Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated on Monday that the country would soon be able to breathe a sigh of relief as the Danube flooding is nearing its end. He added that once the immediate threat has passed, public health measures will begin, and an assessment of the lessons learned from the flood protection efforts will follow; but discipline is still required in the remaining two days.
‘We are at the start of a new era of stilted social relations, endless jobsworths protecting themselves from liability, grindingly rigid hiring rules, untold chilling effects, and general sclerosis in the arteries of capitalism. “The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state,” said Tacitus. To which I would add: the more numerous the lawyers, the more inured the people.’
Olivér Várhelyi will be removed from his position as Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement and will, if confirmed by the EP, be serving as Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare instead in the incoming EU Commission. EU Minister János Bóka congratulated him on his new assignment, while Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has criticized Brussels for the decision.
The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought was established in 1988 and is awarded annually by the European Parliament. It is primarily given to individuals or organizations who have made outstanding efforts in the defence of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The prize is named after Soviet physicist, dissident, and political exile Andrei Sakharov. Thirty-four years ago the first recipient was Nelson Mandela.
The Entente Florale Europe competition, the awards ceremony of which was held on 7 September in Székesfehérvár, has been organized since 1975 with the aim of promoting European towns and cities while advocating for principles of liveability and sustainability. Hungary was the first Central European country to join the competition in 1990 and has consistently achieved excellent results since.
As part of the Researchers’ Night, visitors are invited on 27 September 2024 to discover the evolution of programmable pocket calculators and the development of handheld computers and smartphones at the John von Neumann Computer Society’s 1200-square-metre IT museum in the Szent-Györgyi Albert Agora in Szeged. Renowned private collectors, including experts from the Arithmomuseum, will deliver presentations during the event.
‘From a sovereigntist standpoint, we need a rule-of-law conception that does not concede any authority over domestic affairs to supranational organizations and international bureaucracies. We need to keep an eye on the bigger picture and understand that these discussions are very much related to the future of the European community. Eurocrats instrumentalize courts to promote their federalist agenda through seemingly neutral rulings about the rule of law.’
The Hungarian government and Jewish communities, along with thousands of ordinary Hungarians, have shown full support of and solidarity with the State of Israel and the Jewish people in a number of ways since 7 October. We have listed the most important ones on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of Hungary–Israel relations.
‘To maintain social order, legitimate authority needs to be guarded so that popular sovereignty cannot derail in a popularity contest, which we witness today, for example in the American elections. It means that our leaders need to be honest about the human condition as well as provide a stability in which each person, in line with their talents and destiny, can thrive.‘
‘The gradual diminishing of Europe’s importance in the eyes of the successive US administrations in the twenty-first century has been arrested by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and weakened the “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia for the time being: emergencies have cropped up elsewhere. As Joseph Stalin may be said to have been one of the “founding fathers” of NATO, so may Vladimir Putin be seen in a similar role with regard to the revival of NATO, and closer US–EU cooperation.’
While in Budapest, Matteo Salvini also met with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary on Friday. Salvini is currently serving as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport of Italy. He is the leader of the Lega party, which joined Fidesz’s new group Patriots for Europe in the European Parliament earlier this year.
Solar boat races combine technological innovation, as developing solar-powered boats presents unique engineering challenges, with athletic prowess, and the solar boat team of Budapest University of Technology and Economics excels in both fields. Despite technical difficulties on home turf, the team remains optimistic about their upcoming competition in Italy.
Minister for Culture and Innovation Balázs Hankó has announced that his Ministry will be supporting the Sándor Csoóri Programme with 2.5 billion HUF (around $7.1 billion) this year. The programme was created in 2016 to help Hungarian folk dancers, musicians, and craft artists cultivate Hungarian culture, in the motherland and across the border alike.
Deputy Chairman of Mi Hazánk party Előd Novák accuses Hungarian BAC Consulting of aiding and abetting a terrorist act for supposedly manufacturing the pagers that exploded in the hands of Hezbollah operatives. Apart from being based on information debunked by the Hungarian government, Novák’s allegation regurgitates leftist anti-Israel narratives.
Earlier this week several hundred members of Hezbollah were reportedly severely injured in a mysterious series of explosions in Lebanon when bombs hidden inside pagers detonated. The manufacturing of the devices was initially linked to a Hungarian company. It has since been revealed that the company is only Hungarian on paper, and it does not have a manufacturing plant in the country. In fact, the pagers have never been within Hungary’s borders.
