Serbia

Serbia, Kosovo pledge commitment to EU-facilitated dialogue after signing agreements in Washington

Serbia and Kosovo pledged their commitment to the dialogue hosted by the European Union (EU) on Monday, after signing agreements with the United States on the normalization of their economic relations.

In a joint statement made by Aleksandar Vucic, president of Serbia, and Avdullah Hoti, the head of government of Kosovo, the two leaders confirmed to EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell that they “attach the highest priority to EU integration” and to continuing the work on the EU-facilitated dialogue, which is “a key element of their respective EU paths.”

The two leaders reassured the pan-Europe body of their loyalty after they agreed in Washington last Friday on more than a dozen terms about expanding their economic cooperation.

Besides, U.S. President Donald Trump said that

Serbia will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem by next July and Kosovo and Israel have agreed to the normalization of ties.

Responding to media questions about the alignment with the EU’s positions on issues concerning Israel and Palestine, EU spokesman Peter Stano said “any diplomatic steps that could call into question the EU common position on Jerusalem are a matter of serious concern and regret.”

Stano said that

Serbia is already negotiating its accession to the EU and is therefore expected to align progressively its policies with the third countries with the policies and positions adopted by the EU.

He told reporters that the EU had been informed ahead of Friday’s meeting about the economic issues but had not been informed about other issues tackled in the end.

In the joint statement on Monday, Vucic and Hoti said in Brussels that they are committed to “redoubling their efforts to ensure further EU alignment in accordance with their respective obligations.”

After issuing the statement, the two leaders entered the high-level meeting of the dialogue in person, hosted by Borrell and EU Special Representative Miroslav Lajcak.
Sensitive issues including arrangements for non-majority communities and the settlement of mutual financial claims and property were discussed. Expert level talks will continue next week.

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Serbia rejects it and considers Kosovo its own province.

Read alsoSerbia, Kosovo pledge commitment to EU-facilitated dialogue after signing agreements in Washington

Shocking! Indian workers on the Budapest-Belgrade railway project starving

train railway

The 42 Indian guest workers started a quiet strike and sat in front of the mayor’s office in Kraljevo, Serbia. 

 

According to Merce, the Serbian leftist Mašina said that the workers held signs on which they wrote that they have neither food nor water and that the company employing them has not given them food for 15 days.

The mayor’s office said that the Indians work for a subcontractor, have temporary contracts, and the company is officially owned by a US enterprise called IDEA Capital who are well-known in the sector for employing cheap labour force from the Indian subcontinent.

As another Serbian daily reported in January, this is not the first scandal of this kind by the company. For example, another brigade worked on the Serbian sector of the Budapest-Belgrade railway upgrade, and the company refused to pay their wages. Furthermore,

they sent them home with only 5,000 dinars (EUR 45) even though they worked for 2.5 months.

The Serbian line is being built with Chinese and Russian financial aid, and most of the workers are from India, based on some earlier reports by the Serbian media. However, the conditions of work were bad even then. Even though they worked in the middle of winter, they lived in unheated, crowded barracks and received their payment irregularly. Even though compared to the Indian wages, they get high salaries in Serbia (EUR 320 per month), their employers do not pay consistently for the ever-fluctuating workers.

IDEA Capital advertises attractive Serbian jobs everywhere in India, but soon after the workers arrive, it always comes to light that the company does not provide anything for their employees, and they try to get rid of them as soon as possible. Since the company’s headquarter is in Miami, it is almost impossible for the Serbian authorities to reach or fine them. It often happens that

it is difficult to get home for the guest workers.

Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán and his Serbian counterpart, Aleksandar Vučić, have both highlighted before that the Budapest-Belgrade megaproject is of great importance for them. Based on the numbers of the state budget, in 2020, Hungary is going to spend HUF 143 billion (EUR 407.39 million) on the railway upgrade while the country also received a HUF 750 billion (EUR 2.13 billion) Chinese loan for it. Opposition politicians say that the project will never return the costs so it is nothing else than malpractice. 

The Parliament classified the Hungarian contract.

However,  the Serbian one can be read, so we already know that the Chinese Eximbank gave 208 million dollars as a loan, and there is another infrastructure development package worth 1 billion dollars.

