Serbia

Breaking – six countries recognise Hungarian immunity certificate

Six countries – Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Turkey and Bahrein – have agreed to recognise Hungary’s vaccination certificate, a foreign ministry official said on Wednesday.

Tamás Menczer, the state secretary for communications and international relations, said in a video posted on Facebook that the Croatian authorities require Hungarians to present the slip of paper containing the dates of the two jabs they received as well as the plastic vaccination card, and will

allow entry from the 14th day after the second shot.

As regards Turkey, the country has agreed to allow non-immunised minors accompanied by parents carrying an immunity card entry, Menczer noted, adding the ministry is negotiating to reach similar agreements on minors with the other countries as well.

“We can talk about travel abroad because our country is far ahead of other European countries in terms of its vaccination drive,”

said Menczer.

The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) said in reaction that the card alone does not serve as a free pass for entering Croatia.

Judit Földi Rácz, DK’s board member, told a press conference that the government had “yet again misinformed Hungarians” on an important Covid-related question, noting the foreign minister’s last week’s announcement on Hungary and Croatia mutually allowing free entry of immunity certificate holders.

Everything you need to know about travelling to and from Hungary

travel tourism airport passport

There have been many uncertainties since the coronavirus struck the world last year. Since then, many countries and pharmaceutical corporations have developed several types of vaccines to combat the coronavirus epidemic. Unfortunately, there are still some things that are uncertain, and so there can be a great deal of confusion between different countries’ restrictions. In this article, we would like to shed some light on what you might need to keep in mind when travelling to Hungary or other European countries from Hungary.

Let us start with the current restrictions concerning Hungary. After the vaccination programme reached 4 million inoculated people, the country had its largest reopening for a long time.

  • The curfew was pushed back to midnight.
  • Stores can be open until 11 pm.
  • Services and the outside areas of catering units are available for everyone.
  • With an immunity certificate, you can go to the inside areas of catering units as well as visit recreational facilities (zoos, wildlife parks, theatres, cinemas, baths, etc.)
  • Gyms can only be used by people with an immunity certificate or by an athlete certificate

You can read about the immunity certificate in more detail HERE, and you can find out the latest information concerning foreigners’ vaccination and certificates HERE.

There have been talks about a universal European Green Card that would confirm people’s inoculation, prior virus infection or test results so that those people can be exempt from certain restrictions when travelling between EU or Schengen countries.

According to Hvg, as it currently stands, the earliest this card can be expected to launch is the 21st of June, but due to diplomatic issues and disagreements about vaccines, this might be heavily delayed.

The current way to go, it seems, are bilateral agreements. This means that two countries agree with the other, independent of the EU, that they will accept each other’s certificates for vaccination, prior infection and negative results. Hungary has currently six such agreements:

  • Serbia
  • Slovenia
  • Montenegro
  • Bahrein
  • Turkey
  • Greece (2 weeks after the second jab)

Now, how can you travel to other countries from Hungary? This is the tricky part. There is no established basic system in the EU, and every country can decide on their own restrictions. According to Hvg, most countries, however, use the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s system. It has four levels: green, orange, red, and dark red.

Brussel’s main view is that EU countries should lift travel restrictions for those who come from regions with the green classification.

In Europe it is Finland and Norway, but there are some non-EU countries which have similar classification:

  • Australia
  • New-Zealand
  • Ruanda
  • Singapore
  • South-Korea
  • Thailand
  • China, Hongkong, Macao (in case of reciprocation)

But again, using this system is not mandatory; Hungary, for example, does not use it, which can really complicate things, especially because Hungary is in the red classification, which means that travel restrictions are in effect if you would like to visit other countries from Hungary.

What can you do then to know what restrictions are in effect and where? Well, it is tough to say since there is no consensus on things.

The major things to look out for are the following:

  • Is there any required quarantine, and if so, for how many days?
  • What is the age of exemption?
  • Is a negative test required beforehand?
  • Is there any unique registration platform for travelling?

Hvg also suggests checking border crossings, as you may not pass at certain checkpoints. Public transportation might have a reduced schedule or other restrictions. And also, flight tickets are not necessarily a guarantee that the flight will not be cancelled.

Also keep in mind that some countries require different time periods to pass after receiving each vaccine.

Unfortunately, in this sense, the Hungarian certificate is not the best, as the date of complete inoculation is not printed on the card, nor the type of the vaccine. As for the EMA accepting certain vaccines, that might not be an issue. Recently, it accepted the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine, which many countries did not seem to trust at first.

Tourist attractions might also have certain restrictions, so it is best to check before planning your travel.

Most countries require people to wear masks (some even the type: FFP2) at least indoors, and keeping the proper distance is also a widespread requirement.

For the best site to gather some information about the travel restrictions in the EU, you should visit Re-open EU, where you can find the latest news in a plethora of languages. A good source of information would be your country’s embassy in your destination or the target country’s government website.

