s hospitals are under “extraordinary” pressure from rising coronavirus infections, its surgeon general said on Wednesday, as the country became a hotspot in the third wave of a pandemic that has hit Central Europe especially hard.

Like much of the region, Hungary managed to curb infections during the initial phase of the pandemic in March-April last year with fast and strict lockdown measures.

However, a new wave of infections that has swept through the region in 2021 has seen Hungary this week overtake the Czech Republic as the country with the world’s highest daily COVID-19 deaths per capita, according to figures from Our World in Data.

Experts have put this down to the spread of the much more contagious virus variant first found in Britain, which accounts for most reported cases now and infects entire families.

The region is also host to many large factories where remote work has not been possible and, this time round, governments have been reluctant to quickly impose a lockdown, fearing another blow to their economies after last year’s recession.

While new infections in the Czech Republic and Slovakia have started to decline, Poland reported a record number of new cases just shy of 30,000 and the government mulled sending patients to different regions to help hospitals cope.

It ordered theatres, shopping malls, hotels and cinemas to close last week as infections rose, but more restrictions loom ahead of the Easter holidays, typically marked by packed church services in the deeply Catholic country.

In Hungary, a country with a population of nearly 10 million, a total of 18,952 people have died of coronavirus.

“I am asking you to do everything possible to avoid getting infected and avoid having to go to the hospital as hospitals are struggling under an extraordinary burden,” Surgeon General Cecília Müller told a briefing.

Muller said about 500 volunteers – health students and skilled healthcare staff – have gone to help at hospitals after a plea went out from the government this week.

Earlier this month, about 4,000 medical workers quit the public health system over reforms begun by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government, aggravating a years-long shortage of medical staff.

On Wednesday, Tamas Sved, secretary of the Hungarian Medical Chamber, told website hvg.hu that if new infections are not curbed via reduced social contact, Hungary could become the new byword for the worst of the crisis.

“Without this, we could reach the point that in Europe it will be a bigger Hungarian city and no longer Bergamo (in Italy) that is cited as a tragic example,” he said.

VACCINES: RACE AGAINST TIME

Hungary, which leads the EU for vaccine imports and per capita vaccination rates according to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, has administered at least one vaccine dose to 1.7 million people. But it is still not enough.

“For some reason most of eastern Europe has failed in the fight against the pandemic,” said sociologist Daniel Prokop, who has been tracking Czechs’ behaviour through the pandemic.

He said in an article this week that on-site work is more common in Central Europe due to the number of factories – including large car makers – located here. This has led to rising infections.

Lower incomes also mean more people are forced to work even if that means exposing themselves or others to contagion, he said. Governments in the region pay less for sick leave than in western Europe.

After hospitalisations hit critical levels, the Czech Republic introduced a harsher lockdown on March 1 and implemented widespread testing at work places. It has since seen some improvement in case numbers.

Czech Prime Mister Andrej Babis admitted mistakes after criticism the government was slow to introduce restrictions in the autumn when numbers soared previously.

In Hungary, however, Prime Minister Orban is already discussing with business options for cautiously reopening shops, even as cases rise. The government will decide on measures for Easter soon. All schools are in remote learning until April 7.

Earlier this month, about 4,000 medical workers quit the public health system over reforms begun by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government, aggravating a years-long shortage of medical staff during the third wave of the pandemic, details here.

semmelweis covid coronavirus
Read alsoStaggering photos of the fight against Covid-19 at the Semmelweis Intensive Care Unit – Gallery

Hungary’s strong growth of knowledge-intensive occupations came to stop in 2020

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The ECEPR and Nordic Capital Brain Business Jobs Index, measures the share of the working age population across Europe employed in highly knowledge-intensive enterprises, in 31 countries and 284 regions.

Hungary’s growth of brain business jobs came to stop in 2020
Before the corona crisis, Hungary experienced a significant boost in brain business jobs. Between 2012 and 2019, Hungary added 110 000 jobs in knowledge-intensive companies. That is one of the highest numbers of brain business jobs added in all of Europe during this time. However, this positive trend came to an end during 2020, as Hungary lost 4 500 jobs in highly knowledge-intensive industries during the year. Despite this drop, the concentration of the population employed in knowledge-intensive occupations remained at 7.2 percent.

