Letters to Hungary
3 september 2013
In recent days, the Socialists and the recently manufactured party of former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai have cobbled together an electoral pact of sorts. Agreement has been reached on the division of seats available to each for contesting in the next election and agreement on mutual support, where appropriate.
26 June 2013
I just observed the European Commission’s Viviane Reding defend herself at a press conference in Brussels on the subject of her attendance at this year’s Bilderberg Conference.
The Commissioner, responding to criticisms from several quarters that she used the Bilderberg event to interfere in Hungary’s internal affairs – including, it is reported, a suggestion of political bias – denied that she had done any such thing. However, when asked to open up and explain what was said or discussed, Ms Reding refused, citing the need to respect the ‘Chatham House Rules’ that applied to the Bilderberg discussions.
8 May 2013
For some time now I have been pondering why the Hungarian government has attracted so much attention from the EU. From revised constitutions to unorthodox economic policies, the European Commission and the European Parliament, has seen fit to criticise Hungarian policy.
25 April 2013
Events of the last few weeks in Hungary and Europe must have strengthened Viktor Orbán and Fidesz’s belief that victory in next year’s election is looking ever more likely.
10 April 2013
For the past two years, Hungary’s government, prime minister and governing party have been the subject of largely unprecedented attacks by both internal and external critics. These critics have assailed everything from the size of their parliamentary majority, their drafting of a new constitution, freedom of the press and the judiciary and their ‘unorthodox’ economic policy.
18 March 2013
Days ago, an editorial in the Financial Times (FT) called on Hungary to be sanctioned by the European Union. Hungary’s ‘crime’ was to continue to remodel its constitution in ways which liberal opinion in Europe felt to be inappropriate. The FT claimed that such moves were an ‘assault on European values’.
8 March 2013
The Financial Times (FT) continued its anti-Hungarian agenda this week with a well-timed assault on the country’s Prime Minister just as he was about to meet Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel. In an ill tempered and hectoring editorial, the newspaper called for the EU to withdraw Hungary’s voting rights in retaliation for Hungary continuing to defy Brussels regarding the new Hungarian constitution. For the FT, the Hungarian government is demonstrating non-European values.
24 February 2013
For some time now, the political opposition in Hungary has resembled a skydiver without a parachute. This week, however, the harsh reality of an uncomfortable landing began to hit home.
4 February 2013
The stalemate between the Hungarian Government and the IMF over the negotiations for a loan facility are regularly cited by the Hungarian media as a prime example of the government’s obduracy in the face of superior knowledge. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Finance Minister, Györgyi Matolcsy are held up by many in the media as being financially illiterate and incapable of understanding the finer points of global finance.
30 January 2013
The damaging split in the LMP has punctured their much-vaunted image and slogan ‘politics can be different’. In fact the political rupture in the LMP resulting from the incompatibility of the positions of senior party members Schiffer and Jávor simply demonstrates that the LMP leadership was no better and quite evidently worse than the average Hungarian politician.