Védettségi Igazolvány Immunity Certificate Plastic Card
Read alsoWhat would happen if you were to forge an immunity certificate? – Updated

Want to get an immunity certificate? It costs EUR 3-600 in Hungary

Hungary great reopening

The more benefits those who have an immunity certificate acquire, the more people would like to have one, even if it is fake. 

According to euronews.com, the debate whether it is good to link “privileges” to the so-called green certificates started in January 2021. Then, most said that it would be discrimination to let only those enter a cinema, a restaurant or theatre who have an immunity certificate. However, this opinion faded with time and gave space to those who say that the vaccine should go hand in hand with privileges during the pandemic. 

The number of governments thinking so is rising even though most of them say that they will allow citizens to substitute the green certificates with negative tests. 

Interestingly, Hungary is at the forefront in acquiring Eastern vaccines and in making immunity certificates. The first ones appeared in February, and there are already significant privileges linked to them. For example, those can sit inside a restaurant, enter a cinema, bath, theatre, and gyms who have the card. Furthermore,

everybody can return from abroad or travel to Serbia, Bahrein, Montenegro, Slovenia, and Croatia with a Hungarian green certificate.

If there is demand, there will be support. Thus, it is not surprising that social media became flooded with advertisements about how to get a fake immunity certificate.

Euronews started to investigate the issue and found that the most expensive, but the most trustworthy, path is to get one with the help of general practitioners. GPs can send more names to the National Public Health Centre than they inoculated. Based on sources who wanted to remain anonymous,

the process costs HUF 100-200 thousand (EUR 300-600).

One can try to forge such cards, but it is difficult to include all the security elements. In Hungary, there have not been such scandals yet, but in the USA, it happened already, for example, in Chicago. Furthermore, there is a rise in the number of posts on Facebook or TikTok offering fake inoculation documents.

The easiest is to forge a positive antigen test,

send it to the authorities, and you will receive a card valid for four months. Another method is to send somebody who already got the infection before to the antigen test. Since social security cards do not contain a photo and nobody checks any other ID cards of the “patient”, such solutions are almost untraceable. 

That is why the Hungarian government acted quickly and,

from last Sunday on, all those who the authorities catch forging or using fake documents or cards risk a 5-year-long sentence in prison.

Moreover, all those who go into a community with such forged cards are risking lives, which is morally unacceptable. Nobody’s friend or relative will be protected by a fake card.

You can travel to Croatia with a Hungarian COVID certificate!

Croatia sea coast

Hungary has agreed with Croatia to mutually recognise immunity certificates allowing holders unrestricted travel between the two countries, the foreign minister said on Facebook on Wednesday.

Under an agreement reached earlier today,

“Hungarian nationals who have been vaccinated can travel to Croatia with no obligation to isolate or get tested,”

Péter Szijjártó said.

The technical details will be posted on the Hungarian Foreign Ministry’s Consular Service website during the week, he said.

Talks with other neighbouring countries are ongoing on the matter of accepting certificates, Szijjarto said.

The first neighbour Hungary agreed with on mutually recognising immunity certificates was Serbia last week.

As we wrote in THIS article, in case you already got your immunity certificate, you can profit from certain advantages when travelling to a neighbouring country of Hungary and when returning. As all countries are trying to boost their vaccination programme to return to normality and have a relatively free summer, some of them already grant certain advantages and easement to those possessing the holy certificate.

Here is a comprehensive guide to crossing the Hungarian border and to know what to prepare for in these neighbouring countries. First of all,

even if you do not have a social security card (TAJ), you can still be vaccinated in Hungary.

The inoculation of foreigners without TAJ card will begin mid-May, and registration already started yesterday. It is very important to note that the rules of the immunity certificate and how to obtain it have changed!

Now, let us focus on the rules and exceptions when crossing the Hungarian border to go to a neighbouring country.

Further details in the ARTICLE.

How to travel to Hungary’s neighbouring countries

In case you already got your immunity certificate, you can profit from certain advantages when travelling to a neighbouring country of Hungary and when returning.

As all countries are trying to boost their vaccination programme to return to normality and have a relatively free summer, some of them already grant certain advantages and easement to those possessing the holy certificate. Here is a comprehensive guide to crossing the Hungarian border and to know what to prepare for in these neighbouring countries.

First of all, even if you do not have a social security card (TAJ), you can still be vaccinated in Hungary.

It is very important to note that

the rules of the immunity certificate and how to obtain it have changed!

Now, let us focus on the rules and exceptions when crossing the Hungarian border to go to a neighbouring country, summed up by index.hu.

If you wish to travel to Romania, get ready for quarantine. Usually, it is 14 days, but if you have a PCR test that you are obligated to do in 72 hours anyway before entering the country, lockdown decreases to 10 days. You do not need a PCR in 4 cases:

  • kids under the age of 3,
  • those who received their second jab at least 10 days earlier
  • those who suffered through the virus at least 90 days before entering the country and can officially prove it
  •  commuting workers.

