Poland

Foreign minister: Hungary wants to stop migration

hungary against migration

Some want to manage migration, Hungary wants to stop it, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in an interview published in the online edition of German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung on Saturday.

Szijjártó said it was an excellent development that Hungary and Poland managed to agree with Brussels on the rule of law mechanism and, for the time being, it seems the exclusion of ruling Fidesz MEPs from the European People’s Party had been taken off the agenda.

“We have been the target of attacks linked to so-called concerns over the rule of law for ten years and the experiences could not be called positive, neither in terms of equity or fairness,” he said.

He added that these attacks were conducted “repeatedly with a disregard for facts and based on perceptions and political ideologies“.

He said the Hungarian government has now prevented the possible withdrawal of EU resources over political and ideological differences.

The full interview can be read in German HERE.

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Read alsoEU court: Hungary failing to fulfil obligation to protect asylum-seekers

Fidesz MEPs: EU budget Hungary’s ‘historic success’

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Hungary has achieved “historic success” through the European Parliament’s approval of the European Union’s next seven-year budget and post-pandemic recovery package at a plenary session on Wednesday, two MEPs of ruling Fidesz said in a joint statement after the vote.

The Multiannual Financial Framework will provide a total 1,074 trillion euros during the period of 2021-2027.

In the statement, Tamás Deutsch called the EP vote a victory for Hungary, for Hungarian-Polish cooperation, and for Europe as a whole.

“Hungary defended the EU funding it is entitled to at last week’s European Council summit and during the EP plenary on the next EU budget,” Deutsch said, adding that as a result no political conditions could be set for the allocation and use of funds Hungary is due to receive under the EU treaties.

Enikő Győri said that the budget would provide a major investment impetus for member states in overcoming the current health and economic crisis.

She said that the agreement “has shown that the member states are equal”.

“It is proof that, even if we are of a different opinion, we can always reach an agreement in the end. We can rightly celebrate,” she said.

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Read alsoJobbik MEP Gyöngyösi: What is this EU budget agreement actually about?

Latest coronavirus numbers in Hungary’s neighbours – Dec. 14

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Latest coronavirus numbers in Hungary’s neighbours: 

Austria reports 2,641 new COVID-19 cases

Austria reported on Sunday 2,641 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the country’s total caseload to 322,463, according to data published by the Austrian Interior Ministry.

To date, the country’s total COVID-19 death toll reached 4,473, while 281,106 have recovered in total, said the ministry.

Croatia: 3,363 new cases, 78 Deaths

Over the past 24 hours, Croatia has registered 3,363 new cases of the coronavirus infection and 78 related deaths, the national COVID-19 crisis management team said on Sunday.

The number of active COVID-19 cases stands at 25,035.

2,864 COVID patients are being treated in hospitals, including 295 who are on ventilators. 

Romania reports 4,435 new COVID-19 cases

Romania reported on Sunday 4,435 new cases of COVID-19, bringing its total infections to 556,335, according to official statistics.

The country also reported 121 new deaths from the virus, and the total death toll now stands at 13,385,

said the Strategic Communication Group, the official novel coronavirus communication task force.

Romania has decided to extend the state of alert introduced to contain the COVID-19 outbreak by 30 days until Jan. 13, the government announced on Friday.

Serbia reports 4,995 new COVID-19 cases

Serbia reported on Sunday 4,995 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the nationwide tally to 266,432, according to information released by the country’s Institute for Public Health.

The country also reported 56 new deaths from the virus, and the total death toll in Serbia reached 2,331, according to the same source.

Mirsad Djerlek, state secretary at the Ministry of Health, said recently that vaccination of the general population can be expected in the first quarter of 2021, while doctors, police officers and soldiers can expect it before the end of this year.

Slovakia records 505 new COVID-19 cases, 30 more deaths

Slovakia on Monday reported 505 new COVID-19 cases and 30 more deaths, according to the latest official data from the government website.

The national caseload has reached 133,489 with 1,205 deaths, and a total of 98,585 patients have recovered, said the statistics.

1 218 962 PCR tests for COVID-19 have been conducted, according to official figures.

COVID-19 death toll exceeds 2,000 in Slovenia

The COVID-19 death toll in Slovenia has passed 2,000, showed official figures on Saturday.

The country’s death toll rose by 43 in the last 24 hours to 2,041, while the total number of cases increased by 1,744 to 95,479.