Central and Eastern Europe experienced significant loss of brain business jobs in 2020
In Central and Eastern Europe as a whole, approximately 58 400 brain business jobs were lost between 2019 and 2020. While Estonia and Poland were successful in adding jobs during the turbulent year, the rest of the area suffered significant setbacks. Notably, Romania lost a large amount of brain business jobs during the year.

Fostering brain business jobs important aspect of reducing regional unemployment
The region with the highest concentration of brain business jobs, the Slovakian capital region of Bratislava, has an impressive unemployment rate of 2.4 percent. This does not seem to be a coincidence. A comparison of 281 European regions shows that a strong link exists between high brain business jobs concentration and low unemployment, and that this link is driven by regions with low brain business jobs concentration. Amongst regions with up to 50 brain business jobs per 1 000 working age population, a straight-forward linear regression shows that 28 percent of the variation of unemployment can be explained by differences of brain business jobs concentration.

Geographical equalization of brain business jobs taking place in Europe
According to Dr. Nima Sanandaji, President of the ECEPR, the overall trend is that Central and Eastern European countries are catching up to Northern and Western Europe. Knowledge-intensive firm occupation is also growing in several Southern European countries, such as Cyprus, Portugal, and Malta:

“Since 2014, Cyprus has had an almost 50 percent increase of brain business jobs per capita. Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Portugal, and Bulgaria have experienced a growth of a third or more. Cost of labor is a main driving force. Brain business jobs are growing in places which combine an ample supply of talent with lower wage costs”.

Budapest in top three knowledge regions of Central and Eastern Europe
With a concentration of 18.0 percent of its working age population employed in knowledge-intensive firms, Budapest places in the top three of knowledge regions of Central and Eastern Europe. Ahead of it is only Bratislava (22,4 percent) and Prague (19,7 percent). This highlights the rise of Central and Eastern Europe as major knowledge centers of Europe.

Budapest has several innovative start-up companies, such as Banzai Cloud which offers cloud native solutions for enterprises, Shapr3D which provides computer-aided design services, and Almotive which is a developer of automated driving technologies.

Warsaw is the fastest growing region, alongside Bratislava and three German regions
On a regional basis, the most significant increase of brain business jobs has occurred in Warsaw, the Polish capital region, followed by the Slovakian capital region of Bratislava, and the German region of Braunschweig. This German region was an important center of commerce already in medieval Germany and is one of several strongly growing German regions.

read also: Budapest jumps to 85th place on global financial centres index

Successful new European firms often combine service innovations with digital platforms for service delivery
A study of 150 innovation companies, founded in the top-30 leading European brain business jobs hubs, finds that the most common forms of innovations are business service innovation, consumer service innovation, and digital infrastructure/platform innovation. Often firms rely on digital platforms for service delivery. The least common form of innovation is manufacturing technology.

Investments in Central and Eastern Europe still lags behind
The average company in Eastern and Central European brain business hubs, founded in 2015, has attracted 10 million Euros in investment, compared to 23 million in Southern Europe, and 35 million in Western Europe. The innovation firms of the Nordic regions on the top-30 regional list, have on average attracted 85 million Euros in investments, far outstripping firms in other parts of Europe.

”Knowledge is the foundation for attracting investments and creating value in a long term sustainable way. As a leading investor in Europe it is natural for Nordic Capital to support research on how knowledge strengthens good investment conditions”,

says Klas Tikkanen, Chief Operating Officer at Nordic Capital Advisors.

”The study confirms that high knowledge intensity gives resilience in a time of crisis. Sweden and the Nordic countries still stand strong despite the pandemic. But now is the time for reforms and developing the regulatory frameworks in order to get back to the level before Covid-19. That will lead to increased investments, and the increase of brain business jobs again”, Klas Tikkanen adds.

