The European Commission on Thursday said it opened an in-depth investigation to assess the planned acquisition of OMV Slovenija by Hungarian oil and gas company MOL.
The EC pointed out concerns that the transaction could reduce competition in the retail motor fuels market in Slovenia.
MOL is the third-biggest player on Slovenia’s motor fuel market and OMV Slovenija is the second largest. If MOL acquires OMV Slovenija, it, together with incumbent Petrol, would control “a very large share” of the market, leaving all other competitors “unlikely to pose any significant competitive constraint”, the EC said.
MOL and OMV announced the deal a little more than a year earlier and notified the EC in May 2022.
Starting from Friday midnight, cars with foreign licence plates cannot buy fuel at the capped price of HUF 480. There is one exception, though.
The new regulation
Gergely Gulyás announced at Thursday’s Cabinet Briefing that from Friday, cars with foreign licence plates will be banned from buying fuel at the HUF 480 (EUR 1.22) price. The decree was published in Magyar Közlöny at 11:59 pm last night. This meant that petrol stations had two minutes to figure out how to operate under the new rules.
However, the government decision also made an unexpected exception.
If fuel is officially priced (hatósági áras) in a foreign country, the car with the registration number of that country can also fill up with fuel at the official price in Hungary,
provided that the car with a Hungarian registration number can fill up at the official price there. The list of countries concerned will be published in a decree by the minister responsible for foreign policy, according to a summary of the provision published in Magyar Közlöny late on Thursday.
In other words, where there is also an official price for fuel, and it applies to Hungarian drivers, cars from that country will be able to benefit from the HUF 480 capped price. This means that, right now, cars with Serbian and Slovenian registration plates may form an exception.
Official price of fuel in Slovenia and Serbia
According to Blikk, in Slovenia, the price cap came into force on 10 May: the Slovenian Ministry of Economy set the retail price of EuroSuper 95 at EUR 1.560 and the wholesale price at EUR 1.540; the retail price of EuroDiesel is at EUR 1.668, and the wholesale price is at EUR 1.648. In Serbia, the government sets a monthly ceiling for the new fuel price: currently, the EuroSuper is EUR 1.528, and the retail price of EuroDiesel is EUR 1.715.
The last “foreign raid” on petrol stations
According to a Telex reader, half an hour before midnight, there was a queue of cars with Slovak licence plates at a Győr petrol station: they were waiting to fill their cars with fuel at the official price. Meanwhile, the station workers had no idea how they would technically manage the two prices. Their first decision was to turn away foreigners and not allow them to fill up at all after midnight.
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 had a “historic” election on April 3, and “when we decide about the future for the whole nation, each member should be given the opportunity to participate in the process”, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Lendava (Lendva), in northeastern Slovenia, on Friday.
Szijjártó held a joint press conference with local ethnic Hungarian leader Ferenc Horváth and said the outcome of the vote, “held at a time of war”, was crucial not only for the Hungarians living in the country but for the entire nation. Hungarians beyond the borders cast a record 308,000 mail-in votes at the election, he said. In Medimurje, the northeast Slovenian region with an ethnic Hungarian community, the number of votes grew by 40 percent compared with the last election to 168, he said.
Hungary will continue its regional development programme, which has so far granted a total of 2.5 billion forints (EUR 6.6m) to 651 entrepreneurs in the region, supporting investments worth 3.7 billion forints, he said.
A Hungarian-Slovenian regional development fund, which the heads of government signed earlier this year, will start operating in May. Within that framework, Hungary will pay a further 5 million euros to support the region, he said.
Meanwhile, economic cooperation between the two countries jumped 14 percent last year, to nearly 3 billion euros, he said. Szijjártó congratulated Horváth, who won a preferential minority seat in the Slovenian parliament at Sunday’s election. Horváth thanked Hungary for its support during the coronavirus pandemic and in preserving the culture of Medimurje Hungarians.
Regarding Hungary’s decision to pay in roubles for Russian gas following EU sanctions due to the Ukraine-Russia war, Szijjártó slammed the “international mainstream media”, which he said reported the issue “with a gross and outrageous distortion.”
The majority of Western European companies importing gas to the EU pay for Russian natural gas according to the requests of the Russian state and the supplier,
he said.
