Hungarian Conservative

A turnabout in the Hungarian stance seems unlikely at the moment. The Hungarian government has consistently vetoed further military assistance to Ukraine as well, and will most probably not change course regarding Ukrainian accession to the EU either under the Hungarian rotating presidency.

Hungary has received assurances from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that it will not have to participate in military action outside its territory. Stoltenberg and Viktor Orbán held talks in Budapest on Wednesday, during which, in addition to discussing the war, Hungary’s significant contribution to the functioning of the defence alliance was also highlighted.

In Budapest, those interested in the events and exhibitions for the Night of Museums will be able to attend with a unified wristband: adult wristbands cost 3000 forints, while children’s wristbands (ages 6 to 18) cost 1500 forints. The wristbands not only provide entry to participating institutions and programmes but also allow free use of the BKK museum bus routes.

‘The HAIKU states present a novel approach to exploring and understanding how statesmen and national leaders can navigate a dynamically changing global political landscape, marked by shifts in power balances, evolving alliances, and heightened strategic competition.’

‘The four camps of congressional foreign policy suggest different readings on the transatlantic alliance. From a liberal universalist perspective, NATO is not just a political and military alliance focusing on collective defence, but rather a collective security cooperation based on shared values. A pragmatic liberal argument views NATO as an institution where allies’ interests and values can be aligned, whereas a prudential realist understanding highlights the alliance’s role in pursuing US interests in accordance with US values. Lastly, from a strict realist perspective, NATO is the contemporary embodiment of an American sphere of interest in Europe.’

Galambóc (Golubac in today’s Serbia), still an imposing fortress on the banks of the lower Danube section, first appears in the annals of history when Turkish invasions approached and even reached the former borders of Hungary. King Sigismund, however, is not usually praised in military historical literature for the siege of Galambóc, although he acted with great foresight and care.

‘I am convinced that the current leadership in Brussels does not take into account the opinion or expectations of the majority of European people, and we even see that they represent non-European interests in Brussels on key issues, such as illegal migration, the war in Ukraine or the EU’s competitiveness,’ Hungarian Member of the European Parliament Balázs Hidvéghi stated in an interview with Hungarian Conservative.

Despite the significant support Ukraine receives from its Western allies, the Russian military industry seems to be still superior in terms of quantities. According to reports, five Russian responses are received for every shot fired by Ukraine. In addition, Ukraine’s Western allies produce artillery ammunition not only more expensively but at a much slower rate than Russia. According to predictions, in 2024, Russia will be able to produce 4.5 million artillery shells, while the EU and the US together only about 1.3 million.

Defence Minister Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky announced the purchase of two new German Leopard 2A7HU tanks on his Facebook page. The vehicles will be added to the fleet of the 1st György Klapka Armoured Brigade of the Hungarian Defence Forces.

The Polish History Museum in Warsaw, Poland, the venue for the 12th European Remembrance Symposium last month, has an impressive array of items on display, ranging from 17th-century sunken treasure recovered from the Vistula River to items related to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, such as a ball with which the Polish National Team scored against Russia at Euro 2012.

A vibrant panel discussion on 30 May 2024 in Budapest looked at the impact of Brexit on Europe and the EU, and on the importance of nation-states and the conservative movement in a changing Europe.

Albeit on Monday the public was informed that only Tibor Kapu and Gyula Cserényi have been selected as the astronauts for the programme, the other two candidates who had been included in the final round of selection, clinical orthopaedic surgeon Ádám Schlégl and aerospace design engineer András Szakály, will nonetheless assist with the work of the HUNOR mission in leading positions on the staff of the mission’s ground-based control centre. As for Kapu and Cserényi, they will soon be sent to the United States, where they will undergo the final phase of their training, supervised and assisted by the US space agency NASA and the private company Axiom Space, Hungary’s international space exploration partners.

On 21 May, pro-Palestinian individuals aggressively disrupted an even at the Danube Institute. However, they failed to silence the Israeli representatives who came to Hungary to bear witness to the brutality of Hamas on 7 October. What they managed to do, however, was to illustrate a crucial difference between the two sides: while Israeli advocates presented their arguments intelligently and peacefully, related their painful experiences, and even when they were shouted at answered questions, the Palestinian protesters had no substantive arguments; instead, they shouted antisemitic slogans full of hatred, and in a deeply disrespectful manner, tried to do everything to silence the Israelis and those who support them.

In the short term, the process of de-dollarization is exploiting the current state of the business cycle in the US and EU. Just a small decrease in the number of transactions in which the dollar is denominated will cause a devaluation of the dollar and a prolonged state of higher interest rates in the US, together with quantitative tightening—all leading to a weakening of the economic position of the US, the EU, and the other G7 countries.

The event was organized by the Defence Sports Federation established in 2017 to provide young people with unique, military-style pre-training opportunities. This year saw a record number of entries, and the cadet training programme, also launched in 2017 on a voluntary basis for secondary school students, has also set a new record with 149 schools now contracted to the federation.