The country conducted 6,127 coronavirus tests on Friday, with 28.46 percent of them turning out to be positive.

A total of 1,276 patients were being treated in hospitals, eight more than the day before, 193 of them in intensive care, three fewer than the day before.

According to the COVID-19 tracker site Sledilnik, there are currently 21,150 active cases in the country. The 7-day rolling average per 100,000 residents is 1,526.

Slovenia has been in its second lockdown since mid-October and restrictive measures have been tightened

Ukraine reports 9,176 new COVID-19 cases

Ukraine on Sunday registered 9,176 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the national tally to 894,215, said the country’s National Security and Defense Council.

Meanwhile, the nationwide death toll rose to 15,154, as 156 new deaths from the virus were reported.

A total of 501,564 patients have so far recovered from COVID-19 in the country, said the council.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said in his official Telegram channel on Wednesday that the government decided to introduce a lockdown throughout Ukraine from Jan. 8 until Jan. 24, 2021.

Poland reports 8,977 new COVID-19 cases

Poland confirmed on Sunday 8,977 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the country’s total caseload to 1,135,676, according to the health ministry.
The ministry also announced 188 new deaths from the virus, and the national death toll climbed up to 22,864.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said recently that Poland had signed contracts with various vaccine developers for the delivery of 45 million doses.

“The vaccines will be free of charge, voluntary and will require two doses,” Morawiecki said.

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Read alsoGermany to impose stricter lockdown over “exponential growth” in COVID-19 cases

Orbán’s response to Soros: ‘Europe has not surrendered’

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The European Union has maintained its unity and won, George Soros lost and it would be time for Europeans to “finally send him home to America”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in response to a recent opinion piece that the US financier posted on the commentary website Project Syndicate.

“Soros is shedding crocodile tears and while this will not return the money that the speculator has stolen from millions of people, families and businesses, it does provide some modest satisfaction,” Orbán said in the document forwarded to MTI.

“The most corrupt man and network in the world” has good reason to be disappointed because Europe has not surrendered and Soros’s grandiose plan has been suspended by the European Council, Orban added.

The spotlight is now on budget resources, the recovery fund, and who has access to what and how, the prime minister said, adding that the EU’s funds have so far been kept under strict European supervision by multiple parties in all member states.

“The issue here is about something else,” he said. What was really at stake at this week’s EU summit in Brussels was who will govern Europe in the future, he added.

“Will Europe be governed by the governments elected by the citizens of Member States and their council, or will Soros succeed in building a new power structure?” Orbán said.

The prime minister said this power structure comprised a “network of NGOs disseminating liberal, post-national and post-Christian ideas, along with the mainstream left-wing and right-wing media conveying and reinforcing their ideas; a significant group of MEPs; the Soros envoys brought to the Commission; and a so-called rule of law mechanism linking them all together”.

“The plan is as simple as it is grandiose,” with a “Soros financial center” funding thousands of NGOs, research institutes, analytical workshops and activists who influence the direction of mainstream media, he said. It buys up and links a critical mass of MEPs and puts the people who work for him in key positions in the European Commission, such as Frans Timmermans and Vera Jourova, he added.

“Finally, they push through a piece of legislation that sets political preconditions – gender, migration, an open society, liberal democracy – for Member States to have access to EU funds,” he said.

In line with his plan, countries that insist on their national sovereignty, Christian roots and traditional family model, such as Poland and Hungary, “must be strung up in this carefully devised noose”, Orbán said.

And the reluctant, like the better-off central European countries and the recalcitrant Scandinavians, must be relegated to perform public penance to better understand the essence of liberal reasoning, he added.

Orbán said that fortunately, at the last minute, European governments “came to their senses”. They read the country reports on the rule of law, which he said Soros and Timmermans had dictated to Jourova, and suddenly, everyone understood that the verdict had already been handed down before the trial and that other trials would take place after Hungary and Poland.

Orbán added that the decision of the European Council this week was an open declaration of opposition to “Soros’s attempt to take power”. Political issues cannot be linked to financial issues, subjective criteria cannot be the basis for financial decisions, and “the legal procedure laid down in the Treaty of the European Union cannot be applied in the manner Soros seeks,” he said.

“There is no explanation as to why we Europeans tolerate an American speculator building and buying an EU system of influence with American money,” Orbán said.