Companies importing natural gas from Russia open accounts at Gazprom Bank, which is not subject to the sanctions, he said. On the company’s instructions, Gazprom Bank converts their euros to roubles and pays for the gas, he said.
“It is not true that others have rejected this, they are just less open about it,” he said, calling on the media to stop casting the transaction as if Hungary had violated a joint European stance by agreeing to it.
“We can have a political discussion about needing other energy resources and about the importance of independence from Russian natural gas, but
we cannot buy gas on an ideological or philosophical basis, it is a physical process,”
he said.
Ensuring Hungary’s energy security is a priority for the government, and Hungary is dependent on Russia for “physical, geographical and infrastructural reasons”, he said.
“If we could import from elsewhere, we would do so, but that would require discovering new gas fields and building new pipelines,” he said. “We cannot heat flats with political statements,” he added.
Slovak PM Eduard Heger and Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki both criticised Hungary in recent days. The two leaders criticised Hungary’s position on the war in Ukraine. The two leaders of V4 member countries said Hungary’s opposition to sanctions against Russia was outrageous.
Criticism from the allies
Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger wants tougher sanctions against Russia over the war against Ukraine. Heger held talks with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in the Slovak town of Stara Lubovna. The Polish head of state agreed with his Slovak counterpart.
In other words, Poland and Slovakia are disappointed by the Hungarian attitude.
Hungary is not willing to supply arms to Ukraine. In addition, military units carrying weapons are not allowed to transit through Hungary.
Morawiecki says it is outrageous that Hungary and Germany are protesting against sanctions against Russia.
These remarks show that the gap between Hungary and the other countries in the Visegrád Four is widening, portfolio.hu reports. While Hungary remains neutral, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia are supplying Ukraine with heavy weapons. The Russian-Ukrainian war could easily drive a wedge between the allies.
Slovenia’s Prime Minister Janez Jansa is a conservative SDS politician and a great ally of Viktor Orbán. However, Slovenia holds parliamentary elections on 24 April.
Jansa may be replaced precisely because of his good relationship with Orbán.
Napi.hu reports that the latest opinion polls show that the centre-left party Slovoda is slightly more likely to win than SDS. Many voters fear the “Hungarisation” of Slovenia. This means that Jansa is ignoring criticism and influences the independent media. Slovenia’s GDP and labour market have returned to pre-coronavirus levels. Thus, analysts say that a crucial policy question could be what pattern the country wants to follow.
“If SDS wins the election, the Slovenian media could become similar to what the current Hungarian media is like,”
said Uros Esih, a journalist for the daily Delo. If Jansa does not win the election, Hungary will have one less ally in the European Union.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday congratulated Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance’s victory in Hungary’s general election, the Kremlin’s press office said.
Putin
Putin said he hoped that “despite the difficult international situation, bilateral partnership ties will develop fully in line with the interests of the people of Russia and Hungary,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told a press conference that the results of Hungary’s democratic election should be respected.
“Regardless of our relations with Hungary, we must note that the Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance won its fourth consecutive election with the best possible results, securing a two-thirds majority in the process,” he said.
Concerning sanctions against Russia, the Polish prime minister said “Hungary should not be used as a diversion” by the media when Germany had delayed strong sanctions. The European Union is not hindered in imposing more stringent sanctions by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban but rather “by large countries looking out for their business ties,” he said, noting that Orban had so far voted for all sanctions.
Answering a question, Morawiecki said he would ask Orban to support even stricter sanctions against Russia.
Later on Monday, Czech President Milos Zeman wired a message of congratulation to Orban, saying “the Hungarian people support you because you have always put their interests first, and see serving your country as a calling.”
He praised Hungarian-Czech cooperation, and called for the Visegrad Group to be given high priority. “I am convinced that central Europe has great potential in bilateral and international cooperation,” he said.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said he hoped Hungary would “take a more active part” in finding a solution to the situation in Ukraine. “Europe has to be united its support of Ukraine, where Russia is committing war crimes,” he said.
Jansa
Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa congratulated Orban and Fidesz in a tweet “on this historic victory for Hungary, Europe and the entire free world.”
Fice
Former Slovak President Robert Fico, the head of the opposition Smer-SD party, said Orban had “very clearly” built on Hungary’s independence and economic prosperity. Orban puts Hungarian interests first, and did not allow the country to be “dragged into” the conflict in Ukraine, he said.
