A Wizz Air flight was evacuated last week because of a false bomb threat. That was the second time passengers had to leave a plane of the Hungarian low-cost airline due to a menace that later proved false. Here are the details!
Anonymous call about a bomb
According to airportal.hu, the flight concerned took off in Tel-Aviv, Israel and was due to land in Krakow. The passengers had to leave the Airbus A321neo-type plane on evacuation slides in the Polish city because of a bomb threat they received on Saturday late night.
Authorities searched the plane after the anonymous report about the bomb but found nothing. World Israel News said passengers complained for they had to wait for half an hour in the dark. Afterwards, they were transported to the terminal but received no information about what happened.
This was the second false threat in just one week Wizz Air received
Since the Krakowian airport has only one runway, the facility was closed during the investigation. As a result, several other planes had to land on nearby airfields.
Passengers received their luggage six hours after the landing, at around 3 am.
As we reported before, another Wizz Air flight made an emergency landing in Budapest because of a bomb threat last Wednesday afternoon. The plane was flying over Lake Balaton when the pilots received information about a possible bomb on board. They immediately turned back to Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport. The passengers had to leave the plane through the emergency slide. The flight took off in Bari (Italy), and its destination was Krakow.
According to some experts, it cannot be ruled out that the price of a euro will slowly rise to 440 forints. Last week, the forint has repeatedly hit its historic lows against the euro. Not even in Bulgaria or Albania is the euro so expensive!
Hungarian forint is doing worse than ever
While even war-torn countries are able to stabilise, Hungary is experiencing a deep downturn, Pénzcentrum.hu reports. The euro is threateningly close to 400 forints. The central bank tried to improve the situation by raising interest rates, but this did not help either, as the forint weakened even after the announcement on Thursday.
Central European currencies
Other currencies in Central Europe have weakened especially since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, but none to the extent of the Hungarian currency. In addition to the Hungarian forint, Pénzcentrum.hu looked at the currencies of nine countries to see which weakened the most in the period after January 1st and after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
What they found was the fact that the Hungarian forint is leading the weakening. Our currency has weakened by 11 percent against the euro since the very first day of the year, compared to only 4.5 percent for the Polish zloty.
The V4 countries are also coping quite well with the deterioration of their currencies, which were also weakened by the war. The Czech koruna took a nosedive at the beginning of March, but had recovered somewhat by 7 March.
Ukraine and Russia
It is also difficult to explain why Ukrainians, invaded by Russia in February, have been able to maintain the stability of their currency, writes the newsportal. Evidently, in the weeks after the outbreak of the war, the currency has weakened slightly – close to 33 hryvnias to the euro – and on 7 July, the euro was worth 30.17 hryvnias. This is even slightly better than the figure of 1 January.
On 1 January, the price of a euro was 85 Russian roubles, a figure that rose brutally after the outbreak of the war, to 148 at the beginning of March. Despite the near bankruptcy and technical insolvency, the euro is now below 65 roubles. This is also better than the January figure.
11 percent weakening
What is shocking is that the forint has depreciated by 11 percent since January. Among our neighbours, the Ukrainian currency has even strengthened, the Serbian dinar has strengthened minimally and the Croatian kuna is at 0 percent – neither did it strengthen nor weaken. Of the countries surveyed, only the Polish zloty has depreciated, apart from the forint: the euro is now 4.35 percent more expensive in Poland than it was at the beginning of the year.
“On the 30th of June, I arrived at the airport. My flight from Warsaw to Bergamo was scheduled for 6:45 pm. The flight was delayed twice, then canceled” – one of our readers shared her nightmare story with us via email. Below you can read her letter substantially unchanged.
Around 9:30 pm we received a notice of cancellation. All the passengers were advised to go to the customer service. I was second in line, and a representative of Wizz Air collected my personal details asking if I would like to reschedule my reservation. She went to the room and I assumed she was working on booking my next flight and making reservations for the hotel. There were two more Wizz Air employees assisting passengers.
