In the first half of the year, there was an increase in migration inflows at most of the European Union’s external borders, particularly in the Canary Islands, the border with Belarus, and the eastern Mediterranean, according to the EU Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex.
Speaking at the opening event of the International Young Physicists’ Tournament (IYPT) for secondary school students at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), State Secretary Varga-Bajusz highlighted that Budapest has always been a hub of science, creativity, and innovation. She believes that this competition will showcase these qualities to the world.
PM Orbán is reportedly travelling to Palm Beach, Florida after the conclusion of the NATO summit in Washington, DC to meet with Former US President Donald Trump. The two statesmen met back in March of this year as well, when PM Orbán paid a similar visit to President Trump. A lot has happened since then.
As expected, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is continuing the peace mission he started in Kyiv last week at the NATO summit in Washington, DC. Meanwhile, the defence alliance is increasing its support for Ukraine, with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg calling the path to NATO membership for the war-torn country irreversible.
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó discussed the consultations between Hungary and Türkiye at the NATO summit as part of the ‘peace mission’ initiated with Hungary’s assumption of the rotating EU presidency.
‘This new coalition (between the EPP, S&D, and Renew) wants to ignore what has been decided by free and sovereign nations that have grown tired of the policies imposed by Brussels. The interests of the voters are being systematically trampled on in a scandalous way,’ Vox MEP Hermann Terstch told Hungarian Conservative in a recent interview.
The Walt Disney Company has decided to discontinue one of its most popular theme park rides, Splash Mountain, due to progressive activists labelling it as ‘racist’, and replaced it with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure based on a little-known movie about a black princess. Disney has been already losing money on its film releases and most of its profits were generated by the experiences segment of the company, which too could be in jeopardy now.
Eight prominent British and American public figures have published an open letter in the Financial Times calling for an immediate ceasefire and peace talks in Ukraine. According to one of the authors, their letter was influenced by Viktor Orbán’s peace mission launched last week.
In a break with tradition, Viktor Orbán’s speech at the first plenary session of the European Parliament, where he was to present the programme of the Hungarian Presidency, may be postponed. The stated reason is that the Hungarian PM’s speech does ‘not fit into the EP’s timetable’.
Many of the political leaders whose parties now make up the new Patriots for Europe group, the third largest faction in the legislative body in the European Parliament, attended CPAC Hungary 2024 in Budapest back in April, as the Center for Fundamental Rights points out.
The Hungarian U18 men’s national water polo team successfully defended their world championship title by defeating Serbia 12–10 in the final of the Buenos Aires water polo tournament.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has defended Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s new EP political group, Patriots for Europe (PfE), stating that it is not a pro-Putin group. Meanwhile, the mainstream EP political groups are working to completely exclude PfE MEPs from parliamentary work for the next five years.
Climate change has a significant impact on global agriculture, with environmental changes collectively causing further long-term food inflation in the future. This can be mitigated through adaptation, modernizing agricultural irrigation systems, breeding new stress-tolerant crop varieties, and using precision tools, according to an article by researcher of the MCC Climate Policy Institute Erik Kovács.
DeMuth emphasized the core principles of national conservatism: advocating for sovereign nations with secure borders, promoting welfare for all citizens, and ensuring a government actively concerned with maintaining a healthy culture. Over the past five years, the movement has gained significant traction, he reminded, noting that it is now achieving success in the voting booths and is becoming mainstream. DeMuth also underscored the movement’s alignment with the Freedom Conservatism Statement of Principles.
As more and more people from his own party call on President Biden to step aside, President Trump’s victory in the 2024 US presidential election seems more certain by the day. However, how much can one trust polling data after what happened in 2016 and 2022?
A rare opinion piece has been published by Die Welt recently discussing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s peace mission that kicked off last week. The article concludes that Orbán ‘deserves a chance’ and is doing more for peace than those in Washington and Brussels who criticize him.
The Metrodome Group, active in the Budapest real estate market since 1996, is opening its first representative office in Israel to offer investment opportunities in the Hungarian capital to Israeli investors. Among the many positive arguments in favour of Budapest, one that stands out is that Hungary remains one of the safest countries for the Jewish community in Europe.