Hungary’s weaknesses and strengths
Compared to the rest of Europe, Hungary is a top performer when it comes to high-tech manufacturing. The concentration of brain business jobs in this sector is more than twice the European average. Another strength is R&D, where Hungary now has close to twice the concentration of the average European country. On the other hand, Hungary has a lower concentration than the rest of Europe when it comes to areas such as advertising & market research and telecom.

While Hungary overall has impressive performance in terms of knowledge-intensive jobs, growth of such jobs outside of the capital region is needed to boost the performance of the country as a whole and to lower regional unemployment levels.

Read alsoSurvival is the current goal, but what is the catering and hotel industry’s future?

Poland facing tougher COVID-19 curbs as infections rise

flag poland

Poland will likely have to toughen COVID-19 restrictions again after reporting what early figures suggest will be a record number of new infections on Wednesday, the prime minister’s top aide Michal Dworczyk said.

The government ordered theatres, shopping malls, hotels and cinemas to close last week after a rise in cases, driven by the variant of the coronavirus first spotted in Britain.

But there have been growing media reports that it will have to bring in more curbs ahead of the busy Easter holidays, usually marked by packed church services and family gatherings in the deeply Catholic country.

“We are waiting for the final data but all indications are that we will have over 29,000 new infections,” Dworczyk told private television broadcaster Polsat News.

That would break the daily record of 27,875 new cases reported in November.

“We cannot remain indifferent to this situation and we will have to take decisions that will be communicated tomorrow,”

Dworczyk said. He declined to provide details on the curbs.

capsule medication
Read alsoPfizer begins early-stage study of oral COVID-19 drug

Blinken met the Foreign Ministers of the Visegrád Group in Brussels

The United States values central Europe, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said after a meeting with his NATO counterparts in Brussels on Tuesday, adding that the US and central Europe could be expected to cooperate closely on a number of political and economic issues.

Speaking after talks between the foreign ministers of the Visegrád Group countries and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Szijjártó said the first ever such meeting indicated the strength of the V4 as well as the importance of the central European region.

Hungary stands ready to cooperate with the US at international forums, especially in terms of efforts against terrorism, Szijjártó said at the meeting. He noted that Hungary had been one of the first countries to join a US initiative against the Islamic State militant group, adding that it would uphold that commitment. Hungary and the US have also built good cooperation in supporting persecuted religious communities, he added.

Hungary and the US are linked through their support for Israel, too, Szijjártó said.

“Hungary has always rejected unilateral, unfair and biased attacks on Israel,” he said, adding that “Israel, too, deserves a balanced and fair approach”.

The Hungarian government supports the US’s return to the UN Human Rights Council, and will vote to that effect, the minister said.

Szijjártó called it important that the US could be relied on in terms of its support for the EU and NATO integration of the Western Balkans. He also highlighted the Three Seas Initiative as a crucial scheme in ties between the US and central Europe. He said that completion of infrastructure developments were instrumental in ensuring the region’s energy security, and asked Blinken that US companies view those projects as well as schemes aimed at finding new energy sources “as strategic rather than financial ventures”.

Szijjártó said Hungary was proud that US businesses were the second largest investor group in the country, with 1,700 companies employing some 105,000 Hungarians.

“I think that we will be in a position to successfully develop ties between Hungary and the US on a basis of mutual respect in the near future,” Szijjártó said.

Antony Blinken
Read alsoWhat can the Hungarian government expect from US foreign policy?

Budapest-Warsaw high-speed railway network to be built soon?!

bullet-train high speed railway

Within the framework of the tender of Connecting European Facility (CEF), Hungary is applying for financial support for the expansion of two internationally important railway networks.

Applications for the tender can be submitted until the end of March. The winning projects will be decided by the European Commission and the MPs, and the final results will be published in the summer.

Hungary may also have the chance to win the financial support,

requesting a total of EUR 7.64 million (~HUF 2.8 billion) to continue the preparations for the expansion of two internationally important railway networks:

1. New railway connection between the Kelenföld and Nyugati railway stations

As a result, the largest and most dense section of railway lines in Hungary could be created. Hungary requests support to finance the environmental protection parts of the planned new railway connection.