As I was waiting I heard from the person on the right that they were trying to reschedule for the next day but no flight was scheduled. At almost 11 pm, a person who I believed was helping me returned to the counter and asked if I needed anything. You can imagine my confusion. I simply asked if she forgot about me. At this point, emotions at the counter were rising because an employee of the airline denied assistance and advised passengers to make reservations for the hotel independently and call Wizz Air the next day.
By midnight, several passengers received confirmation about the flight scheduled for 2nd and 3rd of July but no word from the hotel. Some of the passengers booked flights for different airlines and made hotel arrangements independently.
I agreed to take a flight on the 2nd of July and asked for a hotel room.
Wizz Air employees refused to provide support for hotel reservations arguing that they were not obliged to do so.
I requested an employee ID and said that I would make reports. That was the moment when the Wizz Air representative raised his voice, telling me to get out of the airport otherwise he would call security and “make sure I would never be able to enter the airport again and set my foot on the plane”. Other passengers overheard the argument and took my side offering support and providing their phone numbers in case confirmation from witnesses was needed. An old couple wrote their name and number stating “you report this and we will confirm everything that happened”. More than 10 people offered their support and gave their phone numbers.
I firmly stood my ground saying that I would not leave until I got a hotel room since my flight was in two days and I had no place to go.
Employees of the airline continued to be extremely rude but had printed confirmation for the hotel for me and other passengers. Transportation was not available though. People who had been waiting for the bus for two hours decided to take a taxi or an Uber. I was among a group who left the airport around 4 am by Uber paid by my credit card. Hotel was almost 30km away from the airport.
On the 2nd of July, the flight was canceled again, I lost valuable time and missed two important meetings. No other flights were available. LOT had openings for the 3rd of July but the tickets cost over USD 500. Finally, I decided to take the bus along with a couple other passengers. The trip to Bergamo took 27 hours and I had to change buses three times.
With all the ups and (mostly) downs recently, the Hungarian forint has become one of the weakest currencies not only in the region – in Central and Eastern Europe – but in the whole world.
Second weakest currency in the world
In a year, only the Turkish lira and the Argentine peso have fallen more. On top of that, in the last three months, apart from the Chilean currency, the forint has been the weakest in the whole world, Portfolio.hu reports.
Since the beginning of the year, the forint has weakened by almost 7.5 percent against the euro. This cannot be explained merely with the difficult global economic environment, a war in our neighbourhood and high inflation. These are problems that affect our regional competitors in the same way, Portfolio.hu writes.
At the beginning of March, the record low level of the forint could be blamed on the war, but since then something else has been the problem. In three months, the forint has weakened by 8.4 percent against the euro, while the Polish zloty has depreciated only by 1.1 percent and the Czech koruna by 1.2 percent.
Events that affect the Hungarian currency
Until early May, the forint moved broadly in line with the Polish zloty, and that was when the split began. If we take a look at the events of the last two months, we might find the reasons why the Hungarian currency has been plunging. Portfolio.hu has gathered these events:
– In April, the European Commission launched a rule of law procedure against Hungary, and no agreement has been reached on the disbursement of EU funds.
– The market was not fully satisfied with the government’s fiscal adjustment package, which is partly based on special taxes that send a negative message to the business environment.
– The deteriorating fundamentals of the Hungarian economy are becoming increasingly apparent, especially the external imbalance, with the balance of payments and external trade balances both turning strongly negative.
– The dollar has strengthened: the US currency has gained 7% against the euro in three months. And the forint follows the dollar’s movements in the opposite direction, meaning that when the US currency strengthens, the forint usually weakens.
The bad news is that these negative effects are not yet abating, and there is no sign of them improving.
The victims of a bus accident involving Polish pilgrims twenty years ago in Balatonszentgyörgy were commemorated at the memorial site on Friday.
Twenty of the passengers of the Polish bus died in when the vehicle turned over and many others were injured. Miklós Soltész, the prime ministerial state secretary for church and national relations, told the gathering to mark the occasion that the friendship between the two nations was deeply rooted and should not be allowed to be upturned.
Polish ambassador to Hungary Sebastian Keciek said in his speech delivered in Hungarian that the victims of the accident had been helped by the local Hungarian community “and many people of good will, for which we are extremely grateful”.