You do not need to go to quarantine in the following cases:

  • you travel through the country and spend less than 24 hours and do not show any symptoms
  • those who spend less than 72 hours in the country and have done a PCR maximum 72 hours earlier
  • those who already had covid at least 14 days earlier but not earlier than 90 days.

In case of a special occasion (funeral, getting married, childbirth or emergency medical appointment), you will need to submit a request in advance to avoid quarantine.

Based on the latest news, a bilateral agreement is to be signed between the two governments in days, which might enable Hungarian, Romanian citizens having an immunity certificate to travel free between the two countries.

Ukraine does not take any chances. You need a PCR test conducted 72 hours before your entry into the country, together with a certificate stating the objective of your travel and an insurance covering a possible covid treatment you may need in the territory of the country, and you also need to download a “stay at home” quarantine monitoring application. In case you deny all these above, a 14-day-long quarantine awaits, but you are still obligated to get a test in 24 hours. If negative, you are free to go.
Of course, in case of a special occasion, like a funeral or a business trip, you can skip quarantine with the appropriate documents. However, border control officials will decide whether they grant or deny entry to the country.

Slovakia also plays safe and sends you to quarantine for 14 days, even if you have the immunity certificate.

The only exceptions are:

  • at least 14 days have passed since you received the second dose of an mRNA-based vaccine
  • more than 4 weeks have passed since receiving the first dose of a vector vaccine
  • at least 14 days have passed since receiving the first jab of a vaccine, after having been through covid
  • in case you have been through covid in the last 180 days, and you can prove it.

You can enter without a test, but you are obligated to take one 8 days later. Commuters and students will need a negative PCR or antigen test from the past 7 days. On the other hand, those travelling through the country, cargo shippers and diplomats are not required to have a test.

Slovenia is free for those Hungarian citizens who have the immunity certificate, thanks to the two countries’ bilateral agreement.
Those, however, who do not have the plastic card will need to spend 10 days in quarantine, except for the possession of a negative PCR test taken a maximum of 48 hours earlier. (The test needs to be taken in an EU or Schengen country, USA, UK, Australia, Israel, Canada, Russia, New-Zealand)
Quarantine is also ruled out for those:

  • who have been through the virus between the past 21 and 180 days
  • who have been vaccinated at least 14 days earlier with the second jab of the Moderna, Sputnik V, CoronaVac, Sinopharm, or with the Janssen vaccine
  • who got the first shot of the AstraZeneca or the Covishield at least 21 days prior
  • who were completely vaccinated by the Pfizer serum at least a week earlier.

Commuters will need a PCR or a quick antigen test from the past 7 days. The same rules apply to special occasions when you return in 72 hours.

Serbia welcomes those Hungarians who were fully vaccinated and have the immunity certificate. Arriving from Hungary, you either need a negative PCR test from the last 48 hours, or else you are subjected to 10 days in quarantine. This, however, can be skipped with a test taken in Serbia.
In case you would travel for business, you do not need a test, but you have to notify authorities 24 hours prior with a written request submitted to the Chamber of Industry and Commerce of Serbia.
Children under the age of 12 do not need a test in case you have a negative one or a temporary or permanent residence permit. The same applies to agricultural and humanitarian workers.

Austria is much stricter. You will need a negative PCR not older than 72 hours or a negative antigen test not older than 48 hours. The country still obligates you to a 10-day-long quarantine that can be left the earliest 5 days later with a negative test in your pocket.
When it comes to students, commuters, anyone wishing to visit a family member, or if you travel for business reasons, you will still need a test.
Restrictions are only lifted in case of:

  • an unforeseen or urgent family matter (serious sickness, death, funeral, childbirth)
  • a family matter than can be previously planned (birthday, marriage, baptism)
  • agricultural work or animal care
  • maintaining the traffic of passengers and cargo.

Commuters need to re-register every 28 days apart from needing a negative test 72 before entering. It can also be taken in Austria in the next 24 hours.

And finally, the most awaited country, Croatia. They are earnestly waiting to welcome Hungarian tourists. If you travel from Hungary, you will need a negative PCR or antigen test from the last 48 hours. You can also take the test in Croatia, but in this case, you will need to register the place where you start your quarantine. If you do not test, a 10-day-long quarantine is mandatory. These restrictions stay in effect even if you only travel for some days for personal matters.
No restrictions apply for those who:

  • received the first dose of the vaccine
  • have the immunity certificate
  • have been through covid the past 180 days and can prove it with a positive test taken at least 11 days before travelling.