According to Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Education Yevhen Kudriavets, 3,500 educational institutions have suffered some kind of damage and nearly 400 have been completely destroyed since the beginning of the Russian invasion. Currently, Ukraine’s first underground school is being built in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, with the aim of children being able to attend in-person classes from September. Altogether, ten underground schools will be built across the region, five being already under construction and expected to open in the autumn.
The minister highlighted that low inflation has triggered a positive chain reaction in the national economy, with its beneficial effects increasingly felt by Hungarian families and businesses.
‘The first units of the First Crusade, and then the main army led by Godfrey of Bouillon, did cross the Hungarian Kingdom, but by then King Coloman was on the throne, the successor of Ladislaus. It was also well known that the only Hungarian-led crusade to the Holy Land was launched in 1217 under King Andrew II. Yet Hungarian medieval narrative sources record one more. They tell an interesting and controversial story about King Saint Ladislaus…Given the fact that the Hungarian king died on 29 July 1095, almost half a year before the first Crusade was announced at the Council of Clermont in November 1095, modern scholarship quickly lost confidence in the historicity of the account.’
‘The deep state is nothing new, for it has existed throughout history and in different forms. What is new is the paranoia and the theories that are swarming around in the U.S., when in fact the deep state, if that is what some wish to call it, does not really care who holds onto power…The irony of Trump’s crusade against the deep state is that he will need to create a deep state to accomplish this, i.e., a powerful bureaucracy loyal to him over the country’s federal agencies.’
The Nézőpont Institute compared how EPP MEPs voted on five highly significant issues in the previous European parliamentary term, how Hungarians view these issues, and how the new right-wing party family, Patriots for Europe, which issued its Patriotic Manifesto on 30 June, aligns with these views.
‘It took Hungary 14 years to achieve decisive changes in cultural education. Similarly, we will need time to create a substantial cultural and political movement to bring about meaningful legal changes.’
In December last year a new law created a distinct category for ‘EU minorities’ in Ukraine (such as the Hungarian and Romanian ethnic minorities) that now have access to more privileges than for instance the Russian minority. Later, as a sign of goodwill to better relations, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó visited Ukraine. Now, with the meeting between Orbán and Zelenskyy the two country’s relationship is officially warming up. If in the long-term Budapest does manage to considerably contribute to peace between Russia and Ukraine, as it clearly intends to, it might have a long-lasting positive impact on bilateral relations.
After just one week since its foundation, Patriots for Europe (PfE) has been officially accredited as a political group in the new European Parliament. With 84 MEPs from 12 member states, PFE has become the third-largest EP group and the biggest patriotic force in Europe.
The government will support households with up to 5 million HUF per property in the production and storage of green energy by installing solar panels.
The New Popular Front, an electoral alliance including the far left, has won the second round of the French National Assembly elections. Despite finishing third, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is the real winner of the elections, with the right-wing party becoming France’s largest party, strengthening its position in parliament, and looking ahead to the 2027 presidential elections with good chances.
‘The left and progressives are following the same strategy everywhere in Europe. Scholz, in 2023, said he hoped to naturalize two million immigrants and soften the immigration law to attract up to 400,000 non-EU immigrants. In Spain we experienced it a few months ago, when the fact of regularizing half a million people was supported with the positive vote of all parties except Vox. The real problem will emerge when these illegal immigrants start to create their parties and win elections.’
A clip of PM Orbán of Hungary citing George Soros’ European migration plan published in 2015 in Project Syndicate was recently shared on the social media site X in reference to the election results in the United Kingdom and France, and garnered over 25,000 likes within 12 hours.
On the afternoon of 8 July, Patriots for Europe, the sovereigntist alliance recently founded by Viktor Orbán, Herbert Kickl, and Andrej Babiš, is to officially become a political group in the European Parliament. Over the weekend, several right-wing parties across Europe announced their accession. With the arrival of Marine Le Pen’s RN and, most likely, with Salvini’s League, Patriots for Europe are set to overtake Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) as third largest group in the EP.