Read also: The largest intermodal railway terminal in Europe is being built on the New Silk Road in Hungary – VIDEO

2. The Hungarian section of the Budapest-Warsaw high-speed railway

A feasibility study is already being carried out on the creation of a high-speed rail link between Central European capitals in an environmentally friendly way. The infrastructural development could create a convenient, fast, competitive mode of transport between Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, and Warsaw, connecting the region to the Western European high-speed rail network.

Environmental protection plays an important role in both Hungarian projects,

as a result of which significant capacities can be freed up on existing lines, opening up space for increasing passenger and environmentally friendly freight traffic in the suburbs.

Furthermore, Hungary is in a good position as its project proposal is in line with an Austrian railway development plan running in parallel; accordingly, Hungary and Austria mutually support each other’s initiatives.

As the Hungarian news portal Magyar Építők reports, thanks to the contribution of the Connecting European Facility, transport development projects in Hungary are carried out with an investment value of EUR 1.8 billion (~HUF 670 billion). Among others, the modernisation of the Kelenföld-Százhalombatta-Pusztaszabolcs and Rákos-Hatvan railway line sections will be completed this year, while the renovation of the Southern Connecting Railway Bridge and the construction of the third track are in progress.

railway in hungary
Read alsoHungary to invest EUR 5.6 bn in railway upgrades around Budapest in 20 years

Hungarian-Polish Friendship Day: Polish flag hangs from Parliament, Sándor Palace today

Hungarian-Polish Friendship Day

To mark Hungarian-Polish Friendship Day, the Polish national flag will be hung from the facade of Parliament on Tuesday, while Poland’s Sejm will be illuminated by the Hungarian national colours, Parliament’s press office said.

The Hungarian parliament’s speaker and the speaker of the Polish Sejm jointly launched the initiative.

The statement referred to “the many centuries of common history, friendship and co-operation between the two peoples.”

The day of friendship is marked alternately in the two countries.

Bochnia, in southern Poland, was to have hosted celebratory events but this will be missed this year, like last year too, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

President Áder, Duda in video call on Hungarian-Polish friendship day

President Janos Ader and Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda held a video call on Monday evening on the occasion of Hungarian-Polish Friendship Day.

The two presidents made note of the historical ties between the two nations and praised the common values and achievements of the two countries, the Office of the President of the Republic said in a statement. Further, they discussed European and international current affairs, including the coronavirus pandemic.

DUDA, Andrzej; ÁDER János
Photo: MTI

The two first ladies, Anita Herczegh and Agata Kornhauser-Duda, will hold a video call on Tuesday.

In 2007, Hungary’s parliament and the Polish Sejm declared March 23 the Day of Hungarian-Polish Friendship.

Amid the current circumstances, the Polish and Hungarian embassies are also celebrating with a series of virtual events, the statement said.

Poland forward Lewandowski receives honour from president

Lewandowski

Soccer player Robert Lewandowski received an honour from the Polish president on Monday, giving the striker named Best FIFA Men’s Player in 2020 another award for a trophy cabinet already containing Champions League and Bundesliga winner’s medals.

Lewandowski, who last season won the German league and cup double plus the Champions League with Bayern Munich, received the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta from his country’s President Andrzej Duda.

The honour is conferred on military personnel and civilians for outstanding achievements in their fields. Lewandowski joins the first democratically elected president of Poland Lech Walesa and American President Dwight D. Eisenhower as a recipient.

“No matter how many trophies I have already won… right now my ambition is high and I don’t want to rest on my success,” Lewandowski said, after accepting the award.

The 32-year-old led Poland to Euro 2020 qualification and was also named the 2019-20 UEFA Men’s Player of the Year.

Last week Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called German Chancellor Angela Merkel to ask that Lewandowski and a Poland team mate be exempt from quarantine rules when re-entering Germany after a World Cup qualifier against England scheduled for March 31 at Wembley Stadium.

Lewandowski and Hertha Berlin’s Krzysztof Piatek play for German clubs, who could have stopped them going to England for the match as that may have meant they would miss games with the Bundesliga teams when they returned due to quarantine rules.

The Polish Football Association later confirmed that both players will be allowed to go to England.