Those provenly travelling for emergency business purposes do not need a test. This exception involves students, health care workers, paramedics, daily commuters, cargo shippers, or those travelling to attend a funeral or an emergency medical treatment.
However, everyone needs to give a statement on the length of their staying, including the address they will stay at, in case we talk about several days.

As seen above, the immunity certificate is a very useful plastic card. Nevertheless, trying to trick the authorities with a fake certificate is not worth it at all.

Here is what you can expect if you do so against our warning and get caught.

employee mask covid coronavirus
Read alsoHungarian employees among the least willing to get vaccinated

Serbian man wanted for Vienna murder arrested in S Hungary

Police Arrest Sexual Predator 2

Hungarian police have arrested a Serbian national wanted by the Austrian authorities for an alleged robbery and the murder of a jeweller in Vienna, at the Tompa border crossing with Serbia, police said on their website on Friday.

The 21-year-old man, identified as Haris G, is suspected of having

killed the jeweller and robbed his shop in October 2020.

The man who was on his way from Serbia sought entry to Hungary with documents showing him with a new identity on Thursday. He was arrested within an hour after an information exchange between the Austrian and the Serbian authorities.

Haris G has been placed in pre-trial detention awaiting a decision about his extradition by a Hungarian court, police said.

As we reported before, Hungarian police arrested a couple of days ago a Hungarian sexual predator targeting underaged girls, raping victims. Unfortunately, it seems that the cases of non-consensual sexual intercourse have grown quite significantly in Hungary as in recent months, the police have closed quite a huge number of investigations, forwarding the documents to the prosecutor’s office.

Compared to the news stories of recent years, the number of crimes in which the perpetrator raped its victims seems to be unusually high.

And to make matters worse, on many occasions, those victims were underaged. Just within two months, this has been the fourth criminal case involving rape that Daily News Hungary has reported.

Back in February, a family father in Sárkeresztúr tried to rape his own 7-year-old daughter, Valentina, on the child’s name day (Valentine’s day), while two of his other children were in bed beside them. He even threatened his own children to not talk about the incident.

In March, the victim of another rapist was a pregnant woman.

The attacker raped the pregnant woman in a field and was attempting to have intercourse with the victim for a second time when the pregnant woman was able to run away.

The most recent case was closed this April when the stepfather of a Hungarian girl was arrested for raping his daughter for 5 years. The victim was so scarred that she could only tell the story four years after the incident. The most recent criminal case was luckily uncovered much sooner, and it seems that the perpetrator could only hurt one victim before his intentions were found out.

According to the Police, the crime was reported by one of the psychologists of the child welfare service in Pest county, back in March.

The report was about a 23-year-old man who have raped an underaged girl and was suspected of contacting more young girls.

The police were able to identify the man and arranged his arrest on the 19th of April.

The investigation later found out that the man can be considered a sexual predator and was in touch with several underaged girls via an online application. He met his rape victim online as well and the perpetrator gradually got close to the unsuspecting girl. They exchanged nude photos and the predator used this to gain leverage on his victim. The man told the girl that if she does not have sex with him, then he will show her parents the nude images of her. The girl got so scared that she agreed the perpetrator and met him in an abandoned forest near Gyál on the 14th of March.

“Then the 23-year-old man – despite the continuous protest of girl – raped her”.

When the man was arrested, the authorities have found several contacts of other underaged girls on his phone as well as nude photos of other girls. According to the sexual predator, he did not meet with the other girls, but the investigation has not been fully concluded yet.

Featured image: illustration

Secretary of Hungarian communities at Bread of Hungarians ceremony in N Serbia

Árpád János Potápi Bread of Hungarians ceremony

Árpád János Potápi, state secretary in charge of Hungarian communities in other countries, attended a ceremony held within the annual Bread of the Hungarians programme in northern Serbia’s Senta (Zenta) on Saturday.

At the ceremony, in which the grain collected from Hungarian communities across the Carpathian Basin was consecrated, Potápi said the Hungarian nation would be able to restart once the coronavirus epidemic was over.

“Hungarians went through much worse difficulties before and they have always been able to have a new start; it will be like that again,” he said in his address.

Concerning the programme, he said that “bread is an important symbol” for Hungarians, adding he wished that symbol “should always be there in our life and help us to a shared Hungarian future”. A shared future, however, requires a victory over the pandemic in all communities, he said, and called on people to register for vaccination and get the shots “so that family members can again meet each other”.

eu foreigner ministers
Read alsoHungary expects Ukraine to respect Hungarian community’s rights

Jobbik MEP Gyöngyösi: Redrawing the borders of Balkan underway?

orbán announcement

Remarks from Jobbik MEP Márton Gyöngyösi:

Nowadays we rarely reflect on what an enormous challenge the European Union took on with the eastern enlargement project in the 2000s. Unfortunately, most of the countries admitted in that decade rather added to the existing problems. Due to all the negative experience, we got to the point where the EU is now unable to offer real prospects for the West Balkan. EU politicians are not without blame for the Balkans policy, just like they had their fair share of responsibility in the failures of the enlargement in 2004 and 2007. If we keep sweeping the mistakes under the rug instead of admitting and correcting them, the ideological, political and economic void created by Europe’s passivity will be filled by others: for instance, the illiberal Central European and Balkan advance party of such foreign powers as Russia and China.