Representatives of the municipality, police and disaster management authority also attended the commemoration.
A memorial plaque and the symbolic grave of Emánuel Aladár Korompay, a Hungarian-born victim of the massacre committed against Polish military officers by the Soviet secret police NKVD, was inaugurated in the Temple of Divine Providence and Pantheon in Warsaw on Saturday.
A holy mass was celebrated by Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz, the archbishop of Warsaw, in honour of Korompay, a linguist and the last Hungarian lector working at the Warsaw University before WWII, and his Polish wife and three daughters.
“Emánuel Korompay and his family serve as a symbol of patriotism, heroism and Christian values,” the cardinal said in his homily. Concluding the ceremony, he blessed and placed a handful of soil taken from the site of the 1940 Kharkhiv massacre in a symbolic grave dedicated to Korompay.
The ceremony was attended by Orsolya Zsuzsanna Kovács, the Hungarian ambassador to Poland.
Born in Budapest in 1890, Korompay joined the Polish army in 1919 and fought for Poland’s independence. He later got married to Mieczyslawa Grabas and obtained a Polish citizenship as well. He worked as lector at Warsaw University where he edited the first Polish-Hungarian dictionary. Serving as a reserve captain in 1939, Korompay was captured by the Soviet army and executed along 3,740 officers in the spring of 1940.
Transport officials of the Visegrád Group countries have agreed to speed up preparations for the construction of a high-speed rail network across their countries and to step up efforts to transport grain from Ukraine, the Ministry of Technology and Industry (TIM) said on Friday.
Europe’s current railway capacities are not enough to transport all the Ukrainian grain which until now had been delivered via the Black Sea to the west on schedule, state secretary Dávid Vitézy said. The V4 officials agreed at their meeting in Budapest that their countries will do their utmost to aid Ukraine as well as Africa and Asia, which rely on Ukraine’s exports, he said.
The V4 countries are exploring new areas for cooperation with a view to expanding their capacities for cross-border transport within the European Union as well as for mapping out transport opportunities via the River Danube, Vitézy said.
The TIM will assign top priority to the improvement of the international integration of Hungary’s rail network and the development of relations with areas beyond the border, the statement said.
All of the V4 states are working on
the development of the high-speed railway line linking Budapest and Warsaw via the Czech and Slovak capitals,
Vitézy said. Hungary can obtain the environmental permit for the Budapest-Győr section of the line within the next year, he said. Slovakia is currently planning the route of its section of the line while the Czech Republic and Poland are in the detailed planning stage, the state secretary added.
According to the statement, the project will shorten travel times between Budapest and its neighbouring capitals to less than two hours. The journey from Budapest to Prague would take three-and-a-half hours and the full Budapest-Warsaw trip will be five-and-a-half hours, with the trains on the line reaching speeds of up to 320kph.
A Polish national brutally stabbed a young Hungarian girl to death last November in Bradford, North England. He first attacked Borbála Benkő (24) and then turned against her roommate. Borbála had no chance to survive, while Klaudia Rogozinka suffered life-threatening injuries. Zbigniew Soj, the perpetrator, said demons possessed him: that is why he committed the horrific deed.
According to RTL Híradó, the court gave Mr Soj a life sentence for murdering the young Hungarian girl. Furthermore, he received 14 years for attempting to kill her roommate. That means he will remain in jail for at least 45 years, szmo.hu summed up.
His victim, Borbála, taught children in Bradford, where she was sent by a Christian organisation. The attack happened after the man had watched a horror movie and drank alcohol.
The victims lived in separate flats in Sherborne Road, Great Horton, Bradford. Zbigniew Soj attacked the girls with two knives while they were asleep. First, he attacked Borbála and then turned to the other Hungarian girl, Klaudia. He injured her and tried to commit suicide afterwards. Police caught him on the spot, and he immediately confessed everything.
He said that he wanted to experience what it is like to kill somebody.
At the court hearing on Friday, one of the police investigators said that the girls knew the man and trusted him. They could never imagine that he could commit such a horrific deed against them. The officer said it was a cruel and unexpected attack on the two defenceless girls.