Fico said the election results in Hungary were “not surprising at all”, and he noted that during his presidency, he and Orban had worked together to ensure stable Hungarian-Slovak ties.
Other leaders
Later on Monday that numerous other heads of state and government have also congratulated Orban. Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanjahu called him by phone on Monday, as did Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, and Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger, he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India congratulated Orbán on Twitter and Li Keqiang of China wired a message of congratulations.
Congratulations, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, on your victory in the Parliamentary elections in Hungary. Look forward to continue working with you to further strengthen the close and friendly India-Hungary ties.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic and French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, among others, published statements.
Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, congratulated Orban on his “remarkable victory”, saying Brussels needed to respect the will of the Hungarian voters.
She said “not even the disorderly election concourse of the entirety of the left and the … far right” had been enough to “defeat the Hungarian prime minister”. Meloni said Orban had been criticised for years “for his policies of protecting the borders and the concept of the family”, but “no one has thanked him for the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees taken in over the last few weeks”.
Henry Cavill (38), who plays Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher, has already started the preparation for the upcoming third season of Netflix’s flagship fantasy show.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/witchernetflix
The British actor stars in Netflix’s fantasy epic as a magical warrior battling monsters and mutants. The Polish-American fantasy drama TV show is created by Lauren Schmidt Hissrich and based on a book series written by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski baring the same name as the show. The story is set on a fictional medieval-inspired landmass, called “the Continent” and explores the legend of Geralt of Rivia and Princess Ciri. Since the show sticks to a medieval theme, the actors and actresses have to go through a good amount of training and preparation, for example mastering their horse-riding skills, before shooting each episode. Since riding a horse on a movie set can be very different from everyday riding, due to the endless distractions let alone the times actors have to wear heavy costumes or hold weapons, finding a skilled horseman is crucial for the story’s authenticity. Luckily Henry Cavill, who plays protagonist Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher, is in good hands. His Hungarian riding instructor is László Juhász Junior whose company provides horses, carriages, horseriders, carriage riders and equipment for film productions for years.
Reunited with my equine friend Hector today, and my human friend Laszlo! After a good ride out through the mountains, Hector showed off some of his new rearing skills. He’s showing some promise.
— wrote the actor in an earlier Instagram post. Lately, Cavill has been regularly posting pictures in the company of his trainer, he also shared a post about one of their afternoon rides the other day.
The actor trains with two black horses named Hector and Apollo – although one of them can be fellow actress Freya Allan’s (20) horse who plays Princess Ciri in the show – in Italy and in the Slovenian mountains. His Hungarian trainer, Lászlo Juhász Junior has worked together with many big names such as Terence Hill, Johnny Depp at the set of the Pirates of the Caribbean and Jamie Foxx in the past. His company was hired to train actors for the 2016 Ben-Hur movie and a 2020 Perrier water commercial shot in Athens, Greece.
As for the Witcher, it is still early for fans to start the countdown as Netflix has not released the premiere date for season 3. According to Redanian Intelligence, the cameras have just started rolling at the end of March. Filming is currently planned to wrap in September 2022.
The shooting began at Laghi du Fusine, a pair of gorgeous lakes in Italy, close to the Slovenian border. Locals spotted two horse trucks from Team Juhász leaving the set.
Other known filming locations include the picturesque Predjama Castle in south-central Slovenia, the neighbouring Nanos peak as well as Pula and Krk Islands in Croatia. The filming of season 2 was interrupted several times due to the pandemic and Henry Cavill’s on-set leg injury. Hopefully, it is smooth sailing for season 3!
The Hungarian, Greek and Slovenian ombdsmen on Thursday visited the Ukrainian-Hungarian border and were briefed of the current circumstances and the measures taken to help Ukrainian refugees, the Hungarian ombudsman’s office said.
Ákos Kozma of Hungary, Andreas Pottakis of Greece and Peter Svetina of Slovenia visited the border crossing at Záhony-Cap (Csap) and an aid point in Beregsurány where Kozma also inaugurated a temporary office of the Office of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights in Hungary, the statement said.
Kozma said office employees had been working on the border since the Ukraine-Russia war broke out three weeks ago.
They provide legal aid and help in procuring documents to refugees arriving through Záhony,
Many requested information on travel documents or employment in Hungary, he said.