“Until European leaders take this last step, we will have to face attempts by him and his people to seize power over and over again,” he added, stating that the migration and gender action plans from the “Soros workshop” were already on the table.

“It’s high time to put an end to George Soros’ European joy ride,” Orbán said concluding his response.

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Read alsoOrbán: Europe ‘must not succumb to Soros network’

Jobbik MEP Gyöngyösi: What is this EU budget agreement actually about?

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Remarks from Jobbik MEP Márton Gyöngyösi:

The European Union’s founding fathers may hardly have thought that the friendship and cooperation based community of European nations gets to the point by the early 2020s where certain member state leaders, after trampling upon the rule of law at home and trumpeting slogans the likes of which were last heard in Western Europe in the 1930s, would go as far as to openly threaten the EU’s vital economic recovery plan with a veto for their own political gains.

The fact that we got here must be a serious lesson for all decision makers who firmly believe in democratic values and the idea of the common Europe.

Despite all the difficulties, the good news is that we can already see the outline of a historic agreement on the common European loan, the recovery fund and the next seven-year budget, along with the most concrete rule of law criteria laid out in the deal. Although it still needs the European Parliament’s nod next week, the lion’s share of the work seems to have been done. Of course, it wouldn’t be a genuine European agreement if it did not allow everyone to interpret the achievements according to their own liking. They can do this for now, since it takes months for the results to be seen.

The biggest debate was about the actual rule of law criteria as the western states are increasingly annoyed by how certain Eastern European governments fail to spend the EU funds on their allocated purposes.

Let us state here that Hungary’s authoritarian Fidesz regime is built on a system where the EU monies are channelled to Orbán’s loyal men and the local oligarchs who secure Fidesz’s election victories through vote buying and electoral frauds in return, often keeping the local people in feudalistic political and societal conditions. No wonder Orbán has categorically opposed the idea of introducing the rule of law criteria, even with no binding force, into any section where money was at stake. For this struggle of his, he found a moderately reliable ally in the Polish government in which the issue caused a serious divide between the coalition partners in the end. 

Did Orbán achieve what he wanted? Clearly not. What he achieved by his combative stance and blatant threats in the past months was that he can now challenge the rule of law criteria in the European Court of Justice and if things go his way, he will not have to face such sanctions before the 2022 elections that would jeopardize his pre-election financial plans. Of course, this is just an opportunity and not a security for him as the Court may make a decision much sooner. On the other hand, Orbán has squandered all his remaining political capital for this opportunity: he is now facing truly serious consequences in the European People’s Party. The German and Austrian parties which protected him thus far have had enough of him by now and the V4 Group, which had long been considered as something of an anti-EU alliance, is now completely disbanded: the Czech Republic and Slovakia never shared Orbán’s views while the Polish government coalition got into a crisis.

And yet, many publicists interpreted this agreement in the Hungarian media as a victory for Orbán, since he gained time, in theory at least.

That is an interesting approach, especially in light of the fact that the Hungarian PM has just signed something he specifically had Fidesz’ parliamentary majority “forbid” him last summer and to which he responded by defaming the German nation in an intolerable tone in his letter to Manfred Weber just as recently as a few days ago. Of course, if you have just a little insight into how Fidesz operates, you know that  Orbán typically aims to gain time just for the next few months. If you think this is grand strategic statesmanship – it’s your loss.

Fortunately, the European Union has a longer foresight than just two years and, historically speaking, this agreement may be considered successful since we were able to make common progress in several areas where such steps would have been unthinkable even a couple of years ago. The direction is set – and the freeloaders like Orbán might stay with us for a little longer but they have no future in this community.

Europe has made a decision and I hope we, Hungarians are also going to make a good decision at the right moment and show the door to those who look to the 1930s instead of the 2030s for inspiration.

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Read alsoThe Guardian: Hungary is worse for the EU than Brexit

EU summit – Opposition: Orbán ‘suffered defeat’

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The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) has insisted that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán suffered a defeat at the European Union summit on Thursday.

DK MEP Klára Dobrev told an online news conference today that Orbán “might have thought he could sell his defeat at home as a victory”, but it soon became clear that “not a single letter” of the proposal made by the European Parliament and the European Council on rule-of-law protections had changed.

Nevertheless, Orbán gave up his planned veto of the EU budget, she added.