Based on the statement of the West Yorkshire police conducting the investigation, the mother of the murdered girl said that Borbála would have had a bright future ahead of her. “She devoted her life to teaching children” Her dream was to start a school for special needs students in Hungary. “She will not be able to carry it out, but we will create a foundation,” she added.
“It will be named after her.”
The Hungarian girl is mourned by many in Hungary and Bradford. People commemorated her with flowers, photos, candles and masses.
Zbigniew Soj was featured in British magazines years before the Bradford horror because he walked 100 kilometres to draw attention to his unbearable tinnitus. The Polish man, who has several college degrees, can be released from prison 45 years later at the earliest.
“accepted there had been sexual contact during the killing.”
The British magazine added that Soj stabbed Borbála more than 40 times. Some of the blows were so harsh that she suffered bone damage. Afterwards, he entered the other girl’s unlocked flat and tried to strangle her. He also stabbed her nine times causing severe chest, shoulder and arm injuries.
He only stopped when the girl yelled at him in Polish that her family and friends needed her. Then he left the scene and Klaudia could finally call 999. However, the murderer returned shortly thereafter to tell her that he was suffering from depression and
was jealous of other people who were able to lead a normal life which he was not capable of anymore.
Ms Rogozinka has physically recovered from the horrors that happened to her but still suffers from a sleeping disorder and mental issues.
A group of Hungarian pilgrims left Budapest on Monday morning for the southern Polish town of Czestochowa, a religious site with the Black Madonna, a treasured icon kept in the Jasna Gora Monastery, the organisers of the pilgrimage tour said.
They will be joined by pilgrims from Transylvania to form a large group of 200, they told MTI, adding that at a time of a receding pandemic and a war nearby, such a pilgrimage was more needed than ever. It also serves to revive the centuries-long friendship of Poland and Hungary, they said.
“As Czestochowa is a Hungarian-founded religious site, it’s almost like we’re going home,” priest Antal Michels told MTI at the departure. “We are taking with us a lot of prayers for peace now with a war going on in neighbouring Ukraine.”
Black Madonna pilgrimage to Czestochowa begins. Photo: MTI
The pilgrims on Tuesday will attend a holy mass celebrated in the Hungarian Chapel of the Divine Mercy Sanctuary in Krakow administered by Hungarian bishop József Tamás and Marek Jedraszewski, the Archbishop of Krakow.
They will travel on to Czestochowa on Wednesday to participate in a holy mass and a walk to Calvary at the monastery where they will be joined by Miklós Soltész, the Hungarian state secretary for religious relations, and Tibor Gelencser, Hungary’s consul general in Krakow.
The Black Madonna of Czestochowa is a Byzantine icon from the 6th or 9th century. The icon was taken to Poland by Hungarian Pauline monks in 1382, who founded the Jasna Gora Monastery in the same year.
read also: Celebrate Pentecost at the charming village of Hollókő – PHOTOS
Polish President Andrzej Duda awarded four Hungarians post mortem with the Virtus et Fraternitas medal in recognition of their efforts to help Polish refugees during the second world war, in a ceremony held in the park of the presidential Belweder Palace in Warsaw on Wednesday.
The honours were handed over to the descendants of Margit Károlyi, Erzsébet Szapáry, Antal Szapáry and Edit Weiss.
Countess Margit Károlyi was founder of the Hungarian-Polish Committee for Refugees. She personally received refugees from Poland and
made arrangements for their accommodation and education for their children.
Countess Erzsébet Szapáry and her brother Antal accommodated the first Polish refugees and helped them leave Hungary for Western Europe. Erzsebet was also active in rescuing orphaned Jewish children from Poland.
Edit Weiss, the daughter of industrialist Manfred Weiss,
helped Polish refugees to travel on to Iraq and France, and saved many Polish Jews from deportation.
During the war, nearly
120,000 Poles fled to Hungary and found shelter across the country,
the Hungarian-Polish committee playing a crucial role in assisting them.
Army leaders attending a meeting of Visegrad Group chiefs of staff discussed current issues in cooperation between national armies on Tuesday, the Hungarian chief of staff said on Tuesday.
Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi said Ukraine’s chief of staff was also invited but the war situation prevented him from travelling to Debrecen for the meeting.
Poland’s chief of staff was also not in attendance,
he added.
“In the current situation, national interests may have priority,”
Ruszin-Szendi said.
The Czech, Slovak and Hungarian army leaders attending the meeting reviewed the situation that has developed in light of the war in Ukraine and tasks resulting from the European Union battlegroup entering service next year, he added.
As we wrote yesterday, German arms and French helicopter plant to open soon in Hungary, read details HERE.
President Katalin Novák, assessing the Bucharest-9 summit she attended on Friday, said that the declaration adopted in the Romanian capital “clearly and unequivocally reflects the position I expressed in my inaugural speech a month ago”.
“We have a successful B9 meeting behind us,” Novák said in an English-language post on Facebook.
Making reference to the statement she made at her inauguration, the president said:
“We strongly condemn Russia’s unjustified aggression against Ukraine which has ruined Europe’s peace, causing enormous human suffering and destruction.”
“We mourn the tragic human sacrifices. We have reaffirmed our commitment to the sovereignty and the democratic processes of Ukraine. This also means that fully guaranteeing the rights of the Hungarian minority in Subcarpathia is the obligation of the Ukrainian state at all times,” Novák said.
She said that because of the war in Ukraine the security of food supplies “may be endangered in those areas where living conditions are still difficult”. “So we can expect a further increase in migration,” she said.
Novák noted a swift progress made in the development of Hungary’s armed forces.
“By 2024, we will clear an old backlog and the defense budget will reach 2 percent of the GDP,” the Hungarian president said. “We will live up to our commitments and we will not stop: the security of our country, our region and our allies come first.”
Earlier that day Novák highlighted in a Facebook post her invitation by Romanian and Polish counterparts, Klaus Iohannis and Andrzej Duda, and recalled that the B-9 comprised the four Visegrád Group countries, the three Baltic states, plus Romania and Bulgaria, striving for the unified representation of NATO members in the region. The president said yesterady’s summit was about
“finding common answers to the challenges of war in our neighborhood”.
Two EU Member States agree with Viktor Orbán that one of the European Union’s primary goals should be to achieve a ceasefire and peace negotiations.
Hungary, Italy, and Cyprus agree that a ceasefire and peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine should be one of the European Union’s priorities. But other Member States are urging a tough line on Russia.
EU summit
Reuters got a sneak peek at the 19 May draft of the final declaration for the EU summit on 30 and 31 May, atv.hu reports. The document states that the European Union is
“unwavering in its commitment to help Ukraine exercise its inherent right of self-defence against the Russian aggression,”
Reuters has learned from EU delegates at last Friday’s meeting that the Italian ambassador is proposing changes to the text. These changes were then backed by Hungary and Cyprus. The Italian suggestion is that the document should include a reference to peace talks, with an immediate ceasefire as one of the main objectives.
Opposing views from Hungary and Cyprus
As is well known, Hungary opposes the EU’s oil embargo, while Cyprus opposes a draft that would ban Russian citizens from buying property in Cyprus. But other Member States, Reuters reports, are calling for tough action against Russia. The Baltic countries and Poland are the most committed supporters of this approach.
Latvia, for example, has called for even clearer language on military support to Ukraine.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen herself, took a hardline stance in her speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos:
“Ukraine must win this war, and Putin’s aggression must be a strategic failure,”
Hungary has long taken the position that it cannot support the oil embargo in its current form. Thus, it is forced to use its veto power in the absence of adequate safeguards. As atv.hu writes, Orbán does not even want to discuss the proposal at next week’s EU summit, a decision made clear to Charles Michel.
“[Negotiating a sanctions package] would only highlight our internal divisions without giving us a realistic chance to resolve our differences. I therefore propose that the next European Council should not address this issue,”
Hungarian PM Orbán wrote in a letter to the president of the European Council.