The other day, the Croatian media reported that Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša allegedly handed European Council President Charles Michel a document supposedly urging for redrawing the Balkan borders, including the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.

The media suspected Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić as the backers of the plan. Although the parties later denied even the existence of the document, let alone having shared it with each other, allegations of this nature are rarely raised in connection with such politicians who nobody could possibly imagine to be spending their time on redrawing Balkan borders.

Even though they have not reorganized any borders yet, the activity of the “network” characterized by Orbán, Janša and Vučić is very visible and palpable both within the European Union and outside of it, too. The three politicians came from very different backgrounds: Janša used to be an opposition journalist, Orbán was a liberal politician while Vučić worked as the propaganda minister for one of the darkest war criminals of the 1990s, Slobodan Milošević. However, they all ended up on the same side eventually.

What they have in common is patriotic rhetoric; aggressive, authoritarian practices and, first and foremost, corruption.

When it comes to words, they are the protectors of Europe, but in reality they constantly work on undermining the European Union and function as Russia’s and China’s Trojan horse in our continent. They maintain excellent relations with such political “pariahs” as Bosnian Serbian leader Milorad Dodik or the fallen North Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski who, with the efficient assistance of the Hungarian foreign ministry, managed to escape the prison sentence imposed on him in his homeland and currently lives in Budapest.

Right under the nose of the European Union and its politicians, this illiberal network has created a media empire stretching from Ljubljana to Budapest and Skopje over the past decade. Consisting of “businessmen” with ties to the right politicians, this conglomerate operates fake news factories, typically following the Russian example and applying Moscow’s “intellectual patterns” to constantly attack and defame the EU. Sadly enough, while all this was going on, Orbán’s and Janša’s parties were full members of the European People’s Party (EPP), whereas Vučić and Gruevski enjoyed the benefits of associate membership of the largest European party family.

Consequently, I believe we must not shrug off such news as the Croatian media report on redrawing the Balkan’s map.

These politicians have betrayed Europe whenever and wherever they could in the past years, and their countries have substantially strayed away from the great objectives they set out to reach after the collapse of Communism. 

With its ever pro-West approach and fairly proportional electoral system, Slovenia is the least affected, but the groups linked to Janša and especially Orbán have already made a visible impact on the country’s media. Over the past eleven years, Hungary has seen the establishment of a quasi one-man rule which functions in a Mafia-like manner and violates every democratic norm, but the country still has a chance to oust the government as long as the Hungarian opposition forms an alliance and runs the election race together in 2022. In contrast, the Serbian parliament no longer has any opposition parties and Belgrade conducts perhaps the most obvious cooperation with Moscow and Beijing (although Serbia is not an EU member yet).

These politicians pose a threat to Europe as well as their own countries because their regimes kill democracy and freedom, root out innovation and drive their most talented citizens away, thus ultimately turning their own environment into a lagging region characterized by a high risk of destabilization. 

I believe this trend is very dangerous for Europe, despite any potential momentary economic benefits for certain countries. That’s why I am convinced that the European Union, no matter how difficult it is, should indeed take active steps in the Balkans and work hard to offer some real prospects for the West Balkan countries, which can hardly be achieved as long as such autocracies as the Fidesz regime are tolerated within the European Union.

As a Member of the European Parliament, I believe Europe has a responsibility to stand up for her own principles and values, and prevent such politicians as Orbán, Janša or Vučić from shaping Central Europe and the Balkans to their own image. This must be avoided, not just because it would be unfair for the people living there but also because the advance party of these politicians is always followed by foreign powers. If we let that happen, Europe’s fate will be at stake.

orbán air force
Read alsoPM Viktor Orbán to join the European far-right?

It’s official: Greece lifts quarantine rule for more travellers from next week

travel tourism Greece

Greece plans to lift quarantine restrictions from next week for travelers from the European Union and five other countries who have been vaccinated or test negative for COVID-19, a senior government official said on Wednesday.

Last month, the country lifted a one-week quarantine rule for Israeli travellers who have been inoculated and test negative.

Greece, which emerged from a decade-long financial crisis before the pandemic last year, has said it will open its tourism sector,

a key growth driver for its economy,

from the middle of May.

“We will gradually lift the restrictions at the beginning of next week ahead of the opening on May 14,” a senior tourism ministry official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The official said citizens from the European Union, the United States, Britain, Serbia, Israel and the United Arab Emirates will be allowed to travel to Greece via the airports of Athens, Thessaloniki, Heraklion, Chania, Rhodes, Kos, Mykonos, Santorini and Corfu, and two border crossings.