Police chief: Migration pressure growing on Hungary-Serbia border

migration - Hungary border fence army

Migration pressure has grown significantly on the Hungarian-Serbian border after a lull in the spring due to the coronavirus epidemic, Zsolt Halmosi, deputy head of the Hungarian police, said on Thursday.

Halmosi told a press conference in Röszke, a border town in southern Hungary, that half of all migrants detained on the European Union’s external borders in recent months have been apprehended on the stretch separating Hungary and Serbia.

hungary police
Read alsoForeign national gets suspended jail term for attempting to bribe border official

This year, some 18,000 persons tried crossing illegally the Serbian-Hungarian border, and the number of people smugglers arrested this year has grown to 207, the highest since the 2015 migration crisis, he said.

Border patrols discovered 16 tunnels, complete or incomplete, under the border fence this year, Halmosi said.

In response, the authorities are reinforcing the fence’s outer perimeter and building a mesh barrier underground, he said.

Hungary has closed its transit zones in compliance with the ruling of the European Court of Justice, Halmosi noted. The 330 migrants housed there had been transferred to open centres, he said, noting that “the majority did not wait for the asylum procedure to be concluded”. At present, only 16 migrants are still housed at the open facility, he said.

migration - Hungary border fence army
Read alsoPolice chief: Migration pressure growing on Hungary-Serbia border

Chief Medical Officer Cecilia Müller told the same press conference that uncontrolled migration poses “an extreme danger” to Hungary’s “excellent” public health and epidemiological status. Most of the migrants’ countries of origin are classified as “red”, or high-risk regarding the coronavirus epidemic, she said. Even Hungarian entrants from those countries are carefully monitored, she noted. The entry of illegal migrants may lead to hotspots of the epidemic cropping up in Hungary, she said.

Government official commemorates 1456 battle of Nándorfehérvár

Nándorfehérvár-commemoration-Hunyadi

Just as in 1456, the year of the battle of Nándorfehérvár (present-day Belgrade) against the Ottoman Empire, it is again up to central European nations to defend Europe, a defence ministry state secretary said on Wednesday.

“It was not just Hungary, but all of Christian Europe that was defended in that battle,” Szilárd Németh told public media after a commemoration event marking the anniversary of the victory of Christian forces led by Hungarian general Janos Hunyadi over the Ottoman Turks besieging Nandorfehervar.

He said the victory was about the unity among peoples and nations, exemplary patriotism and the importance of protecting Christian culture.

“The situation is similar now because Christian Europe has to be defended again,”

he said. “Immigration must be stopped no matter what because this is the only way we can protect our Europeanness and European culture. This is the only way we can guarantee the people’s safety.”

On another subject, state secretary said the Hungarian Armed Forces was doing its utmost to protect Hungary’s borders, using the Airbus H145M light multirole helicopters purchased last year to carry out reconnaissance.

Since Hungary lifted the border restrictions imposed because of the novel coronavirus epidemic, migration pressure on the border has been rising, the state secretary said. Whereas the authorities were apprehending a daily average of 50 illegal migrants at the border at the beginning of the year, they are now stopping an average of 70-80 migrants a day, Németh said.

He said it was not just immigration and terrorism that went “hand in hand” but also immigration and coronavirus. Németh warned that most migrants were coming from territories that were the hardest hit by the virus.

János Hunyadi John Hunyadi
Read alsoNetflix to make a series about János Hunyadi, the world-known Hungarian military leader and governor?

EU removes Serbia, Montenegro off list of countries approved for entry

Hungary-coronavirus-border-airport

The Council of the European Union (EU) on Thursday removed Serbia and Montenegro from its updated list of countries from where citizens are allowed to enter the bloc despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The latest list consists of all the other 13 non-EU countries in the original one and has no new recommendations for which the EU member states could lift the temporary travel restrictions.

Both Serbia and Montenegro have witnessed an increasing number of new infections in the last days.

Serbia lifted the state of emergency on May 6 due to a favorable epidemic situation. However, a drastic increase in the number of confirmed cases has been witnessed after life got back to normal.

In the past several weeks, more than 20 municipalities and cities in the country declared local emergency and imposed mandatory wearing of masks, restricted gatherings and reduced opening hours for restaurants and bars.

