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.
Minister for European Union Affairs János Bóka has been delegated to negotiate with Brussels about the €200 million fine Hungary received for failing to meet migrant quotas, Gergely Gulyás also revealed.
German newspaper Die Welt has obtained exclusive information on the planned composition of Ursula von der Leyen’s next Commission. Citing senior EU officials, the article outlines the potential commissioner-designates for key posts, presenting a scenario that could be bittersweet for Hungary over the next five years.
After a long time, Europe has the opportunity to take its future into its own hands, restore its long-lost prestige, and promote peace in Ukraine. Instead, Brussels has initiated a childish vendetta against Hungary over Viktor Orbán’s peace mission. Missing such opportunities out of hubris and pettiness demonstrates the utter incompetence of the EU leadership.
On 18 July the European Parliament re-elected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen with 401 votes in favour. In her speech before the vote, von der Leyen made numerous political promises for the next five years but also, of course, criticized Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s peace mission.
Orbán seems to have reached a compromise with exiting Dutch PM Mark Rutte about the latter’s NATO SecGen candidacy. But as for nominating von der Leyen again as next Commission President, Orbán, did not mince his words last night. He declared on X that ‘the will of the European people was ignored’ on Monday evening, and stated that the EPP eventually teamed up with ‘the socialists and the liberals’.
Manfred Weber, President of the European People’s Party, stated that the door is open for new opposition leader Péter Magyar’s party to join the European Parliamentary political group, but that he is not the sole decision-maker. The Hungarian Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) has announced that it will leave the EPP if the Tisza party joins the group.
According to information from POLITICO, EU leaders and some member states want to punish Hungary by giving the country a weak portfolio in the next European Commission. Hungary currently holds the position of Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, but tensions between Brussels and Budapest are rising due to Hungary’s resistance to Ukraine’s accession.
‘The history of European integration is in fact nothing more than the history of the power struggle of the EU institutions. The powers of the institutions at the core of the current EU have been in a constant state of flux since the beginning of the European project…’
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is in a stable but very serious condition after he was shot at point-blank range by a 71-year-old perpetrator, described as a poet and political activist in media reports, on Wednesday afternoon. The international community responded with shock to the news of the attempted assassination, as world leaders expressed their support for Slovakia.
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.