Dobrev noted that EU Commissioner Vera Jourova and MEP Petri Sarvamaa, the European Parliament’s chief negotiator, expected a European court ruling on the rule-of-law provision — a key concession to Hungary and Poland — in a matter of months rather than years.

Meanwhile, it was reaffirmed, she said, that the legislation would come into force on Jan. 1 after Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte requested clarification.

“After that, it would be hard to maintain that Viktor Orbán left Brussels victorious,” Dobrev said.

Still, Hungarians, she said, will receive EU subsidies. “Businesses, families, NGOs, health care and local governments won,” the DK politician added.

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Read alsoHungary, Poland reject ‘what is unacceptable’ – Politicians celebrate the EU summit

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Read alsoBudapest, Warsaw mayors: Hungary, Poland governments ‘back from the brink’

Budapest, Warsaw mayors: Hungary, Poland governments ‘back from the brink’

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The Hungarian and Polish governments “stepped back from the brink” in the last moment; “they could be hailing a victory but in fact they laid down their arms in Brussels”, the mayors of the two capitals said in a joint statement on Friday.

The prime ministers of the two countries “tried to thwart the (EU’s) rule of law mechanism, but it has come out unharmed”, Gergely Karácsony of Budapest, and Rafal Trzaskowski, his Polish counterpart, said in their statement.

The mayors said they trusted that the rule of law mechanism would be applied as soon as possible to “prevent systemic stealing of EU funds and attacks against the independence of the judiciary”.

Karácsony and Trzaskowski urged efforts against economic and social impacts of the epidemic financed from the EU’s Next Generation fund enabled by Thursday’s agreement.

According to the statement, the pandemic has the most detrimental impacts in cities.

“The war against the crisis must be fought in the cities,” the authors said, and called on the EU to ensure that national governments involve municipalities in each step of the planning and distribution processes concerning European recovery funds.

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Read alsoHungary, Poland reject ‘what is unacceptable’ – Politicians celebrate the EU summit

orbán morawiecki eu budget veto
Read alsoThe Guardian: Hungary is worse for the EU than Brexit

Soros: Compromise with Hungary, Poland ‘worst of all possible worlds’

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US financier George Soros said in an opinion piece published on commentary portal Project Syndicate on Friday that a compromise prepared by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to prevent a veto by Hungary and Poland of the European Union’s 2021-27 budget and Covid-19 recovery fund is “the worst of all possible worlds”.

“The European Union is facing an existential threat, and yet the EU’s leadership is responding with a compromise that appears to reflect a belief that the threat can simply be wished away,” Soros said.

He said that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s “kleptocratic regime” and, to a lesser extent, the illiberal Law and Justice (PiS) government in Poland, are “brazenly challenging the values on which the European Union has been built”.

“Treating their challenge as a legitimate political stance deserving of recognition and a compromise solution will only add – massively – to the risks that the EU now faces,” Soros said.

“The primary victims of the deal that Merkel has reportedly struck with Orbán will be the people of Hungary…All I can do is to express the moral outrage that people who believed in the EU as the protector of European and universal values must feel,” Soros concluded.

Read the full article HERE!

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Read alsoSoros: Europe must stand up to Hungary and Poland – Interview

The Guardian: Hungary is worse for the EU than Brexit

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Timothy Garton Ash, a historian, political writer, and columnist of The Guardian, says Hungary and Poland are blackmailing the EU over the rule of law, and their staying in the EU could be worse than Britain leaving.

According to The Guardian’s columnist, the new relationship between the EU and Britain, as well as Brexit’s influence will only be seen clearly after at least 5 or 10 years. Regarding the EU’s future, another question is whether the Scots will want to break up with England and rejoin the European Union. However, Ash claims that the EU does not talk that much about the topic of Brexit anymore as the attention shifted towards “other enormous crises”. It has to put through the new budget and recovery fund that Hungary and Poland threatened by veto, holding the rest of the EU to ransom “to further weaken the proposed rule of law conditionality on those funds.”

The Guardian columnist poses the question of whether democratic Britain leaving or undemocratic Hungary staying is more dangerous for the future of the EU.

He says that, compared to what Viktor Orbán and Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime ministers of Hungary and Poland, are doing to their partners in the EU, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher looks like “a gentle Europhile.” In comparison to Britain that was a major net contributor to the EU budget, Hungary and Poland are major net beneficiaries of it. The budget and the recovery fund together could contribute more than 6% of Hungary’s GDP – and still, the two countries, in his opinion, refuse to accept some minimal rule of law conditions that are essential to maintaining the democracy and shared legal order of the EU.

