‘The cooperation between the National Council for Sustainable Development and the government has become exemplary with the adoption of the strategic framework. This cooperation is the guarantee for achieving our strategic goals in sustainability,’ Katalin Szili, the prime minister’s deputy chief adviser said, marking the tenth anniversary of the National Sustainable Development Framework Strategy.

The European Commission and Germany announced a deal that will permit the sale of combustion-engine cars running solely on synthetic e-fuels beyond 2035. The final vote of the EU Council on the regulation took place on 28 March.

Chris Rufo also issued a warning to his Budapest audience: just because CRT would not fit in the Hungarian historical context, does not mean it cannot be successfully propagated here, as it is not a theory that is overly concerned with logical consistency.

As far as social cohesion is concerned, Hungary made significant progress during the examined period: we improved by 16.9 index points in six years, which meant an advancement of five places (from 20th to 15th place). According to the Equilibrium Institute, we are primarily competing with the Finns and the Irish, with a score of 73.6.

Hungary has always been on the side of peace, but the country needs strength and preparation for its defence, and it must participate in peace-supporting operations within the framework of alliances.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited Belgrade, for talks with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić.

‘We are waiting for Swedish government officials to reassure members of the Hungarian parliament; our goal is to support Sweden’s NATO accession with the largest possible parliamentary majority, similarly to Finland’s,’ the political director of the prime minister said.

The NATO–Ukraine Foreign Ministers’ meeting will take place on 4–5 April in Brussels and it will not be a one-time event, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. He also added that Hungary’s concerns will be discussed.

Balázs Hidvéghi spoke up at a session of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), calling on the European Left to stop its incessant attacks on Poland.

European debates tend to ignore the fact that Hungarian politics—sometimes peculiar and certainly unusual to many Western observers—is not meant to curb liberties or enable oppression but, on the contrary, to further freedom and efforts to attain it.

Warsaw eagerly supported the USG commitment to increase American military presence in the region right from the start, as the country has been pushing for a stronger stance on Russia for years. With the additional 1,700 US troops that Poland welcomed this year, now there are 10, 000 American soldiers stationed in the country.

Demonstrating that the bond between the two states is more than just political declarations or self-interested cooperation, Hungary is marking the Day of Hungarian–Polish friendship with a series of cultural events across the country.

Press reports have claimed that the Hungarian Football Association successfully argued to UEFA that the disputed imagery represents unity among Hungarian communities across all borders, and displaying it is not an act of racism. Playsport.ro, however, obtained a letter sent by UEFA General Secretary Theodore Theodoridis to his counterpart at MLSZ, Márton Vági, in which he clarifies that the images in question are still not permitted.

Hungary managed to stay above the EU average with a fertility rate of 1.61 in 2021. This is also a sizable increase compared to the 1.23 figure the country reported in 2011.

Hungary did not veto a joint EU statement on Putin’s arrest warrant, the MFAT’s spokesperson stated on Monday evening. ‘Hungary has taken note of the ICC decision and does not wish to comment on it in any way,’ Máté Paczolay said.

Minister Navracsics reminded that the metro reconstruction was carried out in cooperation between the Hungarian government, the Municipality of Budapest and the European Union. Approximately two-thirds of the cost of the renovation was covered from EU funding and one-third has been financed from domestic sources, the minister added.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade was in Brussels to take part in the European Humanitarian Forum, where he talked about the excessive efforts Hungary has made to help over 1 million Ukrainian refugees, and another 1 million persecuted Christians around the world.

Both Nézőpont Intézet, typically associated with the governing party, and Medián, generally viewed as closer to the opposition, put Fidesz ahead of the strongest opposition party, the Democratic Coalition (DK), by over 35 percentage points.

Foreign Minister Szijjártó welcomed the fact that Hungary and France have a cooperation based on common sense, and also reminded that French companies make up the sixth-largest investor community in Hungary. In the past eight years, 34 major French corporate investments have received financial support from the government.

The payment of EU funds allocated to Hungary in the 2021–2027 budget cycle was suspended in December 2022. The suspension, however, does not mean a loss of resources. In other words, the path is clear for Hungary: defying the political headwind, it can set a model for the EU as a whole, as to how its financial interests can be protected by means of the rule of law.

In a Facebook post on Friday afternoon, Fidesz’s parliamentary group leader Máté Kocsis said his party is backing Finland’s accession and that the vote in parliament to ratify it would be held on 27 March.

Originally, the Romanian Football Federation awarded a 3-0 victory for Sepsi OSK after the game played in late January had to be called off due to anti-Hungarian chants from the visiting Craiova fans. However, the decision was overturned on appeal and the match had to be replayed — which Sepsi won by an even bigger margin on the pitch, 4-0…

‘We believe in connectivity, relationships, and cooperation based on mutual respect. I think the Organization of Turkic States is an excellent example of all this because it includes Caucasians, Central Asians, and Europeans, and we all know how to cooperate with respect,’ Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told the audience at an event in Ankara, Turkey.

As customary, this year, too, all major party leaders in Hungary delivered remarks. The messages of the various politicians on the lessons for today of Hungary’s revolutionary and heroic past could not have been more diverse.

At the meeting, the parties agreed to strengthen cooperation. They also shared the view that government support needs to be provided in order to protect Hungary’s strategically important automotive industry and preserve jobs.

‘Every investment that started with the support of the Hungarian government will be completed, whether it is the construction of a kindergarten, nursery, school, university, community spaces, or the renovation of a church.’

The Prime Minister reminded that when asked what gives higher meaning to finite life and to the homeland, Petőfi provided the answer: ‘Stand up, Hungarian! Shall we be slaves or free? Long live the free and independent Hungary!’

As part of the new cooperation agreement between the two institutions, each year four researchers from the Heritage Foundation will visit Budapest and work with the Danube Institute as visiting researchers.

As part of the ‘DiscoverEU’ programme within the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme, more than 212,000 tickets have been distributed in the previous seven application rounds, and almost 25,000 Hungarian applicants have been allocated nearly 5,000 passes.

The Orbán administration has committed to spending at least two per cent of the country’s GDP on defence by the end of 2024, a commitment made in 2014 by all NATO members but something many NATO countries have not yet honoured. Hungary, in fact, is set to achieve the two per cent threshold by the end of this year, before the deadline.