On June 30, the Council recommended the lifting of travel restrictions for residents of Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, and Uruguay.

It also recommended that residents of China be allowed to travel to the EU, subject to confirmation of reciprocity.

The Council said the criteria according to which the recommendations are made cover, in particular, the countries’ epidemiological situations and containment measures. The list of “safe” third countries is reviewed every two weeks.

Important modification announced to the new travel restrictions in Hungary

Budapest-Belgrade rail-line upgrade gets under way

china hungary flag

The upgrade of the Hungarian section of the Budapest-Belgrade rail line got under way on Monday after the contract for the project’s implementation entered into effect, the Ministry of Innovation and Technology said in a statement.

Innovation and Technology Minister László Palkovics told the companies in charge of the project that preparations for the project were going according to plan and that the upgrade was expected to be completed by 2025.

The upgraded rail line will put Hungary in a position to become part of the fastest route for goods transported between Greece and western Europe,

the minister was quoted as saying, adding that if it used its favourable characteristics to its advantage, Hungary was set to become a regional logistics hub. Additionally,

the rail link will reduce travel time between Budapest and Belgrade from 8 hours to less than half that duration, Palkovics said.

Monday’s meeting was attended by representatives of Hungary’s national rail operator MAV, RM International, China Tiejiuju Engineering and Construction, the Hungarian unit of the China Railway Electrification Engineering Group, international real estate developer FOBER, Hungary’s Transport Sciences Institute (KTI), the Chinese-Hungarian joint venture set up to coordinate the project and Duan Jielong, China’s ambassador to Hungary.

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Read alsoForeign minister: EU countries should be open about interest in good China relations

Serbia will once again impose curfew in Belgrade!

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Serbia will once again impose curfew here in capital city from Friday to Monday in order to suppress another outbreak of COVID-19, said President Aleksandar Vucic on Tuesday at a press conference broadcasted on the national television.

Vucic said that the situation in Belgrade, a city of 1.4 million people, is alarming because COVID-19 hospitals are running at full capacity, while in four other cities he defined the state as serious.

Vucic explained that besides the curfew, other measures will include a ban on gatherings of more than five people both indoors and outdoors in places where the 2-meter distancing cannot be secured.

So far 19 Serbian cities and municipalities including Belgrade have declared an emergency due to the COVID-19 second outbreak, imposing mandatory use of masks indoors and a ban on gatherings.

Serbia lifted the nationwide state of emergency on May 6 and returned life to normal – sports matches were held with the audience, while on June 21, Serbians were the first people to vote at a national election on the European continent since the start of COVID-19 pandemic.

Vucic said that

Tuesday was the hardest day in Serbia during the whole pandemic.

In the past 24 hours, 299 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed. Authorities reported 13 deaths, the highest single day number since the epidemic began in March, while 110 people are on ventilators.

Currently there are 2,942 active cases of COVID-19 in Serbia, of which around 80 percent were reported in Belgrade.

On Monday Belgrade Arena, the biggest sports and cultural facility in the city, was turned into COVID-19 hospital and started receiving patients.

Vucic assured that there is enough medical equipment, such as ventilators, to take care of patients with serious symptoms.

Since the epidemic was declared in Serbia in March, 455,604 people have been tested, 16,719 turned out positive, while 330 have died of the disease.

djokovic
Read alsoDjokovic tests positive for COVID-19

Anti-migration campaign vs reality: never came more foreigners to Hungary than in 2019

Budapest, Danube, view

Based on the newest data of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, the number of foreigners coming to Hungary reached a new record. Four out of ten immigrants are Ukrainians while the number of those coming from other EU-member states fell drastically. 

“If you come to Hungary you cannot take the work of the Hungarians” – said the Hungarian government on huge billboards in 2015, at the beginning of the migration crisis. Since then,

migration has been in the focus of the government’s communication campaigns.

For example, the parliamentary group of Fidesz even has an anti-migration cabinet. In contrast, according to the latest data of the Hungarian Statistical Office (HSO), never came more foreigners to Hungary than in 2019 – azonnali.hu reported. 