‘If Marine Le Pen and Giorgia Meloni manage to work together, either in a group or in a coalition, they will be the strength of Europe,’ stated Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in an interview with Le Point. PM Orbán also discussed the Hungarian EU Presidency starting in July, the threats facing Europe and his relationship with French President Emmanuel Macron.

‘If we treat the deepening understanding of the common value of Rule of Law as we would the space race, with definite winners and losers, then we degrade it. There can be no winners and losers here, really, as every state is a winner and a loser simultaneously in their daily battles on the frontlines of the Rule of Law. Some of these battles are acute, some try to tackle chronic symptoms, and it is very hard to credibly create systems of indexing, wherein each and every state actor may be qualified according to the same, abstract level of success or failure on these merits.’

Former US President Donald Trump, the current Republican presidential candidate, spoke about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in a recent interview, praising the latter’s pro-peace stance on the war in Ukraine. Pro-peace voices are needed more than ever in Europe, as Western leaders prepare for the crucial June elections amid a state of war psychosis.

Monday’s Foreign Affairs Council meeting was incredibly tense, with Péter Szijjártó coming under enormous pressure regarding the fourteenth sanctions package and the additional military and financial support to be provided to Ukraine. EU foreign ministers continue to criticize the Hungarian government for its pro-peace stance, which it has consistently maintained since the outbreak of the war.

‘The more I travelled in America, the more I realized that there is no state in the U.S. where Hungarians have not created something lasting; where there is not some Hungarian thread, some Hungarian history, some Hungarian contribution. We wanted to visualize this centuries-old creative process and make it easily accessible to the widest possible audience. That’s how the idea of the HuGo app was born, and of course it took years to fine-tune the concept with our developers arriving at the publicly available version we have today.’ Anna Smith Lacey on the HuGo app and the power of the community.

‘In modern Christian Democracy, the Roman Catholic and Protestant lines of thought come together to form a common Christian understanding of a desirable society. Subsidiarity as one of the core principles in social teaching calls for a healthy society, where different vertical levels and horizontal spheres respect each other’s autonomy, even sovereignty, while at the same time bringing them into cooperation.’

‘If we are looking for a more idealistic, right-wing conservative solution to the puzzle, we have to question the current form of the EU as it is. It may be appealing to the economic right, but it contains very little for the social right. This would mean either a radical restructuring of the EU to align towards more of these values or its reduction to a mere economic cooperation platform.’

‘That Britain chose to join the EEC in 1975 was a tragedy. That it left the EU with the utmost incompetence in 2016 was a farce caused entirely by the Conservative Party’s inability to resolve the psychological trauma of three decades. In both instances, it is the British people who have suffered and they whose trust in politics to be a force for good has, as a consequence, been destroyed.’

An ethnic Hungarian woman in Trascaprathia, Ukraine, who asked to remain anonymous, penned an open letter, asking for prayers for the men and their families in Ukraine who are in a state of panic over the new, stricter conscription law.

‘The ideological models that had emerged at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries…had transformed social thinking and humanity’s view of the world to such an extent that it was impossible to maintain and preserve the earlier, semi-feudal Europe. This in turn meant that ethnicity and nationality, previously considered less significant elements…became a determining factor, leading not only to an exploration of the historical past of a given community, in the search for national heroes, but also to a demand for political unification with ethnic or linguistic compatriots within a single country.’

‘Justice, equality before the law, and freedom. I have travelled the world and have not found a combination of values and structures that better support the flourishing of the human soul and human nature,’ János Csák remarked at the launch of his book titled Genius of America. The Minister of Culture and Innovation’s work delves into how liberty, freedom, and equality before the law have become the United States’ three most important values, and how Americans can rediscover happiness by overcoming the current profound divisions in society.

In his remarks to officials working in the US capital and foreign diplomats, Ambassador Takács pointed out that for the sake of Ukraine and its society, peace and a ceasefire are needed. The sooner negotiations aimed at this can begin, the fewer further casualties will have to be suffered. The Ambassador also emphasized the importance of NATO remaining a defensive alliance focusing on deterrence.

In truth, “the long arc of harassment, assault, and murder of Palestinians by Jewish settlers is twinned with a shadow history, one of silence, avoidance, and abetment by Israeli officials”, states The New York Times. This is not to downplay the terrorist threat against Israelis by Palestinian jihadists. However, interviews with more than one hundred people—current and former officers of the Israeli military, the National Israeli Police, and the Shin Bet domestic security service; high-ranking Israeli political officials, including four former prime ministers; Palestinian leaders and activists; Israeli human rights lawyers; American officials charged with supporting the Israeli-Palestinian partnership—there appears to be a long history of crime without punishment.’

‘When European elites long for a “Hamiltonian moment”, they imagine that a particular common financial necessity could be the spark that brings about a common political framework as well—hence the continuous return of talk of the “Hamiltonian moment” in discussing the EU’s attempts to deal with the eurozone crisis.’

In a joint interview with General Gábor Böröndi granted to Index, Hungary’s Defence Minister Kristóf Szalay- Bobrovniczky stressed that Hungary’s autonomous, truly deployable and combat-ready armed forces are key to the country’s defence, because if a member state does not have a strong military, NATO membership is not sufficient protection.