The World Cup qualifying campaign will start with Hungary against Poland on March 25 in the Puskás Arena.

football
Read alsoWorld Cup qualifiers: Rossi opts for Géresi and Varga

Where will we work from in the future?

Daily News Hungary

“Office to go” and flex solutions – that’s what defines the office market post-COVID-19
New Work´s market update report

The past year has turned every aspect of our lives upside down, including the way we work and use office space. CEE-based flex office provider New Work has updated its annual research that confronts these issues and shows how our habits to use the office as a place of work have changed over the past year. Research shows that flexible office space in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania has increased tenfold and workplace needs now are completely different than ever before, so there should be an office ready to use at every corner.

“Office to go” as a property trend for the next few years

COVID-19 took the world in a completely different direction. This uncertain time has significantly changed the office space market. 2020 is over and the office as we know it is almost completely gone. Now we need not only a comfortable workspace and a desk. “Office to go” is a global trend and companies are already investing in them. What we all need is the fastest possible access to the workplace, a comfortable and professional space. Swiss railways have already noticed this trend by creating flexible office spaces at railway stations or the Accor hotel chain, where offices are opened in hotels.

“According to McKinsey’s latest report “The future of work after COVID – 19” the new reality is that, 25 % of the entire workplaces and up to 70 % of the computer related workplaces qualify for working from home and rotation models which will lead to 30 % less office space needed in the headquarters, but much more the need for flexible space in multi-locations. Going forward, companies will need to adjust to remote work policies and accommodate more flexible work routines that allow workers to choose where they work from – says Hubert Abt, CEO of New Work, in the latest market report “Flex Solutions post COVID-19”. The company is one of the largest flexible office space operators in Central and Eastern Europe.

Flex solution with social impact

Workspaces will generally be available in every corner of the city. It will also have its social impact. This not only helps to ensure a better work-life balance but much more to reduce our carbon footprint.

Research has shown that rural management manpower and places with such tools can save up to 30% of traffic pollution in rush hour.

“Currently, both employees and companies have re-evaluated almost all assumptions made so far. The time of commuting to the workplace as well as the aspects of ecology, flexibility and the ability to work and manage a team in the virtual world has become even more important than before,” concludes Abt.

New Work Offices Press Release
Source: New Work press release

Offices as a place for socializing and exchanging information will not be the only place for this anymore – companies are adapting their culture to the new reality. Companies are forced to manage their workforce in the cloud and keep close contact to each member via the cloud as most of the employees outsource the place to meet and teamwork from the HQ and will organize meetings in third places. This leads to a constant adaption of their organizational structures and workflow models.

Flexible office space as valuable as never before

The office as we know it has completely changed. Now it is a flexible space that customers want to rent according to their possibilities and needs.

Even 10 years ago, flexible office space in the Polish, Czech, Romanian and Hungarian markets was 42,000 square metres in total. In 2020, this figure increased to 482,000 square meters (according to JLL FlexOffice report „FLEXcellent“).

New Work Offices Press Release Statistics
Source: New Work press release

This gigantic difference shows that flexible business solutions are something that the market expects. It is even more important in a pandemic era, where every exit from the house is associated with limitations. In average the flex office industry grew 30 % per year while the increasing demand for flex space will accelerate this rate significantly. Mark Dixon, CEO of IWG which is the world’s biggest operator of flex space, predicts that 70 % of all new leases will be flex. The demand for flex space will soon increase 10 times higher than the actual space is available.

This is not a result of COVID-19, but of the upcoming recession where clients are in desperate need of flex terms and “ready to go” space as they don´t have money to spend on capex.

Digitization of business – challenges of a new era

Before COVID, 85% of the flex operator’s revenues came from office space, while 15% came from services. Today, 60% of revenues come from the rental of offices and their spaces and 40% are services and memberships. According to analyses and forecasts by New Work, further growth in revenues from office space rental will soon drop to 40%. Customer needs and behaviours have changed pandemic services exponentially. Companies, apart from the main central one, focus on more locations that can be used by employees and business partners.

It is important for everyone to avoid unnecessary travel, extra contact with random people and visits to places other than the trusted places.