The number of foreigners was

55,297 last year

and the HSO regards those people foreigners who ask for a residence permit. In 2018, this number was 49 thousand, in 2017, 36 thousand while in 2016 only 23 thousand. 

Even though the government says that the leftist opposition in Hungary is pro-migration, data show that under the eight years of Socialist governments the number of migrants never reached 36 thousand.

Compared to 2018 the number of people coming from Ukraine increased significantly. In 2015, Hungarian authorities registered only 1,143 citizens from there, but this number rose to 16.7 thousand in 2018. Furthermore,

in 2019, 21 thousand Ukrainian citizens asked for a residence permit. 

This means that 40 pc of the foreigners coming to Hungary are from Ukraine.

The reason behind that is that before the coronavirus epidemic the Hungarian economy struggled with a labour shortage, so not only Hungarians living in Subcarpathia (the most Western county in Ukraine) came but mostly Ukrainian nationals who did not have Hungarian citizenship (most Hungarians born in Subcarpathia already have Hungarian citizenship). 

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese community increased, as well from 1,279 to 1,961. Even so, the number of people coming from Asia stagnates. Interestingly, the last peak of the influx was in 2014, when every third immigrant was from Asia. Therefore, their number stabilised in 12 thousand in the last few years. The number of

Serbians who gave 20 pc of the immigrants in 2007 fell drastically in the last few years to only five pc. 

Meanwhile, the number of people coming from other EU-member states decreased significantly. 10 years ago, half of the foreigners coming to Hungary came from the EU.

Before the coronavirus epidemic, 200 thousand foreigners resided in Hungary. That is not a record because, in 2011, that number was 207 thousand. 

And why does a foreign citizen come to Hungary? The most popular goals are:

  1. Work: 77,905 people
  2. Uknown reason: 32,119 people
  3. To settle down: 31,864

Furthermore, 5,033 people are currently in Hungary because they are internationally protected.

 

Austria issues highest travel warning for Western Balkans

Austrian flag

The Austrian foreign ministry on Wednesday issued the highest warning against traveling to the Western Balkan countries as coronavirus infections there have risen sharply.

The level-6 travel warning, which means travelers from those countries have to undergo a 14-day self-quarantine or present a negative coronavirus test result,

apply to countries including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia,

according to a tweet from the foreign ministry.

There will be increased controls over the borders, said Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg at a press conference here.

“We were able to lift the travel restrictions for 32 European countries,” he said, but the normality of freedom to travel is still “miles away.”

Health Minister Rudolf Anschober said that new coronavirus infection figures in the Western Balkans are “problematic,” stressing the need for concrete measures to contain the outbreak.

border Hungary flag EU
Read alsoEU lifts travel restrictions for residents of these 15 countries

Orbán to participate in online conference with Serbian, Slovenian leaders

Daily News Hungary

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will participate in an online conference with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa next Wednesday, according to a Fidesz official.

The conference Europe without Censorship will be streamed on Orban’s Facebook page, Katalin Novák, a deputy leader of ruling Fidesz, told commercial broadcaster InfoRadio on Monday.

The English-language conference aims to show what leaders “who enjoy an overwhelming majority” in their countries “truly think of Europe … without the distortion of translations,” Novák said.

Due to the pandemic, endeavours by Fidesz and the European People’s Party to iron out their differences have been set back, Novák said. “Even then, some have kept on trying to find a way to expel Fidesz from the party,” she added.

EPP leader Donald Tusk, she said, had partnered with people who were determined “to divide the party family”.

“International forums are not used to clear, straight talking,” she said, explaining negative views of Fidesz abroad. Novák insisted such people were “unhappy Hungary’s national interests are being successfully asserted.”

Regarding family support, Novak said the government is spending 2,300 billion forints (EUR 6.5bn) on subsidies this year, two and a half times the sum that went towards the same goal in 2010.

During the pandemic, the Hungarian government has expanded support for families, she said. Applications were simplified and deadlines pushed back to ease their burden, she said.

The allowance for mothers of newborn babies will be raised to 100 percent of the mother’s gross salary from July next year, leaving mothers with more money in the first half year of the baby’s life, she added.