Since the war started, over 438,000 refugees arrived in Hungary from Ukraine,
he said.
Pottakis, who also heads the European office of the International Ombudsman Institute (IOI), praised the Hungarian office’s efforts for refugees. The IOI will support Hungary further, and Greece is also offering legal, financial and humanitarian support, he said.
The agreement which Hungary and Slovenia signed on Monday will enable more comprehensive cooperation between the two countries and form the basis for the continued growth of bilateral relations, Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa said on Monday.
Jansa told a joint press conference with Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orbán in Lendava (Lendva) that the first agreement on the protection of Hungary and Slovenia’s minorities on the two sides of the border had been signed 30 years ago. The current agreement covers so far unaddressed matters, he added.
The prime ministers signed an agreement on a joint fund to develop the mixed-population Prekmurje and Rába regions in 2022-2026 by providing an annual 5 million euros for each.
A cooperation agreement on setting up the fund was signed by Jansa and Orbán in Celje last September.
Trade between the two countries increased by 20 percent last year compared to the previous year “which demonstrates that businesses on both sides of the border discovered previously untapped opportunities”, he said.
Hungary is Slovenia’s seventh largest foreign trade partner,
Jansa said, adding that he expected this to change in the near future considering that “economic ties between neighbourly countries are twice as useful” as between non-neighbours.
He said that elections were to take place in both countries in April and expressed hope that cooperation between Hungary and Slovenia would continue “regardless of what awaits us after the elections”.
In response to a question, Jansa said
cutting energy prices would be impossible without nuclear energy.
Commenting on the Ukraine crisis, he said
“I think I can say for both of us that we trust the conflict would not escalate because that would be against everybody’s interests”.
He said there was consensus in the EU about the need for a peaceful solution and warned that even a hybrid attack could cause plenty of damage, even if there is no armed conflict.
Prior to the press conference, foreign ministry state secretary Levente Magyar and Slovenian Minister of Education, Science and Sport Simona Kustec signed an agreement about a Hungarian-Slovenian educational, scientific and cultural programme for 2022-2025.
Hungary and Slovenia are among the few economies that were “afflicted” by the pandemic but emerged from the crisis stronger than they were before, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Monday in Lendava (Lendva), in northeast Slovenia, after talks with his Slovenian counterpart Janez Jansa.
Jansa and Orbán signed an agreement on regional crossborder developments.
At a joint press conference after the meeting, Orbán said the agreement would improve the lives of all citizens of Hungary and Slovenia by stengthening “friendship and alliance” between the two countries.
The world is currently facing challenges such as the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and “the changes in world economy in favour of the East against the West”, Orbán said. “Solutions will be easier to find together than separately,” he said.
Orbán noted changes in European economy.
“A few years ago we thought central European economies were not viable without western Europe. That may still hold today, but now western European economies cannot work without central Europe, either,” he said.
Economic power is now more equally distributed, and co-dependency is stronger in the European Union, “so Hungary can represent its own truth, its own approach and its own plans more boldly”. “We are not troublemakers, merely stronger than we were and conscious of our right to have our voice heard” as much as that of western European countries, he said.
The stronger the cooperation among central European countries, the stronger their voice, he said.
Slovenia and Hungary both see minorities as assets rather than a source of conflict, he said.
Responding to a question on the energy crisis, Orbán said the Slovenian government, which held the EU’s rotating presidency in the second half of 2021, “did everything in their power to warn the EU of an impending jump in energy prices we were not prepared for”. Other central European countries did the same, he said.
“This is not just about rising energy prices but also about the failure of European climate policy,”
which he said was counting on long-term price raises as an incentive for people to cut consumption. “However, they failed to include protections against speculation,” he said.
A “new plan is needed, because the next step in the old plan” would be to raise prices for households and car fuel, he said. He pledged to “fight” against such measures.
Hungary’s government has kept its utility price cuts for households in place to protect private citizens, “but companies have suffered because the budget could not support a similar protection for them”, he said.
Orbán also pledged to keep Hungary’s investment environment “welcoming” for Slovenia. Meanwhile, Hungary aims to increase its weight in investments in the country, where it is currently the seventh largest investor, he said. “We want to come up to third or fourth place,” he said.
Concerning the situation in Ukraine, Orbán said the goal was to maintain peace, but added that “goodwill is not enough to make peace”.