“Digital solutions allow everyone to work wherever and whenever they wish. I am sure they will occupy a leading position in almost every business sector. Models and features that are paid on an ongoing basis with membership in conjunction with tenant applications will become the standard. Many locations using the digital office pass are state-of-the-art solutions growing in strength. Such offices set new standards,” adds Hubert Abt.

The report also shows that the lease as such will be replaced by service and membership contracts, and complexity services and booking will be handled by dedicated application. According to simple digital solutions, users will have easy access to all office services, such as booking a workspace, conference room or additional services, including IT support. Such applications also will be used as the social platforms.

bkk bus and tram
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Polish abortion ban: women have to give birth even to unviable babies?

Poland abortion law

When Polish doctors told Paulina, 29, that her unborn child had no kidneys and would die upon birth, she knew she couldn’t go through with the pregnancy. “Everyone says that the reward after the pain of birth is holding your child in your hands,” said Paulina, a retail manager from Gdynia, who asked Reuters to withhold her surname.

“I would have nothing. I would give birth to a dead child, and that pain would be a thousand times worse.”

Until two months ago, women like Paulina still stood a chance of being allowed an abortion in Poland.

However, in a ruling that came into effect in January, the constitutional court decided that terminating pregnancies due to foetal abnormalities was no longer legal, effectively imposing a near-total ban on abortions.

Polish law now considers only incest, rape or a threat to a mother’s life and health as valid grounds to terminate a pregnancy.

Poland’s ruling nationalists supported the move but the country was rocked by weeks of nationwide protests following the Oct. 22 ruling, which quickly morphed into an outpouring of anger against the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) government and the powerful Catholic Church.

Paulina’s only option, therefore, was to find a doctor willing to attest that giving birth was a threat to her health. Two weeks after Paulina learned of her baby’s condition, abortion rights activists helped her to find a psychiatrist prepared to state that she

needed to have an abortion on mental health grounds,

and her abortion went ahead.

This makes her one of perhaps only around a dozen women who has managed to get an abortion on such grounds since the ruling came into effect, abortion support groups told Reuters. Several doctors and lawyers Reuters spoke to maintain that abortions on mental health grounds are in keeping with the law, but government officials and conservative groups call this into question.

Poland’s Ministry of Health told Reuters in an emailed statement that

a qualified medical specialist in the appropriate field should determine if a pregnancy threatens the life or health of the mother, depending on the woman’s illness.

It did not say if it considered a threat to mental health as sufficient grounds for an abortion. “I’ve seen opinions like, ‘I’m anxious and I don’t want to give birth’,” Michal Wojcik, a government minister and member of the socially conservative United Poland grouping allied with the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, told Reuters.

“I don’t think we should count such instances, which are there to simply go around the rules.” A lawyer for Ordo Iuris, a campaign group that champions ultra-conservative and religious causes, also told Reuters that, in her opinion, giving a recommendation on the basis of mental health was illegal.

ABORTION ACCESS SHRINKING

Some women have chosen to get abortions abroad, despite the coronavirus pandemic and the associated travel restrictions. Paulina was initially told she should go to the Netherlands, a trip she was afraid to do alone.

According to abortion support groups, several women are waiting to find a doctor who is willing to help them, of which there are still very few.

This is partly out of fear: Under Polish law, women who undergo an illegal abortion face no penalty, while a doctor can be jailed for up to three years. In addition, many doctors in Poland, especially in the more conservative southeast, were already exercising their legal right to refuse on religious grounds to terminate pregnancies before the ruling went into force. More are expected to do so now.

Of the four doctors who agreed to support Paulina’s case for an abortion, only one, Aleksandra Krasowska, a Warsaw-based psychiatrist, was willing to be named by Reuters, and confirmed that she had referred Paulina for the termination due to her deteriorating mental health. The other three – a psychiatrist, doctor and a gynecologist – spoke to Reuters anonymously.

“It’s important that this isn’t a one-person decision … Then it’s easier for all of us, to handle this fear of the prosecutor and of the three years in jail,” one of the psychiatrists involved told Reuters. Maciej Socha, a Gdansk-based gynecologist, is one of few doctors willing to argue publicly that a threat to a woman’s mental health should be accepted as a grounds for abortion.