Jobbik MEP Gyöngyösi: The Serbian Elections and its Lessons

serbia vucic sns

Parliamentary elections held in Serbia last weekend did not hold too many surprises for those familiar with recent political developments in the small Balkan republic. In an election originally announced for 26 April but postponed amid the coronavirus pandemic, Alaksandar Vučić’s populist right-wing Serbia Progressive Party (SNS) snatched over 60 percent of the vote and some 190 mandates in the 250-seat Skupština, the Serbian parliament.

According to Jobbik MEP Márton Gyöngyösi, the dominance of SNS is further underlined by the fact that virtually all real opposition parties dropped out of parliament regardless of parliamentary threshold cut down to 3 percent prior to the elections.

Vojvodina-Hungarians-VMSZ
Read alsoSerbia election: Vojvodina Hungarians scored a historic success, Orbán congratulates President Vucic

Ivica Dačić’s Socialist Party scoring second place with just over 10 percent of the vote functions more like a satellite organization in a permanent governing coalition with the SNS. Thus, the strongest and only opposition party in the Serbian parliament will be the novel formation of Aleksandar Šapić, barely scraping through the threshold.

Among the main reasons for the poor showing of the Serbian opposition is the nature and the character of the regime constructed by Vučić over the years.

However, also the self-delusive tactics of the opposition parties to boycott the elections and its hopes to challenge an increasingly dictatorial system by means of passive resistance have proven vain.

The Serbian elections, including the misguided tactics of the opposition are replete with lessons that must be closely studied by those that want to see an end to illiberal political experimenting.

For years analysts have been drawing comparisons between the authoritarian system of Vučić and that of Viktor Orbán in its immediate neighbourhood, Hungary – explains Gyöngyösi.

Considering the turbulent history of the region, the context in which Orbán and Vučić rose to power is different.

The hairpin bends along their political career to arrive at populist illiberalism are the first striking similarity: while Orbán started his political carrier as an ultra-liberal anti-Communist as a Soros-scholar, Vučić came on the scene as an aid to one of the great mass murderers of the late-20th century, Slobodan Milošević, serving as his propaganda minister. Like in Hungary, in Vučić’s Serbia party loyalty is the only key to success, media freedom curtailed, opposition parties threatened (in Serbia sometimes killed), corruption rampant, while an ever increasing mass of the young generations leave their homeland, either because it is not able to or willing to play by the rules of the regime.

vucic
Read alsoSerbia’s ruling coalition achieves record election victory – preliminary results

And just like Orbán, Vučić also turned his country into a favourite of foreign investors that consider stable political systems as a „one-stop shop” that dish out licences, state subsidies, keep labour costs low, labour laws flexible and trade unions under control.

Finally, just like Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, SNS is also a member of, albeit only associated, the European Peoples’ Party (EPP).

In years, the EPP could not resolve the dilemma of safeguarding democratic values by booting authoritarian Orbán from its ranks and retaining a politically successful member to retain its relative political influence. Hardly surprising that EPP and its president Donald Tusk was among the first to jubilantly congratulate Vučić after his re-election.

Hence, when it comes to drawing the necessary lessons from the Serbian elections, the first should be one that Central-Eastern European countries ought to have learned by now throughout their history: despite the talk about democratic values in Europe, business interests and geopolitical considerations prevail.

Gyöngyösi adds that we can only count on ourselves in defence of democratic social progress.

This is why giving up without fighting and boycotting elections is not an option. Democratic opposition of every ideological sorts must unite in reinstituting rule of law and democratic pluralism in a region where illiberal populism highjacked our transition process half way through. The lessons must be learned quick and rehearsed well prior to critical elections approaching in other countries of the region.

Djokovic tests positive for COVID-19

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Novak Djokovic and his wife Jelena tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday in Belgrade, confirmed the press office of the world’s No. 1 tennis player in a release.

Djokovic was tested immediately upon his arrival in Belgrade from Zadar, Croatia, where the second leg of the Adria Tour regional tennis tournament was interrupted and canceled by confirmed cases of infections among participants and their teams.

“The moment we arrived in Belgrade we went to be tested. My result is positive, just as Jelena’s, while the results of our children are negative,” Djokovic stated.