Ash says that with the veto, Hungary and Poland are basically refusing to let Germany and the Netherlands make transfers to southern Eurozone countries that were hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, such as Italy and Spain, unless the EU keeps letting them use great amounts of money, without constraints – supporting, for example, Orbán’s “increasingly undemocratic regime”, as well as his family and friends.

The Guardian columnist calls the ruling parties of the two countries populist, xenophobic, and nationalist, who will continue to do however they please, supported by EU money, if the “blackmailing” over the rule of law succeeds.

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Read alsoForeign minister: Hungary ‘won’ in EU budget debate

Hungary, Poland reject ‘what is unacceptable’ – Politicians celebrate the EU summit

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“We have fought for our rights and rejected everything that isn’t acceptable for our nations,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at a press conference held with Mateusz Morawiecki, his Polish counterpart, in Brussels late on Thursday.

The European Council on Thursday night accepted the EU’s budget for the 2021-2027 financial cycle and its Next Generation EU recovery fund. Regarding the rule-of-law provision in the document, the summit added a clause stating that the mechanism can only be triggered if a member state’s actions harm EU financial interests.

At the press conference held at the Polish embassy in Brussels after the summit, Orbán said the debate was “not only about the rule-of-law mechanism.” “The EU’s very future was at stake.”

Orbán said that the achievements of the summit served to protect EU unity. “The agreement is a good outcome in terms of Europe’s future, because it has become obvious that the EU can only operate as a community of nations,” the prime minister said.

In the next step, the national parliaments will have to accept the agreement, Orbán said. “We have done our job as best we could,” he said.

The agreement protects the European Treaty by preventing the rule-of-law mechanism from being used for political purposes, he said.

The agreement can only be amended with an unanimous agreement of all member state leaders, he said.

Hungary will exercise its right to bring the rule-of-law mechanism before the European court to see whether it is compatible with EU law, he said.

Morawiecki said the agreement was a joint achievement of the Visegrad Group, and a signal of the four countries’ loyalty to each other. After “hard and stressful talks”, the agreement contains stronger legal guarantees regarding rule-of-law conditionality than the original draft did, he said.

Poland will also take the mechanism before European court, Morawiecki said. Whether the Polish and Hungarian suits will be brought together or separately is yet to be decided, he added.

Novák: Hungary has won battle

Hungary has won a battle through the agreement concerning the European Union’s budget achieved on Thursday night, Katalin Novák, minister without portfolio in charge of family affairs, said in a video published on Facebook.

Novák said the agreement was “not only about finances but the present and future of Hungarian children and whether we can freely live in Europe as Hungarians”.

Novák said she believed in a Europe “where there is freedom, where member states can freely decide how they want to live, where people can think differently and were each nation can independently decide about its own present and future”.

The Hungarian government has withstood “empirial endeavours to force ideologies on Hungarians: it has rejected mass immigration and the gender ideology just as it had rejected communism”, Novák said.

Justice minister: Hungary’s sovereignty preserved

Having received the guarantees it demanded in connection with the dispute over rule-of-law conditionality, Hungary has succeeded in preserving its sovereignty, Justice Minister Judit Varga said in an interview on Friday.

Varga cited the prime minister as saying that ideological battles should not be fought during the pandemic.

“The most important victory is that they understood this,” she told public broadcaster Kossuth Radio. Also, countries most in need of the EU recovery package will get their money quickly, she added.

No member state, she said, could be blackmailed into abandoning its national identity and standpoint on ideological issues. Further, Hungarians’ money has been protected, Varga said.

The minister said it was only Hungary and Poland that had “jogged everyone’s memory that the EU treaties require unanimity on certain issues such as European values, including the rule of law.”

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Read alsoBreaking! Hungary and Poland withdraw from the veto on EU budget

Szájer sex scandal – is the organiser of the orgy really a wanted Polish swindler?

szájer fidesz mp scandal

József Szájer, a former MEP of Fidesz, resigned from his position after he was caught by the Belgian police taking part in a gay orgy and carrying drugs in his bag last week. Now it seems that the organiser of the party, David Manzheley, is wanted in Poland; there is an international arrest warrant against him, but the Belgian authorities did not extradite him to Poland three years ago.