“If a patient has a brain tumour and continuing the pregnancy threatens her life and health, we can end the pregnancy.

If a patient has psychiatric reasons …, then in my opinion, this is enough to end such a pregnancy,” Socha said.

Paulina believes the doctors who helped her terminate her pregnancy saved her life. “These people are heroes. That they aren’t afraid of the consequences from this sick country that they live in,” she said.

Ethnic Hungarian politician János Esterházy commemorated on birth anniversary

Esterházy

János Esterházy, a leader of Slovakia’s ethnic Hungarian community between the two world wars, was “a martyr who fought against both Nazism and communism and gave his life for his faith”, the head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee said on Sunday, marking Esterházy’s 120th birth anniversary.

Addressing a commemoration event of the Rakoczi Association, Zsolt Nemeth said in a video message that Esterházy had been “a friend of the Poles”, committed to cooperation among the Visegrad countries, and “a standout fighter for human rights”.

Németh highlighted Esterházy’s role in Hungary’s admission of Polish refugees during the second world war, along with his commitment to the representation of Christian ethics in politics.

In Warsaw, suffragan bishop Michal Janocha celebrated holy mass in Esterházy’s honour, for his beatification and peace and cooperation among central European nations. The mass was attended by Zsuzsanna Orsolya Kovacs, Hungary’s ambassador to Poland, and other dignitaries.

Ahead of the mass, the officials laid wreaths at Esterházy’s memorial in Warsaw.

Count Esterházy (1901-1957), the sole Hungarian deputy in the Slovak Parliament before 1945, was a firm advocate of the ethnic Hungarian community, raising his voice against any violation of minority rights and against discrimination.

Czechoslovak authorities arrested him in 1945 under the charge of war crimes, and turned him over to the Soviet military authorities. In 1947 he was sentenced to 10 years of forced labour in Moscow and handed a death sentence in absentia in Bratislava/Pozsony on trumped-up charges. Two years later, the Soviet Union extradited the ailing Esterházy to Czechoslovakia, where the president commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.

The count died in a prison in Mirov in March 1957.

His ashes were identified in 2007 in Prague’s Motol cemetery.

Read alsoHungarian author Péter Esterházy dies aged 66 – UPDATE

Short film about a Hungarian vibrator factory caused a scandal in Poland – VIDEO

Vibrator Film Sex Toy Játék Vibrátor

At the beginning of March, a Polish film festival was cancelled by the Minister of Culture just a day before its planned opening. Moreover, the director of the National Film Archives – Audiovisual Institute, organiser of the festival, was dismissed. Two short films were the reason behind such actions, one of them with strong ties to Hungary.

Many people in Poland have been fighting for fundamental rights and social issues for quite a while now, be it the right for women to decide what to do with their own bodies or the issue of same-sex couples. Aggression against and abuse of women is a subject that still resurfaces from time to time in Poland as well. This exact issue, more precisely, a short film about the abuse of women, was one of the reasons an online film festival called Herstorie was cancelled at the very last minute. It was organised by the Polish Film Archives between the 4th and 8th of March on the institute’s website, Ninoteka, for International Women’s Day.

According to Hvg.hu, which refers to information obtained by Gazeta Wyborcza,

the festival was “suspended for an undetermined period of time”, right on the 3rd of March by a ministerial decision, while the director of the Archives, Dariusz Wieromiejczyk, was dismissed from his duties and replaced.

According to the journal, the previous director was notified in a phone call by Jaroslaw Sellin, Deputy Minister, to cancel the festival immediately.

When Wieromiejczyk asked for a reason to do so, he was told that Piotr Glinski, Minister of Culture, based his decision on two films. One of them is the aforementioned film directed by Karina Paciorkowska, titled You Don’t Have Distance, while the other one is a 6-minute short film (embedded below) called Vibrant Village, directed by Weronika Jurkiewicz. The latter short film, which was

shot in a little Hungarian village, presents a small Hungarian factory producing vibrators.