He explained that the purpose of the Adria Tour that he organized with his family was “to unite and share a message of solidarity and compassion throughout the region”, as well as to help both established and emerging tennis players from South-Eastern Europe to gain access to some competitive tennis while the various tours are on hold due to the COVID-19 situation.

“Unfortunately, this virus is still present, and it is a new reality that we are still learning to cope and live with. I am hoping things will ease with time so we can all resume lives the way they were. I am extremely sorry for each individual case of infection. I hope that it will not complicate anyone’s health situation and that everyone will be fine. I will remain in self-isolation for the next 14 days, and repeat the test in five days,”

Djokovic stated in the press release.

Previously legs of Adria Tour have been canceled in Montenegro and Slovenia due to health concerns, while during the tournament in Zadar several players and team members tested positive on COVID-19 including Grigor Dimitrov and Borna Coric.

Organizers of the Adria Tour stated Tuesday that the scheduled tournaments in Banjaluka and Sarajevo are cancelled too because “it is of highest importance to stabilize the epidemiologic situation.”

Sexiest Hungarian tennis players
Read alsoThey are the sexiest Hungarian tennis players – photos!

More international train services resuming from July

Keleti railway station Budapest train MÁV

Several international train services are resuming from July, while the number of services currently operating to Austria and Germany will increase, the national rail operator, MÁV, said on Tuesday.

International travel contracted by 90 percent during the coronavirus epidemic but more and more people are again showing interest in international services, MÁV said.

Rules on wearing a face mask differ depending on the country, but it is still compulsory to wear a mask in Hungary.

Train services to Vienna via the Hegyeshalom border crossing have been running since mid-May, the statement noted.

From July 2, high-speed trains to Germany will run on the Budapest-Vienna route every 2 hours.

Also train services to Zagreb will operate from the start of July, but services to the Adriatic will not run this summer.

Services between Kosice and Budapest will also resume but according to a modified schedule due to track construction.

Some services to Slovenia will resume, though the Istria train will not run this summer. Also various services to cities in Serbia will start again.

Due to track construction on the Serbian railway network, international trains to Belgrade will not run.

MÁV-Start will refund any international tickets that could not be used if they were purchased before June 1.

Railway Hungary Egypt
Read alsoA new start for the Hungarian railway industry? Hungarian-made wagons to run in Egypt! – video

Serbia election: Vojvodina Hungarians scored a historic success, Orbán congratulates President Vucic

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Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has congratulated Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on his SNS party’s “historic victory” at Serbia’s parliamentary and local elections held at the weekend.

According to information from the PM’s press office, Orbán said in a letter that

Serbia, together with countries in the central European region, is “ready to be among winners of the next decade”.

Orbán added that he was convinced that Serbia could become a European Union member by the end of the next four-year parliamentary cycle.

Hungary will continue in its commitment to further developing bilateral ties and deepening its strategic partnership with Serbia, Orbán said.

VMSZ election victory ‘message to nation’

The ethnic Hungarian VMSZ party’s victory at the general elections of Serbia this weekend “is a message to the whole of the nation”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a letter congratulating VMSZ head István Pásztor.

Orbán welcomed the results, saying that

Vojvodina (Vajdaság) Hungarians showed that they “believe in the power of unity and have the strength to shape their own life”,

the PM’s press office quoted him as saying.

VMSZ has turned out to be Vojvodina’s third strongest party, the letter said, and suggested that the community could double their seats in the Serbian parliament as a result of “hard and persistent work in recent year”, the letter said.

Vojvodina Hungarians scored ‘historic success’ at elections

The Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMSZ) scored a “historic success” at the elections in Serbia over the weekend, the state secretary in charge of ethnic Hungarian communities abroad said.

VMSZ scored better results on Sunday than at any previous elections, Árpád János Potapi said.

The party garnered nearly 70,000 votes and rather than the previous four, it is expected to have nine representatives in the republic’s parliament, he added.

The 2011 census showed that some 250,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Vojvodina.

Potápi congratulated VMSZ which he said had been strengthened by its leader István Pásztor in recent years, making it into a political party that can keep together all ethnic Hungarians in Vojvodina.

Serbia’s ruling coalition achieves record election victory – preliminary results

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Coalition around the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) led by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic achieved a landslide victory at the parliamentary elections on Sunday, according to the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK).

