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 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.
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.
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.
‘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.’
The first panel discussion of the Geopolitical Summit discussed several aspects of democracy, and how conservatism fits into it in the ‘changing world order’. The panellists agreed that Western liberal elites have in many ways hijacked democracy.
‘Voters have been grossly ignored. The people of Budapest voted for change: in fact, most Budapesters rejected the Karácsony-led alliance. But now it seems that the backroom deals, and the distribution of positions, power, and money to incompetent cronies will continue to define Budapest’s leftist politics. The party with the most votes, Fidesz, has been entirely left out of the assembly-forming negotiations.’
‘Leaders who carry the banner of nationalism recognize that they need strong administrative, economic, and military incentives to shape their inhabitants into nations. Without this, their task to successfully contend with other states in the international environment would be in vain.’
‘Although the political forces thinking in terms of a European alternative failed to replace the Brussels Grand Coalition in the 2024 EP elections, there is a real chance that they could organize themselves into a new right-wing pole in the next five years, which could bring about a real systemic change in Brussels politics.’
‘The Hungarian presidency is focusing on finding real answers to real problems,’ Hungarian State Secretary for International Communication and Relations Zoltán Kovács stressed during a panel discussion on Thursday evening in Budapest. The event centred on the Hungarian EU presidency, with fellow panellist Enikő Győri, MEP for Patriots for Europe, adding that despite constant political attacks, the professional work of the Hungarian presidency has been widely praised in the corridors of Brussels.
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.