Press reports indicated that the pagers were manufactured by a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. CEO of Gold Apollo Hsu Ching-kuang held a press conference on the matter, where he announced that the AR-924 pagers ordered by Hezbollah were manufactured under licence by a Budapest-based company called BAC Consulting Ltd. Gold Apollo has not presented the specific agreement made with BAC Consulting.
The 1838 flood, commemorated by many memorial plaques and water level signs in the centre of the city, was not only a natural disaster but a tragedy that brought the country together. The heroism of Baron Miklós Wesselényi (1796–1850) for instance is kept in high regard to this day. The young baron gained national recognition for rowing around the flooded city rescuing people. His boat was equally open to the poor and the rich survivors of the flood; many were pulled from the water, others were save from rooftops.
‘You [in Hungary] imbue your young people in primary and secondary school with a sense of Hungary’s place in history…I mean, this was the country that turned back the invasions from Turkey and the Muslim lands and saved European civilization hundreds of years ago…We need to teach history in our schools, teach our young people that their country is something to be proud of.’
‘Since the start of the war, 8 million Ukrainians have fled their country; another 3 million have emigrated to Russia. Aside the mass defections, because of Ukraine’s birth rate collapse to the lowest recorded level, Zelenskyy has been unwilling to mobilize men aged between 18 and 25—typically the bulk of any fighting force. The fear is that, since most of these men are childless, should such die or become incapacitated, future demographic prospects would dim further.’
Hungarian national team captain Dominik Szoboszlai scored for Liverpool during their 3–1 win over AC Milan in the UEFA Champions League. On the same day Bayern Munich’s game ended in a rare 11-goal scoreline against Dinamo Zagreb, with the German side battering the Croats 9–2. But it seems that the fan fervour is just not the same as if this all had happened last year. There is a clear reason for that: the drastic UCL format change went into effect at the start of this season.
As a result of the heat island effect, temperatures in cities can be several degrees higher than in the surrounding green areas. The Hungarian Paulinyi & Partners design office, with the support of the European Space Agency, is developing solutions to combat urban heat islands using satellite data to create more liveable, cooler urban areas.
Following the keynote speech by Former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie, Retired Brigadier General in the US Army Antony J Tata, Director of the Baltic Security Foundation Otto Tabuns, Programme Director and co-founder of the Swedish think tank Oikos Arvid Hallén, President of the information warfare firm WorldStrat Jim Hanson, and Hungarian Ambassador to NATO István Balogh shared their views about the future of the military alliance.
Debrecen University Rector Zoltán Szilvássy shared that researchers at the university are developing a bacteriophage (a virus that kills bacteria) that will ‘eliminate’ all antibiotic-resistant bacteria causing hospital infections locally, thereby preventing such infections in all health institutions in Debrecen in the future.
Prime Minister Orbán briefed the press on the status of flood defence in Hungary on Wednesday. He shared that intense defence efforts are ongoing at twelve key locations along the Mosonmagyaróvár section of the Danube and Leitha rivers, as well as in Budapest and several settlements at the Danube Bend.
This study focuses on questions related to the Russia–Ukraine War, one of the most dramatic events in contemporary European history. It seeks to examine the extent to which the citizens of Europe feel that the official positions of Brussels (the EU) and NATO, and the resultant decisions, are their own.
The first panel discussion of the second day analysed warfare and its moral implications, and how policymakers, global powers and ordinary people react to the war in Ukraine and to the Israel–Hamas conflict.
‘In contrast to five years ago, the legitimacy of the Commission’s former and future President has been weak from the start in 2024. Although she is a Spitzenkandidat now, as she was the leader of the European People’s Party list in the European Parliament elections, the support of the leaders of the Member States is much weaker. In Germany, she is considered an opposition politician, so she is not a favourite but rather a forced choice for the governing coalition.’
‘Today, the Hungarian capital is part of the ongoing political discussion at the highest levels of American political life—for better or for worse. Hungary is either a symbol of all that is bad in the Western world—that’s how progressives, liberals, and neoconservatives see it; or it’s a plucky resister to globalism, social liberalism, and mass migration, a laboratory for a new kind of right-of-center policymaking.’
Professor Frank Füredi explained that he is concerned about how cultural issues and conflicts are able to influence geopolitical and military issues in the world in his opening keynote speech at the Danube Institute Geopolitical Summit.
Distinguished experts gathered at the fourth Danube Institute Geopolitical Summit to talk about the consequences of the green energy transition many leftist politicians are pushing for. Then, Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia; Ambassador Péter Sztáray, State Secretary for Security Policy and Energy Security of Hungary; and Former US Secretary of Veteran Affairs Robert Wilkie took the floor for closing remarks.