None of them would be a novelty as they already hit the big screen in several festivals, both in Poland and outside the country. The Hungarian short film, for instance, was presented to the public during the 17th Verzió Film Festival in Hungary.

After receiving the official reason to postpone the festival, with which the former director of the Archives did not agree, he wrote a letter to the Minister himself, asking for an audience.


“These films are simply about the problems of women living in a modern world. There is nothing shocking, destructive, or morally repulsive about them.

The majority of them won several festival awards. I stand by my opinion that changing the selection of films one day prior to the festival would be regarded inexplicable and would destroy the image of the festival,” wrote Wieromiejczyk in his letter to Glinkski two days before the online event. Their brief conversation ended with the director resigning.

saul fia
Read alsoHungarian films to watch from home

Poland to ban same-sex couples from adopting, even as single parents

https://dailynewshungary.com/we-are-at-war-poles-mark-womens-day-after-abortion-rules-tightened/

People living in same-sex couples will be barred from adopting children in Poland even as single parents, under a new law announced on Thursday by a nationalist ruling party which has made anti-gay policies a major part of its governing platform.

The announcement is likely to intensify a clash between Poland and the European Union over LGBT rights, which the EU says must be respected in all member states, but which Poland calls a threat to its Roman Catholic culture and a purely domestic issue.

The Polish government announced its plan for the adoption ban hours before lawmakers in the European parliament adopted a major gay rights resolution that was seen as a direct rebuke to Warsaw’s recent policies.

Poland already allows only opposite sex couples or single people to adopt children. The change announced on Thursday would require the authorities to vet single people seeking to adopt, and bar them if they are cohabitating with someone of the same sex.

“We are preparing a change where (…) people living in cohabitation with a person of the same sex could not adopt a child, so a homosexual couple will not be able to adopt a child,” said Deputy Justice Minister Michal Wojcik.

Wojcik said the purpose of the measure was to protect children: “It’s about a child’s safety, about its wellbeing,” he said. LGBT rights activists said it would instead punish children by restricting adoptions.

“You really have to be a mean human being to deny children a home, whether that would be in a same-sex or heterosexual couple. Children deserve a home,” activist Bartosz Staszewski told Reuters.

Poland’s curbs on gay rights, which are being mimicked in nearby Hungary, are among several issues that have created friction between the EU and right wing governments in power in those two ex-communist member countries. Brussels also complains that Warsaw and Budapest have curtailed the independence of media, courts, NGOs and academics.

Over the past two years, more than 100 towns and areas in Poland have declared themselves “LGBT-free zones”. The EU has responded by threatening to withhold some European funds from such towns, which the Polish government has offered to replace.

The European Parliament’s resolution, adopted with 492 votes in favour versus 141 against, said: “LGBTIQ rights are human rights”. It declared all EU territory to be an “LGBTIQ Freedom Zone”, a clear rebuttal to the “LGBT-free” designation used in Poland.

Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) says gay rights are a threat to the traditional lifestyle in one of the most Catholic countries in Europe. Its critics say it has turned to politics of bigotry to cling to power, particularly since an election last year, which PiS incumbent President Andrzej Duda narrowly won with an appeal to conservative voters that emphasised anti-gay messages.

Hungary, Poland challenge EU in court over funding linked to rule of law

orbán morawiecki

Hungary and Poland have filed a suit in connection with the mechanism in the European Union budget that links EU funding to the rule of law, the European Court said on Thursday.

The bloc’s budget and post-pandemic recovery package approved in December contains a clause linking funding to observance of the rule of law, penalising member states that misuse EU monies.

Accordingly, the European Commission can recommend suing a member state. Thereafter, the European Council decides over the course of 1-3 months how to proceed regarding abuses of fundamental EU values in relation the management of EU funds.

Meanwhile, the final beneficiaries of the funds are granted access to the monies they are entitled to.

Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga on Thursday said the conditionality mechanism “seriously infringes legal certainty”.

“As we promised last year, we are challenging the rule on conditionality before the Court of Justice of the European Union, together with Poland,” she said.

Defence ministry representatives from Hungary and Poland signed a bilateral military cooperation agreement in Budapest
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