Passengers from those countries will not be quarantined, as long as they prove that they have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine or show a negative PCR test carried out 72 hours prior to their arrival, the official said, adding the tourists would be subject to domestic lockdown restrictions.

Under current rules, all foreigners arriving in Greece should test negative and quarantine for seven days.

For passengers from Britain and the United Arab Emirates, a second mandatory test is also required upon their arrival.

Greece has fared better than other EU countries in containing the first wave of the pandemic but a resurgence in COVID-19 infections has forced the country to impose lockdown restrictions since November.

Greece has reported a total of 301,103 cases and 9,054 deaths so far.

Two ex-Milosevic aides played pivotal role in 1990s Balkan wars: U.N. prosecutors

Daily News Hungary

U.N. prosecutors told judges Monday that two former Serbian security officials who served under Slobodan Milosevic helped train and equip ethnic Serbs to conduct brutal ethnic cleansing campaigns against non-Serbs in the 1990s Yugoslav conflict.

The re-trial of Jovica Stanisic, former head of Serbia’s state security service, and his subordinate Franko “Frenki” Simatovic is the last major case at the U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Both men have pleaded not guilty to crimes including murder and persecution as crimes against humanity. They are on provisional release in Serbia and did not attend the closing arguments in person.

In closing, prosecutors stressed that separatist Serb forces in Bosnia and in Croatia were totally dependent on Serbia under then-strongman President Milosevic.

“This campaign was carried out by a variety of Serb and military, police and volunteer units that were trained and equipped by these accused,” prosecutor Douglas Stringer said.

The prosecution is seeking a life sentence for both ex-associates of Milosevic, who stood trial for genocide and crimes against humanity in the Yugoslav conflict but died in his tribunal cell in 2006 before the verdict.

Stanisic and Simatovic’s defence is due to respond later this week. Both men were acquitted in 2013, but appeals judges ordered a re-trial in 2015.

Stringer said the two men were vital cogs in a criminal enterprise led by Milosevic and the Serbian state, together with Serb forces in Bosnia and Croatia, to expel Croats and Bosniaks from Serb-claimed lands as Yugoslavia fell apart in the 1990s.

Judges have not set a date for the Stanisic and Simatovic verdict.

Daily News Hungary
Read alsoTwo ex-Milosevic aides played pivotal role in 1990s Balkan wars: U.N. prosecutors

Serbians gather to protest against environmental pollution and exploitation

serbia protest environmental protection

Several thousand people blocked traffic in front of the Serbian parliament on Saturday in a protest against lack of government action to prevent water, land and air pollution by industries such as the mining sector.

Protesters, who came to Belgrade from all over Serbia, held banners reading “Cut corruption and crime not forests,” and “Young people are leaving because they cannot breathe”.

In recent years Serbia has started selling its mining resources to foreign companies, despite opposition by local residents who had warned that increased ore exploration could cause greater pollution.

The former Yugoslav republic, which in the 1990s went through a decade of wars and economic crisis, has lacked resources to tackle pollution. As it seeks to join the European Union, Serbia will need billions of euros of investment to meet the bloc’s environmental standards.

Aleksandar Jovanovic, one of the protest leaders, told the crowd that investors were all welcome in the country, but added, “But you cannot poison our children.”

“None of the people who have power care about anything else but money, they don’t care about ecology,” one protester, who gave his name only as Marjan and who had driven from the town of Jagodina, 140 kilometres (90 miles) from Belgrade, told Reuters.

croatia-eathquake-2021
Read alsoHungary to aid reconstruction in earthquake-hit towns in Croatia

Serbia considers mandatory vaccination of health workers

semmelweis hospital

Serbia could introduce mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for healthcare workers to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, Health Minister Zlatibor Loncar said on Friday.

“We cannot be in a situation where we have a healthcare worker infected and then ask if he or she had been vaccinated,” Loncar told Reuters, adding that the government could discuss the proposal within a few days. Italy was the first country in Europe to introduce mandatory vaccination for health workers earlier this week.

Around 2.7 million of Serbia’s 7 million population have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the eighth highest proportion globally.

Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said the Balkan country expects to have 40 percent of those aged over 18 vaccinated by the end of April.

Despite the relatively high vaccination rate, Serbia reported 3,625 new infections on Thursday and 41 deaths, and said hospitals are running near full capacity. When the first vaccines arrived in December and January, people were lining up to get a jab, but interest, especially among students, has dropped.

To boost the inoculation programme, authorities have

launched a campaign showing prominent figures including a priest talking about benefits of the vaccination,

and President Aleksandar Vucic received a jab in the remote village of Rudna Glava.

“I am not against vaccines. But I am against the unresearched vaccines,” Dusan Ostojic, a dentist in Belgrade told Reuters. ” I’m not sure they’re sufficiently researched so that I can, as a medical doctor, maybe recommend them to someone.”