According to Blikk, Manzheley’s past was dubious even before, but most people doubted Polish sources saying that the guy was a swindler. Interestingly, even though the Polish police have been searching for him for years, they created his page on the relevant website only on December 3. That was the day when Mr Manzheley started to talk about the orgy and mentioned that

 even Polish politicians took part in it.

It is also inexplicable why a wanted person gives interviews with his face and name. Furthermore, the Belgian police did not take him into custody after the orgy, which would have happened if they obtained an international warrant.

However, based on some documents the Cracowian court sent to Blikk, it seems that the local police issued a warrant of arrest against him. The Belgian court rejected its execution in 2017. Because of that, Manzheley can live in Belgium without being extradited to Poland where, based on a November 2010 ruling,

 he must serve 14 months in prison for fraud.

Furthermore, the Polish Ministry of Justice said that Mr Manzheley’s real name was Przemyslaw P., and they suspect him of having committed forgery, blackmailing, and defamation. The Polish Wadowice Naszemiasto also found that the man’s father is a retired police officer while his grandfather is a baker in Wadowice who recognised his grandson from a photo.

Manzheley wrote to Blikk that he is not the man the Polish papers write about, and the aim of fabricating such news is only to protect those politicians who took part in the orgy. To justify that, he sent a lot of documents to Blikk, but the Hungarian tabloid wrote that none of them states unambiguously that he is right. For example, he sent a French ID to underpin that he was born in Malta instead of Poland, but it did not show the date of his birth which could clear up how old he is exactly. That is important because

Polish authorities say that he is 36 while he states that he is only 29. 

Interestingly, based on the ID he sent, his name is Adam B., and he said that he changed his name to David Manzheley in 2017 to honour an Israeli relative of his.

Mystery surrounds the issue, and nobody can tell whose story is true just yet. However, it seems that everything he said about the November 27 sex orgy proved to be right later.

EU summit – Orbán: ‘We’ve protected Hungarians’ money’

orbán morawiecki eu budget veto

After a deal was struck on the EU budget and recovery fund at the European Union summit in Brussels on Thursday evening, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a video on Facebook that “common sense has prevailed: we’ve protected Hungarians’ money.”

Orbán said there had been a last round of negotiations with the Hungarian delegation. “We ran the last lap.”

“Everyone played their last card,” he said, adding that an agreement was struck. “I must say, common sense has prevailed.”

“We won because in hard times, during the epidemic and the economic crisis, there’s no time for ideological or political debates that hold us back from taking action,” he said.

The prime minister said that in the end, European unity had been preserved.

Orbán added, however, that proposals were still on the table that many member states like Hungary would dislike, referring to migration and anti-family measures “planned by Brussels”.

He said there would be disputes ahead, “but today we’ve definitely achieved three things.”

Orbán said Hungary had succeeded in preventing the European basic treaty from being bypassed and from forcing on Hungarians “decisions that we don’t accept”.

The prime minister added that “Hungarian money will also be protected”.

Charles Michel, President of the European Council, announced on Twitter that an agreement has been reached on the EU’s multiannual budget and recovery fund at the summit.

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Read alsoBreaking! Hungary and Poland withdraw from the veto on EU budget

EU leaders pave way for implementation of landmark recovery package

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The leaders of the 27 European Union (EU) member states on Thursday reached an agreement on the EU long-term budget and recovery fund, paving way for the implementation of the recovery package totaling over 1.8 trillion euros (2.19 trillion U.S. dollars) to tackle the socio-economic consequences of COVID-19 pandemic.

The landmark recovery package will drive forward EU’s green and digital transitions, European Council President Charles Michel tweeted during the EU Summit, which kicked off Thursday in Brussels. He underlined that “now we can start with the implementation and build back our economies.”

“Europe moves forward!” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on her Twitter account, noting the recovery package will power the EU’s recovery and build a more resilient, green and digital bloc.

The EU’s recovery package, also the largest fiscal stimulus package ever that was set up in July, combined the long-term EU budget for 2021-2027, or the so-called Multiannual Financial Framework worth nearly 1.1 trillion euros, and the recovery fund, named Next Generation EU, which was financed with a borrowing of 750 billion euros.

In addition to underpinning the EU’s recovery from the pandemic, the recovery package was also designed to help transform the EU through its major policies, particularly the European Green Deal, the digital revolution and resilience.