Preliminary results of the RIK showed that the coalition around the SNS won 63.35 percent of votes, while smaller ruling coalition partner Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) led by Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic collected another 10.62 percent.

“I have been in politics for a long time, but I have never experienced a moment like this. We have gained the huge trust of the people, the greatest ever in Serbia, in conditions when few believed in it,” Vucic said at his party’s headquarters, warning that they need to be even more responsible, serious and diligent.

He pointed out that Serbia will continue even harder to pursue its aspiration to become a member of the European Union, “but also maintain its friendship with traditional allies and countries that stepped in to help amidst the COVID-19 crisis.”

CeSID, an independent election monitoring organization, estimated that the turnout was at 47.7 percent.

After preliminary results were published, Dacic said at the SPS headquarters that his party is ready to continue cooperating with the SNS in realizing Serbia’s national interests.

He stressed that the ruling SNS-SPS coalition that has been in power since 2012 won around 75 percent of votes today, which confirmed their achievements in the previous period.

The RIK is obliged by law to declare final results in 96 hours after the closure of polling stations.

Serbia’s elections – FM Szijjártó in Belgrade: Serbia, Hungary should cooperate on rebooting economies

Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, in Belgrade on Wednesday, said the time had come take action to reboot their respective economies, and both Serbia and Hungary could successfully do so by working closely together.

At a joint press conference with his Serbian counterpart, Szijjártó said the epidemic had highlighted how much East-West infrastructure passed through Serbia and Hungary. “We should benefit from that, so the coming months and years will be about major joint infrastructure developments.”

Szijjártó said

the pandemic had proven “more clearly than ever that we Hungarians and Serbs are closely interdependent … this relationship has strengthened during the pandemic”.

The border between the two countries was reopened in record speed, he said, adding that Serbia was the first country Hungary was able to open its border with in full and the first non-EU country to open a border with an EU member state.

Szijjártó noted that both countries are working together to upgrade the Belgrade-Budapest rail line, to renovate the Subotica-Szeged rail line and to build a new gas pipeline to transport gas from the Turkish Stream pipeline from the south to central Europe, with capacity to be expanded to almost 10 billion cubic meters in the coming years.

Meanwhile, the minister said

Hungary benefited from a strong Serbia, partly in light of ethnic Hungarians living in Vojvodina and also “because our economies are closely interlinked”.

He noted that the Hungarian government has provided 9.1 billion forints in support for nine investments in Serbia by Hungarian firms in the areas of agriculture, food processing and construction. Another 25 billion forints will be available for Hungarian companies to bid for from Friday, he added.

On the topic of Serbia’s elections on Sunday, he said Hungary would not interfere in the ballot, but the current Serbian governing coalition was in the country’s interest “because the party representing Hungarians in Vojvodina are part of the governing coalition … and we hope [they] will have the chance to participate in important decision-making regarding Serbia’s future, and also because relations between Hungary and Serbia have turned into a historic friendship”.

Ivica Dacic thanked Hungary for its support in the course of its European integration endeavours and during the coronavirus epidemic. He said Szijjártó had persistently been the strongest advocate of Serbian European integration. Relations between Serbia and Hungary, he said, were “outstanding”, and the Serbian government also maintained very good relations with “the most important party of Vojvodina Hungarians”, the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians.

Orbán: End of hostilities between Hungarians and Serbs had been a significant step forward – Interview

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in an interview with Subotica (Szabadka) broadcaster Pannon RTV on Tuesday, urged ethnic Hungarians living in Serbia’s Vojvodina region (Délvidék or Vajdaság) to vote in the country’s elections this coming weekend.

The fate of Hungarians is influenced by all elections, including the one about to take place in Serbia, the prime minister said.

The composition of the government in Hungary has an effect on all Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin,

Orbán said, adding that it was also important for Hungarians beyond the border to elect the right leaders so that they could protect Hungarian interests. “So all elections are important,” Orbán said.

“One disadvantage Hungarians have is that we don’t have relatives; we’re a cultural and linguistic island in the middle of Europe,” the prime minister said. He added that his government’s mission was to preserve Hungarian culture.