At the same time as equity markets are busily searching for the answer to whether Wall Street is entering a slump, the strength of the recent reshuffle has weakened on the currency market. In the CEE3 group of currencies: the zloty has lost momentum, but it still has room to strengthen later this year, the Czech koruna should remain stable, and the forint, which has depreciated strongly recently, may go down even further.
The Czech koruna was dragged into trouble in May by the announcement of changes coming to the position of the central bank governor. Only currency interventions halted the dynamic rise of the EUR/CZK exchange rate towards 25.50. As it turns out, these were mainly verbal interventions, and the sale of foreign currencies on the market was carried out on a limited scale. The effectiveness of these actions was largely due to the credibility that the Czech National Bank (CNB) had built up over the years in the eyes of investors. As a result, the Czech koruna made up virtually all of the sharp depreciation.
What do the Czech and Swiss national banks have in common?
Ales Michl’s appointment to lead the central bank carries the risk of a less severe fight against inflation and a softer policy. Much will depend on still unknown additional staff changes to complete the shuffle in the monetary authority.
“Regardless of these potential changes to CNB structures, we forecast that although the koruna’s strength peak is likely to be behind it, the EUR/CZK exchange rate will remain below 25.00 for the rest of the year. The more powerful and persistent inflationary pressures in the Czech Republic (the CPI reading for April was 14.2% y/y), the stronger the preference for the koruna to be stronger. The CNB, along with the Swiss Central Bank, is the most active in Europe in seeking to influence the exchange rate to achieve its policy objectives. Comparing the situation of the CZK and the zloty: the zloty has more room to strengthen later this year, while the koruna should remain stable,” says Bartosz Sawicki, Conotoxia market analyst.
A market review of the Hungarian government’s plans
The forint is in a completely different situation. Since yesterday it has been heavily overvalued, and in relation to the zloty, it has lost 3% in recent days. The EUR/HUF exchange rate is only 1% away from the peaks recorded during the panic sell-off after Russia’s attack on Ukraine. For comparison: the euro is much closer to this year’s lows (4.48 PLN) than to the record-high level of 5 PLN reached at that time.
“The source of the forint’s troubles are the Hungarian authorities’ further unconventional and even shocking ideas.
Calling for a state of emergency, the Hungarian government is planning to introduce additional taxes to be imposed on banks, retail chains and the energy sector, among others. International investors immediately review such ideas through currency sell-offs. The Hungarian economy has been the least balanced and has been structurally the weakest in the region for years. At the moment, wages and prices are spiralling even more strongly there than in Poland. Relations with the EU are even worse, and the prospects of taming inflation are the least realistic. Therefore, a negative approach is taken to the forint. The Hungarian currency may be the weakest and the most unstable in the CEE3 group (Central Eastern Europe 3), especially if the global stagflation scenario comes true, i.e. a combination of high inflation and anaemic economic growth,” says the Conotoxia analyst.
Hungary and Poland are calling on the European Commission to make arrangements to ensure that the two countries could receive the allocations they are entitled to from the EU Reconstruction Fund, President Katalin Novák said on Tuesday after meeting her Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda in Warsaw.
“It is in Hungary’s fundamental interest that the country should increase its sovereignty and independence from Russia in terms of energy supplies as well, but this requires access to resources,” she said at a joint press conference held with Duda.
Novák noted Hungary’s dependence on Russian energy, saying that this is why “we are in a more difficult situation than most other EU member states”. She said that Hungary had however voted in support of the five previous EU packages of sanctions against Russia and expressed thanks to Duda, adding that she would appreciate his help for Hungary to represent its interests in connection with the EU’s proposed sixth package of sanctions.
Novák said that making Poland the destination of her first international visit in the capacity as Hungary’s new president was not primarily a diplomatic move but an “obvious choice, resulting from our thousand-year friendship and the fact that Poles and Hungarians still stand close to each other in terms of their values”.
“We both stand on similar footing, Christian conviction, faith, the protection of traditional families and national interests are important to us,” she said.
Hungary and Poland could always rely on each other and “we will not allow anyone to drive a wedge between us”, Novák said.