In November, the Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached a political agreement which ensures that the EU institutions cooperate even more effectively to make sure the package goes to where the needs are, in a timely and transparent manner.

The recovery package needs to be ratified by all member states before coming into effect. Poland and Hungary once blocked it as they opposed linking the access to the fund with the rule of law.

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Read alsoBreaking! Hungary and Poland withdraw from the veto on EU budget

Coronavirus – Vaccine to be voluntary, free of charge in Hungary

The Hungarian government is committed to providing voluntary and free vaccination against the coronavirus, swiftly and in an organised fashion, the Head of the Prime Minister’s Office told a regular press briefing on Thursday.

Gergely Gulyás called on all wishing to avail themselves of the vaccine to register at vakcinainfo.gov.hu. Registration forms will also be delivered by post from Friday, he said.

Gulyás said it was too early to tell whether the epidemic had peaked in Hungary. The government hopes, however, that it has at least “plateaued”, and case and fatality numbers will start to fall soon, Gulyás said.

Adhering to epidemic-related regulations is instrumental for that to happen, he warned.

‘Victory’ at EU summit possible

The government has chances to prevail at the European Union summit starting on Thursday, where the heads of state and government could unanimously approve a document with conditions set out by Poland and Hungary, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office also said.

Gergely Gulyás told that talks between the German chancellor and the Polish and Hungarian prime ministers had been successful, resulting in an agreement that was acceptable to Germany and at the same time fulfilled all Hungarian and Polish demands.

The government’s aim remained clear throughout the talks: EU support must not be made conditional on rule of law criteria, he said.

This is not the time to resolve ongoing debates about migration and they must not be linked to the budget, he added.

Hungary has made it clear that it cannot be blackmailed in these issues and demanded political and legal guarantees to ensure that Hungarian voters’ decisions should not be disregarded, he said.

In reference to the EU’s migration action plan, Gulyás said Hungary will refuse to host 34 million migrants at any cost.

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Read alsoBreaking! Hungary and Poland withdraw from the veto on EU budget

Foreign minister: Hungary ‘won’ in EU budget debate

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Hungary has “won” the debate on the European Union’s budget as access to EU funding will not be tied to political or ideological conditions, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in a video on Wednesday.

“We have won because we fought for the national interest,” Szijjártó said, adding that otherwise “Brussels would have decided that we must accept illegal migrants or be stripped of EU monies.”

The Hungarian government has prevented that development and “will continue to do so in the future,” Szijjártó said on Facebook.

Justice Minister Judit Varga said it had been proven that “it is worth fighting for Hungary’s interests always and in every situation”.

“It has ben worth fighting so that (EU) subsidies are not tied to ideological requirements amid a pandemic,” Varga said on Facebook.

According to Varga, the agreement is in line with the EU treaties, “it respects our national identity and provides protection against political blackmail”.

“We have won! The friendship of Poland and Hungary has won!” she said.

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Read alsoBreaking! Hungary and Poland withdraw from the veto on EU budget

Breaking! Hungary and Poland withdraw from the veto on EU budget

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The Hungarian and Polish governments have accepted the German presidency’s proposal to settle the veto on the EU budget, and now the proposal awaits Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to accept the agreed framework, a Polish government source told Reuters. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reached a Hungarian government source, who also anonymously confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

According to Portfolio, Deutsche Welle shared the details of the German package offered in exchange for vetoes. Based on this, it is estimated that the Hungarian and Polish governments would make big concessions.

“We are preliminarily in agreement but there is some pressure … the aim is to have this done before the EU summit (on Thursday)”

– a government source requesting anonymity told Reuters. This pressure may indicate that the German presidency has already convened member states’ ambassadors in Brussels this afternoon for a conciliation on the EU budget. Now those involved in the case are waiting for the final confirmation in Brussels.

Bloomberg was informed by Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Gowin that an agreement had been reached, but he could not talk about its details. Portfolio also covered Gowin’s press conference this morning, in which he mentioned that “there is an agreement in the Warsaw-Berlin-Budapest triangle”, but it may also cover other European capitals. He also made it clear that he was very confident that an agreement would be reached.

Meanwhile, 444.hu reported that the news page of the Polish RMF radio presented the framework of the agreement. The point is that they do not resort to the rule of law mechanism, they adopt it by a qualified majority, but at the same time freeze its application. As has been the case for weeks, the Polish and Hungarian governments will have the opportunity to challenge the law in the European Court of Justice, and until there is a verdict, the mechanism will not be applied.