“Peace requires power and the weak will not have peace,”
he insisted. He warned that “we are not well off” because “Europe does not have a military force comparable to that of Russia, and so long as that is hte case, Europe’s security will not be determined by the Europeans but by the Russians on one side and the Americans on the other”.
That is why the Hungarian government supports European efforts to build military cooperation within the community, developing a defence industry and creating “serious defence capabilities” to ensure peace, the prime minister said.
If the situation escalates in Ukraine, a neighbouring country,
“Hungary will come under tremendous pressure”,
he said. He noted that tens of thousands of people had fled to Hungary during the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s. The pressure would be even more severe from Ukraine, a much larger country, he said.
Answering a question about the upcoming parliamentary election, Orbán said “we are prepared for victory”. He said “we have the arguments” to continue on government, in terms of the “political, economic, and moral” achievements of the past 12 years, during which “Hungary ran forward and looks quite different” than in 2010.
As we wrote in January, the defence and law enforcement committees of the parliaments of the Visegrád Group have expressed support for an undivided NATO and European Union, Lajos Kósa, the head of the Hungarian committee, said after a meeting of his V4 counterparts in Debrecen, in eastern Hungary. The closed-door meeting, also attended by Slovenia. Detials HERE.
Fully 43 percent of Hungarians asked in a Nézőpont survey expressed a positive view of Russian President Vladimir Putin, while 36 percent of respondents said they had a negative opinion.
The pro-government Nézőpont gauged Putin’s appreciation in 12 central European countries in November and December last year, and concluded from the results that the Russian president is a divisive politician.
According to the pollster,
Hungarians have a “pragmatic” view of the Russian president.
Putin is most popular with Serbs (77pc), while respondents in Poland (10pc) indicated the most negative views about him.
The poll found that Putin was also popular in Bulgaria (60pc), North Macedonia (55pc) and Montenegro (57pc).
The Russian president was less popular with Czechs (25pc), and Romanians (31pc).
Slovenia (34pc), Croatia (37pc) and Austria (21pc) were in the same “pragmatic” category as Hungary.
The defence and law enforcement committees of the parliaments of the Visegrád Group have expressed support for an undivided NATO and European Union, Lajos Kósa, the head of the Hungarian committee, said after a meeting of his V4 counterparts in Debrecen, in eastern Hungary, on Friday.
The closed-door meeting, also attended by Slovenia, as an observer, focused on strategic and long-term cooperation issues as well as topical subjects such as the situation in Ukraine, Kósa told a press conference.
The participants issued a joint statement concerning the draft migration and refugee pact of the EU, as well as on defence cooperation between the Visegrád countries.
In their statements, the committee heads warned that a further increase in tension around Ukraine could trigger a wave of mass migration and create a situation similar to the Belarusian migration crisis and called for a complex approach.
It is crucial to create a European-level migration and refugee system that could “cope with the challenges, the migration pressure on the external borders of the EU, as well as with the hybrid attacks that use migration as a tool”, the statement said.
In their statement, the signatories also called on the EU to “avoid any measures triggering migration”. Participants in the meeting also expressed support for the Hungarian V4 presidency’s efforts to further cooperation “in a V4+” format in view of shared security threats and challenges, Kósa said.
A relatively minor earthquake hit Slovenia on Saturday morning and according to MTI the seismological station in Becsehely, Hungary was also able to pick up the vibration from the phenomenon.
According to the information published on the website of the Kövesligethy Radó Seismological Observatory, the earthquake hit Slovenia on Saturday morning at 18 past 8.
The station recorded the earthquake to be a 3.7 on the Richter Scale. They recorded this data in the region of Ljutomer, near the Croatioan border.
The earthquake even reached the seismological station in Becsehely.
Telexreported that an earthquake also hit Switzerland on Saturday morning in Pruntrut near the French border.
However, Hungary is in a safe location, Telex says, highlighting that the high-risk areas in terms of earthquakes is Croatia and Slovenia, parts of Romania and the area from the Alps to Slovakia.
Although it is worth noting that the number of earthquakes near Budapest and Kecskemét and near the shore of Balaton has proliferated recently.
Telexalso reminded us of the catastrophe that hit the middle part of Croatia last year.
Though the government says Hungary’s economy increases unprecedentedly, numbers do not support PM Orbán’s communication. Based on the data of the World Bank, Hungary fell behind in the last 25 years in the region.