Featured image: illustration

If you want to get a vaccine right away, go to Serbia?

serbia vaccination

The Serbian government allows foreign nationals without a Serbian address to use the country’s vaccine capacities. Due to this policy, long lines of people gathered at the Serbian border over the past weekends, as many wanted to live with the chance.

Two weeks ago, for instance, the largest queues formed on the Bosnian-Serbian and northern Macedonian-Serbian borders, but a large number of people also came from Montenegro to receive the vaccine in Belgrade or Novi Sad.

According to Azonnali, by the end of March more than 22,000 foreign nationals had been vaccinated in Serbia. All foreigners are given the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine.

People from countries where vaccination is slow arrived in masses.

Almost everyone told reporters that they couldn’t miss the opportunity, preferring to travel for a few hours for protection.

There have been misunderstandings regarding registration, but according to the official position, anyone who wants to get vaccinated in Serbia needs to register on the Serbian government’s coronavirus website.

Prime Minister Ana Brnabić thanked the foreigners “for trusting us” and promised that after April, additional vaccines would be set aside for the foreign applicants at the Novi Sad, Belgrade and Niš vaccination points.

Interestingly, the topic even came up at Thursday’s press briefing, where the Head of the Prime Minister’s Office encouraged people to live with chance of “vaccine tourism”:

“If anyone can get the vaccine anywhere, go and get it!”

Originally, there was some criticism in the Serbian media that locals may be left with fewer vaccines due to foreigners. However, according to the government, this is not true because Pfizer and Russian and Chinese vaccines are mainly separated for locals. Belgrade therefore wants to continue vaccinating foreigners “in the spirit of humanity” in the future.

So far, 633,013 coronavirus cases have been registered in Serbia with the number of deaths at 5,620 and the number of successful recoveries at 541,317.

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Read alsoIf you want to get a vaccine right away, go to Serbia?

Hungary on the side of the ‘indigenous national minorities’

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Hungary must continue to support “indigenous national minorities” in Europe, the (ruling Fidesz) head of parliament’s national cohesion committee said on Wednesday.
 
Parliament on Wednesday is debating a resolution on Hungary joining a solidarity movement in support of the Minority SafePack European citizens’ initiative, Karoly Panczel said.
The European Commission rejected SafePack despite 1.1 million valid signatures collected
in support of the initiative in eleven countries, he noted.

The collection of signatures started in 2017, organised by the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) and the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania. It was supported by Hungarian parliament’s national cohesion committee and by parliament.

The citizens’ committee of the Minority SafePack ECI has turned to the General Court of the European Union with a request to annul the EC’s decision on the initiative.
 

Leaders of 23 countries back pandemic treaty idea for future emergencies

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Leaders of 23 countries and the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday backed an idea to create an international treaty that would help deal with future health emergencies like the coronavirus pandemic by tightening rules on sharing information.

The idea of such a treaty, also aimed at ensuring universal and equitable access to vaccines, medicines and diagnostics for pandemics, was floated by the chairman of European Union leaders, Charles Michel, at a summit of the Group of 20 major economic powers last November.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has endorsed the proposal, but formal negotiations have not begun, diplomats say.

Tedros told a news conference on Tuesday that a treaty would tackle gaps exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. A draft resolution on negotiations could be presented to the WHO’s 194 member states at their annual ministerial meeting in May, he said.

The WHO has been criticised for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and was accused by the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump of helping China shield the extent of its outbreak, which the agency denies.

A joint WHO-China study on the virus’s origins, seen by Reuters on Monday, said it had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, and that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely” as a cause. But the study left many questions unanswered and called for further research.

On Tuesday, the treaty proposal got the formal backing of the leaders of Fiji, Portugal, Romania, Britain, Rwanda, Kenya, France, Germany, Greece, Korea, Chile, Costa Rica, Albania, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, the Netherlands, Tunisia, Senegal, Spain, Norway, Serbia, Indonesia, Ukraine and the WHO itself.

“There will be other pandemics and other major health emergencies. No single government or multilateral agency can address this threat alone,” the leaders wrote in a joint opinion piece in major newspapers.

“We believe that nations should work together towards a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response.”

The leaders of China and the United States did not sign the letter, but Tedros said both powers had reacted positively to the proposal, and all states would be represented in talks.

The treaty would complement the WHO’s International Health Regulations, in force since 2005, through cooperation in controlling supply chains, sharing virus samples and research and development, WHO assistant director Jaouad Mahjour said.

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Read alsoReal-economy stirrings show U.S. leaves Europe in the dust

Syrian smugglers charged in Hungary

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Five Syrian men have been charged with trafficking migrants as part of a criminal organisation, a district prosecutor’s office in southern Hungary said on Wednesday.

