Day 2 of the Rule of Law as Lawfare Conference featured speeches by István Stumpf, a former justice on the Constitutional Court of Hungary, Aleksander Stępkowski, Supreme Court of Poland justice, and Dr Reinhard Merkel, law professor at Universität Hamburg.
‘Besides the less remote Iberian Peninsula, the Center for Fundamental Rights now runs a dedicated operation aimed towards the oft-neglected south of the Western hemisphere, amounting to twenty-two countries, nine time zones, two languages—and countless parties, think tanks, civic groups, and allies spread from the borderland Rio Grande down to the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. This empire of actionable ideas will grow by persuasion rather than force, not as a sovereign entity but as a loose constellation of like-minded partners comparing notes on their parallel journeys to power.’
The district mayor of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode in Brussels, Emir Kir, issued an administrative order to prohibit the National Conservatism Conference (NatCon) scheduled for 16–17 April, citing ‘ensuring public safety’ as the reason. MCC, a co-organizer of the event, has now launched legal proceedings against Kir, claiming that the order violated the right of free speech.
‘The systematic method Tóth uses really contributes to our understanding of ideology and ideological thinking. To mention a few substantial arguments that are derived from the plot of Darkness at Noon: ideological thinking is not necessarily concerned with objective reality; it naturally leads to radicalism; and—somewhat paradoxically—seems to replace its ideological nature with neo-Machiavellian pragmatism when the question of power politics emerges.’
Fabrice Leggeri, the ‘guest of honour’ at the event, who served as the director of Frontex from 2015 to 2022 opined that the European Union as a rule attempts to dissuade member states from defending their own borders.
A new world order, European security, shifting geopolitics and the nuances of energy security were discussed by renowned experts at a conference at the Ludovika University of Public Service in Budapest.
In a February episode of the Reflections from Budapest podcast the Director-General of the Tikvah Fund highlighted the neo-Marxist narrative in the West which holds that ‘weak is just’, and since the Palestinians are presented as weak, Israel is portrayed as their oppressor.
‘Like many, I still cannot believe that Wilders could become prime minister, given his years of demagogic outbursts and his abysmal reputation among the parts of the nation that ‘matter’. He shocked polite society with condescending statements about Dutch Muslims and unworkable, discriminatory policy proposals.’
‘For our children, the mother tongue is a means and an opportunity for fulfilment and self-fulfilment. In the words of György Bessenyei: “Every nation becomes a scholar in its own language, but never in a foreign one.”’ Read Luke Larson’s interview with Hungarian-language school principal Berta Katona-Mironova on the situation of Hungarian-language education in Ukraine.
‘Why did the left-wing oligarchy (a political-administrative and academic-media apparatus) mobilize its militant wing against a conference of a few hundred conservatives? Did it fear that its political opponents would win too many hearts, minds, and Euros? No. Canceling the original, sought-after venue was a naked exercise of its power. Réseau Ades warned that the agitation efforts will persist until NatCon Brussels 2024 is entirely aborted.’
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.