PM Orbán will certainly not have to face the withdrawal of EU funds before the next Hungarian parliamentary election, which is expected in the middle of 2022 at the earliest – suspects the newspaper.

According to the source, a detailed explanatory material will also be published on how and in what cases the rule of law mechanism can be used.

Meanwhile, the Polish domestic political situation also made the veto fragile. Also, Hungary could have lost at least € 4 billion net and Poland net € 65 billion if the recovery fund had really only been set up among the other 25 member states, in line with recent leaks.

Thus, the prospect of a significant loss of money also contributed to the eventual withdrawal of both the Polish and Hungarian governments’ vetoes.

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Read alsoHungary, Poland committed to cooperation in budget veto, says FM Szijjártó

Luxembourg court rejects Hungary, Poland claim against directive on posted workers

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The Court of Justice of the European Union on Tuesday rejected a claim by the governments of Hungary and Poland aimed at scrapping an EU directive which was designed to reinforce the rights of employees posted in other EU countries.

Under the directive, amended in 2018, employees are entitled to wages and other conditions applicable in the country where they are posted.

Hungary and Poland contested the directive, saying that it curbed the freedom of services, and argued that the changes had been passed on a basis of social policy rather than on the regulations governing the freedom of services.

In its ruling, the court said that

the relevant laws of member states had been harmonised and the European Parliament was entitled to change its stipulations in line with changing conditions.

The EP had deemed it necessary to strengthen the rights of posted workers in order to ensure fair competition between posted and local businesses, the court said. The authors of the changes may also have concluded that workers posted over 12 months may be in a similar position to their local peers in the given country, the court added.

The directive stipulates that posted workers should be ensured employment conditions of the country they work in, and this does not violate the principle of freedom of services, the court said.

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Read alsoECJ: Hungarian law on higher education breaches EU law – UPDATE

Hungary draw England and Poland in 2022 World Cup qualifying group

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Hungary draw England and Poland in 2022 World Cup qualifying group
Marco Rossi’s men’s national team have a mouthwatering FIFA 2022 World Cup qualifying campaign to look forward to after being pitted against England, Poland, Albania, Andorra and San Marino in Monday evening’s draw in Zurich.

Hungary head coach was philosophical on hearing the outcome but was also bullish in his assessment of the group and of his team’s chance of progression:

“Once again, it has been proven that I am generally out of luck with such draws, although it’s true that we could have been drawn in a more difficult group” Rossi stated immediatedly after the draw.

“I think we’ve been drawn in a moderately difficult group of six. One noteworthy point isthat the group includes three teams led by Italian head coaches. Although both of our stronger group opponents only finished third in their Nations League groups, this should not deceive us, as England were semi-finalists at the last World Cup and are currently fourth in the world rankings, while the Poles, who are in 19th place, have Robert Lewandowski, who holds the record for most goals scored in a World Cup qualifying campaign with 16 strikes. Albania, I think, is one of the stronger teams to come from the fourth pot of seeds. Andorra is ranked 151st and San Marino is not in the top 200, but it is precisely in the case of Andorra that we should remember these smaller teams can be terribly dangerous if we do not take them seriously enough. This time, again, we are not the favourites to win our group, but we have managed to overturn form on paper several times in recent months, and we will do our best to be able to do it again!”

Rossi concluded.

The full draw:

A: Portugal, Serbia, Republic of Ireland, Luxembourg, Azerbaijan.
B: Spain, Sweden, Greece, Georgia, Kosovo.
C: Italy, Switzerland, Northern Ireland, Bulgaria, Lithuania.
D: France, Ukraine, Finland, Bosnia, Kazakhstan.
E: Belgium, Wales, Czech Republic, Belarus, Estonia.
F: Denmark, Austria, Scotland, Israel, Faroe Islands, Moldova.
G: Netherlands, Turkey, Norway, Montenegro, Latvia, Gibraltar.
H: Croatia, Slovakia, Russia, Slovenia, Cyprus, Malta.
I: England, Poland, Hungary, Albania, Andorra, San Marino.
J: Germany, Romania, Iceland, North Macedonia, Armenia, Liechtenstein.

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Read also6:3 – Golden Team vs. England, The Match of the Century- Video