According to 24.hu, the Orbán administration tried to sell Hungary as one of the most successful European countries economically. Meanwhile, inflation is at a 14-year peak, the forint is weakening, and the state budget struggles with a historic high deficit.
Based on the World Bank’s data, Hungary fell behind two places in the Central-Eastern-European region between 1995 and 2020.
The institution compared the economic development of 17 countries in CEE, taking GDP per capita.
The starting date is 1995 because that is from when the World Bank has data from all countries in the CEE region.
In 1995, Hungary was in fifth place if we take the GDP per capita. Slovenia was first in the CEE region, while the Czech Republic came second. However, the average Slovenian produced twice as much GDP as the average Czech (10,730 dollars vs 5,824 dollars). The third was Croatia, fourth Slovakia and fifth Hungary (4,495 USD per person). Interestingly, the Polish GDP per capita was only 82 pc of the Hungarian. However, thanks to liberal reforms, Warsaw was one of the fastest-growing economies of the CEE region in the last 25 years.
Poland developed by 150 pc between 1989 and 2019. Meanwhile, this rate was only 50 pc in Hungary’s case.
Estonia was well behind Hungary in 1995. But by 2020, Tallinn became the second most developed country in the region. An average citizen of the Baltic state made more than 23 thousand dollars in 2020. Experts say that Estonia profited a lot from their liberal education and economic reforms, and the digitalisation of the state. Meanwhile, the Hungarian GDP per capita grew only to 15,900 USD, which is only 69 pc of the Estonian number.
However, not only the Polish and the Estonians preceded Hungary. Latvia and Lithuania did so, too.
24.hu gave a detailed analysis of the milestones of the Hungarian economic development in the last 25 years. In 1995, the parliament accepted the Bokros-package, named after the Socialist Gyula Horn’s liberal economy minister. The package’s social effect was catastrophic, but it put the Hungarian economy on a growth course. 24.hu argues that Hungary did the same as Poland and Estonia, but the reforms came too late.
Hungary’s position did not change in the second half of the 1990s and at the beginning of the 2000s. However, in 2002, Hungary emerged in third place. That meant Budapest preceded even Croatia and Slovakia. 24.hu says that the increasing expenditures of
the first Orbán and Medgyessy-governments broke the budget balance.
Therefore, the Gyurcsány-cabinet (2004-2009) encouraged foreign currency loans to substitute state-supported real estate loans introduced by Viktor Orbán before. Even the central bank of Hungary did not say that the process was risky. However, when the exchange rate of forint collapsed, people having a foreign currency loan found themselves in a deadly trap. By 2007, the amount of this loan reached 272 bn HUF.
The result was that 61 thousand families struggled with paying back their loans. Their burden was so high, and those affected so many that they needed state help. Furthermore, the Hungarian state debt increased from 53 pc of the GDP (2002) to 80 pc (2010). After Gyurcsány’s Őszöd speech resulted in clashes in 2006 fall between the protesters and the police, Hungary started to fall back. By 2007, Hungary was seventh.
In 2009, the list was the following: Slovenia, Czechia, Slovakia, Estonia, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.
Moreover, in 2012, Hungary became 9th on the list in the region. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Croatia all preceded the country. That is when the cut in the utility fees came and saved the Orbán administration.
By 2015, Hungary went back to seventh place in the region. That has not changed since then.
Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister’s chief of staff confirmed that during yesterday’s government info. Hungary is to send ten doctors to Slovenia to help amid the serious epidemic there – he said.
Regarding the Stop Soros package of laws which the European Court of Justice ruled unlawful, Gulyás said the government was examining the ruling. He added the government considered the European Commission’s “stand in favour of migration taken within a single week of the court’s ruling” to be “a serious mistake”. Gulyás said the EC should follow the instructions of European government leaders and draft a clear set of rules to advance the protection of the EU’s external borders.
Commenting on the situation on the Poland-Belarus border, Gulyás noted that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was handling the diplomacy, and “Hungary knows what its weight is,” though if a request was received, he added, Hungary would not hesitate to step up. Every possible support for protecting the external borders should be provided, he said.
Asked about recent legislation on
changing address rules for voters in the general election,
Gulyás said the new rules did not offer any greater room for manoeuver that those up to now. Neither did they connect with the right to vote, he insisted. The government estimates that 1.5-2 million people live somewhere other than at their declared address, he added.