Young people setting up family and having children would be in the focus of talks had it been a peaceful time, but war was started by Russia in a common neighbour country, Ukraine, 83 days ago, she said. Novák said
Hungary condemned the aggression of Russian President Vladimir Putin attacking a sovereign state and she presented ten points that she said were Hungary’s responses.
“We forever say no to every effort aiming at the restoration of the Soviet Union and we want peace here in Hungary and also in neighbouring countries,” she said. “This is not our war but it is also being fought against us, peaceloving Hungarians who want security and growth,” she added. She said Hungary demanded an inquiry into war crimes and their punishment. “Hungary is not neutral, but stands on the side of innocent victims and justice,” she added.
Novák said Hungary supported Ukraine’s accession to the community of European countries and was ready to make sacrifice for peace but “we will not approve decisions that demand more sacrifice from Hungarian people than the pain they cause to Russian aggressors”, she added. She said Hungary was ready to act as an intermediator between the sides at war, to assist in the continuation of peace talks.
“We insist on the rights of ethnic Hungarians living in Ukraine now and we will insist on them also after the war,” she said.
Novák said Hungary and Poland faced similar difficulties after the war broke out, receiving a flow of refugees, but both countries deserve “excellent marks” for demonstrating humanity.
The Hungarian president offered 5 million forints (EUR 13,000) from her presidential budget to the Nazareth Primary and High School to help the school in supporting children arriving as refugees from Ukraine.
Novák after the talks laid a wreath at the statue of President Lech Kaczynski at Pilsudski Square.
Hungarian preisdent Novák in Warsaw, Poland. Photo: MTI
She afterwards paid tribute to the tree planted in honour of Emanuel Aladar Korompay, a Hungarian victim of the Katyn massacre, in the garden of the Nazareth school.
As we wrote a few weeks ago, Polish Senate vetoed Hungarian MOL’s expansion because the company is controlled by Russia, details HERE.
The Black Swan 2022 international special operations military exercise concluded in Szolnok, in central Hungary, on Thursday, with a day of drill demonstrations.
The NATO exercise involved over 700 troops from nine countries, along with 15 aircraft and other equipment, according to a statement. Major General Tamás Sándor, inspector for Special Operations of the Hungarian Defence Forces Command, said at the Szolnok helicopter base that all partner countries of the Regional Special Operations Component Command (R-SOCC) were involved in the exercise led by Hungary, including Austria, Croatia, Slovakia and Slovenia.
The Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and the US were also participating,
he said.
Sándor said the R-SOCC last year reached initial operational capability. He said the aim of the Black Swan exercise was for the R-SOCC to deepen that capability and to be able to carry out special operations on the territories of three countries. The command also aims to achieve full operational capability by the end of 2024 and to be able to go on stand-by from 2025, he said.
The 12-day exercise is being held in Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia with some 715 soldiers having carried out more than 40 special operational tasks,
Sándor said. The tasks are being synchronised and led by the Hungarian R-SOCC command, he added.
Unlike last year, this year’s exercise also saw the participation of Czech and Romanian troops in the performance of tasks in Hungary, Slovakia and Norway, the major general said.
The exercise mainly covered military areas, but operations were also carried out in 13 civilian areas,
Sándor said.
He said the R-SOCC set up an international, Hungarian-led staff in Szolnok to lead the operations, with the Árpád Bertalan Brigade playing a key role in their execution. The brigade stationed one unit each in Slovakia and Romania for the event, the major general said. Also,
for the first time, Hungary’s counter-terrorism force TEK was included in the exercise,
he added.
Brigadier Rob Stephenson, Deputy Commander of NATO Special Operations Headquarters, attended the exercise, among others.
Hungary is among the top investment targets of Taiwanese companies in Europe despite the Orbán administration’s China-friendly policies. Is this a unique Hungarian success story attracting Chinese and Taiwanese working capital in that small Central-European country? Below is the answer based on the analysis of portfolio.hu.
Hungary is in the second place in Europe
According to a report about the EU-Taiwan relationship published last year, the Netherlands has the highest volume of Taiwanese direct investments (49 pc). However, the second place belongs to Hungary (18.8 pc). The data surprised many in the old continent because Hungary’s government has strong ties with China. Despite receiving a lot of criticism from the west because of the constantly developing Budapest-Beijing relationship, seemingly, that does not harm the Taipei-Budapest economic ties – portfolio.hu reported.