The suspects are accused of smuggling more than 60 migrants, who crossed the Serbian-Hungarian and Croatian-Hungarian borders illegally to western Europe, as members of an organised criminal group over the past two years, with Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden as final destinations.

A Syrian man suspected of having set up the criminal group had a residence permit in Germany, while the other suspects had residence permits in other western European countries.

Before reaching the Hungarian-Austrian border, the suspects told the migrants to cross the border on foot, and then they all met up at a pre-arranged location in Austria for their onward bound journey.

The organiser provided the migrants with mobile phones and sim cards, while the suspects regularly changed their phones to avoid detection by the authorities.

The migrants paid for the illegal services using Hawala via a person known to the organiser. One of the suspects used a fake Greek driving licence as well as a rented car with fake registration documents for which forgery charges also apply.

The prosecutor’s office in Baja is seeking prison sentences without parole for the accused.

After serving their sentences, the suspects would be expelled from the country.

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Read alsoHuman trafficking van burst into flames while Hungarian police inspected it – PHOTOS

Many lives saved thanks to Eastern vaccines, says Minister Szijjártó in Belgrade

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The lives many more Hungarians and Serbs have been saved thanks to Eastern vaccines bought by the two countries, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Belgrade after talks with counterpart Nikola Selakovic on Tuesday.

Szijjártó said neither government had made the vaccine into an ideological issue and both countries trusted their own experts.

“Both the Serbian and Hungarian governments paid heed to common sense,” he said.

“We set ourselves the single goal of protecting the lives and health of our citizens.”

Meanwhile, the minister said Hungary is involved in talks on Covid passports, adding that these “should not discriminate against anyone”. The validity of passports should not only be based on the approval of vaccines by the European Medicines Agency but also on the emergency approval given by national authorities.

“Hungary wouldn’t accept only one form of approval being recognised…” he said.

Answering a question about the suspension of AstraZeneca’s vaccine in several countries, Szijjártó said Hungary was also monitoring the effect of the vaccine, and its experts would decide on any further steps to be taken.

He said both Serbia and Hungary were top of the European vaccination rankings thanks to their willingness to buy Eastern vaccines.

Selakovic said Serbia saw no obstacle to allowing free movement between the two countries if travellers are in possession of a vaccination certificate.

At a joint press conference, Szijjártó also said

the two countries have demonstrated of the past year what good neighbourly ties look like, with resulting mutual benefits.

Hungary’s changing economy has been greatly influenced by cooperation with Serbia, he said, adding that Hungarian companies were now making successful investments abroad. The government, he noted, has given support to six Hungarian companies so far for their investments in Serbia totalling 13 billion forints.

Szijjártó also praised Belgrade’s “exemplary attitude” towards Serbia’s Hungarian community, saying both countries regarded Vojvodina Hungarians as a resource and a community connecting Serbs and Hungarians.

The minister also noted “a new chapter” in Hungary’s energy supply starting in October thanks to a 15km interconnector over the Hungary-Serbia border, completing Hungary’s national gas pipeline network.

Selakovic welcomed “extremely good relations” between the two governments and also between individual politicians, contributing to good bilateral ties.

This year, the sixth Hungarian-Serbian government summit will focus on the strategic partnership between the two countries, he noted.

He referred to joint projects such as the impending construction of the Belgrade-Budapest rail line and the renovation of the Szeged-Subotica-Baja rail line.

He thanked Hungary for its help in Serbia’s fight against the coronavirus epidemic and he also expressed gratitude for Hungary’s continued support for Serbia’s European integration.

The two foreign ministers also agreed on Tuesday to maintain a joint diplomatic and consular office in Santiago de Chile, Valletta and Lusaka.

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Read alsoWhat are they up to? Hungary’s neighbours arm heavily

New Visegrad Photography exhibition to open in Vienna

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A travelling exhibition showcasing images by young photo artists from the four Visegrad Group countries and Serbia will open in Vienna on March 18, the organisers said on Wednesday.

The show dubbed New Visegrad Photography will feature titles by 24 artists from nine universities in the Collegium Hungaricum cultural centre, they said in a statement.

The exhibition is to reflect what it means to be central European to a generation of young artists growing up in a world under new global influence, Hungarian photographer Gábor Arion Kudász, the event’s curator, said.

Several of the photos were published by international art platforms including LensCulture, Contemporary Lynx and Fotograf Magazine, and the Polish edition of Vogue.

The exhibition in Vienna will be opened and later shown in an online event but will also await visitors at the venue.

It is scheduled to travel on to Berlin, Brussels, Prague, Rome and Warsaw before arriving in Hungary’s Debrecen in the summer when Hungary takes over the V4’s rotating presidency.

The exhibition’s main sponsor is the International Visegrad Fund.

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Read alsoTime travel around Budapest; how it looked in the past century vs now – PHOTOS