During the five-week parliamentary session, no objections to the amendment were made, he said. A debate emerged only later, when an organisation linked to George Soros complained about the new law, Gulyás added. Responding to a question on the economy, Gulyas said the government considered it important that certain sectors of the economy should be in Hungarian hands to a sufficient degree, and more must be done to achieve this in the food industry and retail.
Regarding the possible redrafting of next year’s budget, he said the government awaited the central bank’s 2022 inflation forecast to be published in December. He said the government concurred with the consensus that inflation would not fall back to around three percent before the second half of next year.
The port of Koper interests the Orbán-government. Negotiations started years ago, in 2016, without any success in striking a deal so far.
The port of Koper interests the Orbán-government, which has been trying to buy a share of the port for a while. The Hungarian government has been unsuccessfully trying to make a deal since 2016 with regards to a railway. Now, the government may actually have a chance to buy shares. A company called Luka Koper (LK) is one of the most important Slovenian companies, and the state holds the majority of the stakes. The biggest political party in the country, SDS, is an ally of the Hungarian Fidesz, writes 24.hu.
“In the shadow of personnel struggles for the administration, the battle for land in the area of the Port of Koper is also being fought. These again attracted the Hungarians, who, with the help of the ruling party’s staff, want to secure them quickly before the elections. These are the lands of Intereuropa, which has been owned by the state-owned Pošta Slovenije since 2019. This is controlled by SDS staff led by the interim general director Tomaž Kokot, who is also the chairman of the Supervisory Board of Intereuropa,” writes necenzurirano.si.
According to the news site, Tomaž Kokot is allegedly in favour of selling a larger number of Intereuropa’s real estate.
Viktor Orbán tried to make a deal with three Slovenian prime ministers in the past few years. Discussions started back in 2016 with Miro Cerar. Budapest wished to join the project company, 2TDK, established for the construction of the second Koper railway track with 200 million euros. In return, the Hungarians wanted 50,000 square metres of warehouse space around the port of Koper. This deal, however, fell through as another Slovenian government came to power. Marjan Šarc refused the Hungarian offer.
The Hungarians then bought 32 hectares in the Port of Trieste. Now, Janez Janša could help Hungarians achieve their goals.
In 2020, the former government failed, and the Janša-government got to power partially thanks to Orbán’s support. Hungarian media specialists helped the Slovenian politician’s press. Now, the Hungarian government’s goal may be accomplished, and it may get shares in the Port of Koper, situated in the northern part of the Adriatic Sea. The port is important because it connects markets of Central and Southeast Europe with the Mediterranean Sea and the Far East.
Two Croatian nationals wanted in connection with a series of retribution shootings committed across Europe have been arrested by Hungarian authorities in Gyor, in north-western Hungary, the operational police force said on Wednesday.
The 45 and 25-year-old men are suspected by the Slovenian authorities of the attempted murder of a Slovenian citizen in the city of Nova Gorica in 2020. Police have also linked the two suspects to multiple retribution shootings in Croatia and Italy.
Both men were among Europe’s most wanted fugitives.
Slovenian investigators tracked the suspects to Hungary and asked the operational police force of the National Investigation Bureau (NNI) to assist with their capture. The NNI and its Slovenian partner units quickly tracked down the fugitives and arrested them on October 19 in Győr with the help of Hungary’s counter-terrorism force TEK. The court will decide on their extradition to Slovenia later, the operational poIice force said.
István Nagy, Hungary’s minister of agriculture, held talks with agrarian leaders of seven central European countries on challenges to the region on the Budapest fairground Hungexpo on Friday.
Addressing top officials of Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, Nagy called for closer cooperation in agricultural research and joint actions so that the member states could implement the EU’s common agricultural policy under national control, in line with their national characteristics.
Agrarian V4+4 Summit in Budapest at the World Hunting Expo Photo: MTI/Czeglédi Zsolt
Brussels’ will often runs counter to local agrarian interests, he said, adding that the EU partners should understand that rural regions “are not the periphery but the very heart of the European way of life,” he said.
The minister said that food waste and loss were declining in Hungary but still amounted to 88 million tonnes a year in the European Union. The best way to reduce it, he said, would lie in the digitalisation of the food chain.