As regards the elections in Serbia, Orbán said the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMSZ) was the only ethnic Hungarian party that had the experience, history and prestige that could be taken seriously. VMSZ has what it takes to unify the Hungarian community, he said, adding that István Pásztor, the party’s leader, had kept all his promises and fulfilled his end of every agreement with the Hungarian government.

“So we have good reason to believe that as long as he’s the leader of the Hungarian community in Vojvodina, the relationship between the Hungarian government and Serbia’s Hungarian community will be based on trust,” the prime minister said.

Orbán also said the election will also have a fundamental impact on Hungarian-Serbian ties.

Because of the history between the two countries, Hungary and Serbia need goodwill, trust and friendship to see each other as friends and allies, he said, adding that Serbia’s current government agreed with these sentiments.

He said the end of hostilities between Hungarians and Serbs in Vojvodina had been a significant step forward for the two communities.

He added, at the same time, that there was more potential to establish more companies and create more wealth in the region.

The prime minister said it was important for Hungarians and Serbians to benefit from the good political relations between the two countries.

Budapest should not limit its focus to Vojvodina, he said, adding that it must consider all of Serbia. Accordingly, Hungarian capital must not stop at Vojvodina but should strive to create more and more Serbian-Hungarian joint ventures in all parts of the country, he said. “We need a strong Serbian economy because the stronger our neighbours, the more we will benefit.”

On another subject, Orbán said he believed

the European Union needed Serbia more than Serbia needed the EU.

He said that by having been the first EU member state to reopen its borders with Serbia, Hungary could also contribute to the country’s European integration. The prime minister said Serbia was of key importance to the EU in terms of security. “Europe’s security cannot be guaranteed without Serbia,” Orbán said.

Concerning the upgrade of the Budapest-Belgrade railway line, Orbán said work along the Hungarian section was progressing a bit slower than it should.

He added that the two countries could use a few more similar projects that could prove that Serbians and Hungarians could work together. These would also prove to the EU that Serbia is capable of carrying out such projects and that it is important to involve the country in them, Orbán argued, adding that Hungary is in continuous talks with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic about the opportunities available, for instance, in the energy sector.

The prime minister also said that whereas before 2010, Hungary, as the motherland, had “acted as a stepmother, it now acts as a mother”.

He promised Vojvodina Hungarians that they could continue to count on Hungary as a “real motherland” in the future, as well.

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Read alsoVast majority of Hungarians believe Trianon Treaty was ‘unjust, excessive’ – survey

Vast majority of Hungarians believe Trianon Treaty was ‘unjust, excessive’ – survey

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Fully 94 percent of Hungarians believe the WWI Trianon Peace Treaty was “unjust and excessive”, according to a representative survey conducted by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA).

The nationwide survey aimed to gauge the Hungarian population’s knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the treaty under which two-thirds of Hungary’s territory was ceded to neighbouring countries and large ethnic Hungarian communities found themselves living beyond Hungary’s border.

Three-quarters of the survey’s respondents said they were curious to learn more about the historical developments surrounding the treaty, MTA said in a statement. About one-fifth of them said they had relatives who live in areas that were lost to neighbouring countries under the treaty.

A total of 43 percent of respondents knew the treaty was signed in 1920 and only 30 percent knew the correct date (June 4).

Altogether 10 percent could not specify the size of the area lost by Hungary after the war, with 54 percent underestimating and 5 percent overestimating the actual size. Fully 31 percent gave a close estimate.

Overall, 70-78 percent named the geopolitical aspirations of the major global powers, neighbouring countries’ aspirations for expansion and Hungary being on the losing side in the first world war as the main reasons for the treaty being drafted the way it was.

Altogether 85 percent said the treaty was the “biggest ever tragedy” in Hungary’s history and roughly the same amount agreed with the statement that “Hungarians are those for whom Trianon is painful”.

Of the territories lost by Hungary, most respondents have visited the areas ceded to Slovakia but a slight majority of them have also been to Transylvania. Just over one-third of them have visited Serbia’s Vojvodina region and only one-fifth of respondents have been to western Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region. Fully 27 percent have never visited any of the territories lost under the treaty.

MTA carried out the survey in collaboration with research and analyst firm Soreco Research with a sample of 1,048 people.