Tensions between China and Taiwan have been rising for years. Officially, the island state, which is 2.5 times smaller than Hungary, is not independent but belongs to China. De facto, Taiwan has its legislation and economic system as well as military. True, only 14 countries have established diplomatic ties with the island state. On the other hand, Taiwan is fully absorbed in the global economy. For example, it is the world’s biggest chip and semiconductor manufacturer. Interestingly, China has 55 pc of the country’s direct investments followed by the British Virgin Islands (13.5pc), the USA (6.3pc) and the EU (2.1pc).
The Central European region has been a popular investment target for Taiwan since 1990
Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic were among the most popular investment options following 1990 for East Asian companies. The second wave of investors came after their EU accession, and many East Asian firms bought up assets in the region after the 2008 global financial crisis. Interestingly, the Chinese and Taiwanese multinational companies arrived together in Hungary after 2000. Meanwhile, smaller firms chose the Czech Republic and Poland.
But why is the Central European region so attractive to them? Firstly, there is a well-trained labour force in those countries. Secondly, wages are lower than the EU average. Thirdly, Taiwanese companies want to get access to the EU markets. Moreover, the EU membership provides institutional stability. Finally, there are a lot of strategic agreements with the governments and tax exemptions.
In Hungary, the Orbán administration tripled the financial support of the multinational companies. They especially aim to attract car manufacturers and electronic firms. Taiwanese companies receive almost the same benefits as the Chinese ones – a businessman said. The difference is that there are no strategic agreements, and the Hungarian foreign minister does not attend the inauguration of developments. That is because they do not want to jeopardize the country’s relationship with China. To sum up, Hungary maintains an unfriendly political attitude toward Taiwan but the opposite is true when it comes to the economy.
Smaller companies tend to choose the Czech Republic because Prague has better political ties with Taipei. The Taiwanese media reports about the events in Czechia quite frequently, depicting the country as an attractive destination for the locals. However, big companies do not follow emotions, only crude financial interests. And in that regard, it seems Hungary is unbeatable.
The European parliamentary group of ruling Fidesz on Thursday rejected “shameful attacks on Hungary and Poland” after the EP passed a resolution calling on the European Commission and Council to step up action against Hungary and Poland for alleged breaches of the rule of law.
The resolution demands that Hungary and Poland make a “genuine commitment” to protecting European values and “meaningful progress” thereof, and that recovery funding should be withheld until “both countries comply fully” with recommendations regarding the rule of law. Fidesz MEP Balázs Hidvéghi called for the cessation of
“absurd accusations” against Hungary
and respect for the right of Hungarians to their sovereignty.
“In reality, we are being attacked because the European left wing can’t tolerate that Hungary’s nationally minded government has taken a firm stand for classical European values and traditions, and goes against the mainstream on issues such as migration and child protection,” he said.
Hidvéghi said that when Hungary joined the EU eighteen years ago, it was clear that the country wanted to belong to a free community based on mutual respect and traditional European values. He called it “intolerable” that Brussels, and especially the European Parliament, had turned into a
“self-righteous, post-modern witch-hunt club” seeking to impose “a narrow-minded, radical ideology” on all.
Those resisting, he added, were being blackmailed with sanctions and aggressive attacks. István Újhelyi, MEP of the opposition Socialists, said the resolution had called on the EC to use all the means at its disposal to ensure that the citizens of Hungary and Poland are not deprived of the advantages of EU funding simply because their governments had violated the rule-of-law principle.
“It solely depends on the government when Hungary gets access to the frozen EU funds,” he said. He said the European Union had not launched an ideological or political “with-hunt” against the Hungarian government, but it demanded the observance of rules and norms based on common values as well as guarantees for the fair and transparent use of EU funds. “It is high time the government takes action and strikes a compromise with the European Union,” Hidvéghi said, adding that
any delay would cause great harm to the Hungarian economy and the ordinary Hungarians.
