Foreign pro-Palestinian demonstrators disrupted a conference in Budapest on Tuesday where Israel’s ambassador to Hungary Jakov Hadas-Handelsman was also speaking. At around the same time, anti-Israel graffiti flooded the Hungarian capital. For many months, such phenomena were unknown in Hungary, but now it seems that the conflict and hatred are being imported from abroad.
Giorgia Meloni has made it her mission to unite the European right after the European elections, effectively opposing the left-wing political groups in the new European Parliament. However, this will be a very difficult task: although they agree on a number of key issues, the two right-wing groups are divided on several matters, most notably foreign policy.
For the first time in its history, Hungary will host the most prestigious club football match, which has previously taken place in 32 stadiums across 28 cities in 15 countries. The Puskás Aréna, inaugurated in 2019, will host its third European cup final following the 2020 Super Cup match and last year’s Europa League final.
Hungarian Minister for National Economy Márton Nagy met with Philipp Haussmann, Deputy Chairman of the German Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, and Barbara Zollmann, Executive Board Member of the German–Hungarian Chamber of Industry and Commerce on Tuesday at his office. The minister emphasized that Germany is Hungary’s most important economic partner: German companies employ more than 220,000 people in Hungary, and Germany accounts for 24 per cent of Hungary’s foreign trade, making it the country’s number one trading partner.
‘Justice, equality before the law, and freedom. I have travelled the world and have not found a combination of values and structures that better support the flourishing of the human soul and human nature,’ János Csák remarked at the launch of his book titled Genius of America. The Minister of Culture and Innovation’s work delves into how liberty, freedom, and equality before the law have become the United States’ three most important values, and how Americans can rediscover happiness by overcoming the current profound divisions in society.
In his remarks to officials working in the US capital and foreign diplomats, Ambassador Takács pointed out that for the sake of Ukraine and its society, peace and a ceasefire are needed. The sooner negotiations aimed at this can begin, the fewer further casualties will have to be suffered. The Ambassador also emphasized the importance of NATO remaining a defensive alliance focusing on deterrence.
The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has sought arrest warrants for several leading Israeli politicians and members of the Hamas political leadership, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Allies of Israel, led by Viktor Orbán and Joe Biden, have described the prosecutor’s decision on the Jewish state’s leadership as absurd and shameful.
Gergely Karácsony confidently leads the race for the mayor of Budapest, according to a survey by the Publicus Institute: 46 per cent of all respondents would vote for him in the municipal elections on 9 June.
In a joint interview with General Gábor Böröndi granted to Index, Hungary’s Defence Minister Kristóf Szalay- Bobrovniczky stressed that Hungary’s autonomous, truly deployable and combat-ready armed forces are key to the country’s defence, because if a member state does not have a strong military, NATO membership is not sufficient protection.
Fico was shot in the town of Handlová after an off-site government meeting on 5 May. The pre-trial detention of the suspected perpetrator has been ordered by a Slovak court.
Eight adults were on the motorboat, five of whom—three men and two women—are still being searched for intensively, two were found dead. The ongoing investigation involves IT and water rescue experts. The aim is to determine if anyone is criminally responsible for the accident.
Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian President and a potential successor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, were reported dead following a helicopter crash in the northern area of the country on Sunday. The European Union, China, and Russia have already expressed their condolences, while the United States had remained silent at the time of writing. Israeli officials stated that the Jewish state was not involved in Raisi’s death.
Russia held its first three-day-long presidential election between 15–17 March 2024; 7 May marked the previous cabinet’s last day in office. The new appointments in the Russian cabinet are significant not only because they mark the Kremlin’s apparent preparation for a long war, but also because they provide a fresh insight into the power games played in Moscow.
While talking at the Sedona Forum, US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman called Hungary’s pro-peace approach to the Russo-Ukrainian war ‘a proposal for capitulation’. In response to him, the political director for the Prime Minister of Hungary Balázs Orbán asked: ‘Has the US strategy really been that effective over the past two years?’
In an interview with public media Minister of Energy Csaba Lantos informed that the recently concluded China-Hungary bilateral agreements cover, among others, nuclear research and development, training cooperation, expanding the electric vehicle charging network, and examining the possibility of creating a critically important connection between the Hungarian and Serbian oil pipeline systems.
The attempted assassination of Robert Fico has led to a significant rise in death threats against European leaders, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Máté Kocsis, the Fidesz parliamentary group leader, attributes this escalation partly to left-wing media, accusing them of mastering hate speech and biased reporting.
László Kövér stated that the 20th century has shown Hungarians that a liveable future cannot be achieved in the battlefields. The future is in the homes being built and in nurseries, kindergartens, and schools, not in destroyed, burnt-out towns, the House Speaker stressed.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary needs economic relations, not ideological ones, with both East and West in terms of future high technologies.
The Free Market Road Show was held in Budapest for the ninth time. At the ceremonial opening of the event, John O’Sullivan, president of the Danube Institute, presented the condensed Hungarian version of world-famous economist Friedrich A. Hayek’s (1899–1992) book The Road to Serfdom. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the publication of the Nobel Prize-winning economist’s work, the Danube Institute, under the auspices of the Austrian Economics Center, published the booklet in Hungarian with the aim of making Hayek’s most important teachings easily accessible to Hungarian students.
After months of negotiations, the Netherlands now has its most right-wing government in the country’s history. The coalition, including Geert Wilders’ PVV, has committed to implementing the strictest asylum policy ever, according to the coalition agreement presented on Thursday.
The district mayor of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode in Brussels, Emir Kir, issued an administrative order to prohibit the National Conservatism Conference (NatCon) scheduled for 16–17 April, citing ‘ensuring public safety’ as the reason. MCC, a co-organizer of the event, has now launched legal proceedings against Kir, claiming that the order violated the right of free speech.
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.
According to the findings of the Project Europe research by Századvég, public attitudes towards combat readiness in Europe significantly differ regarding armed conflict within or beyond national borders. According to the survey, 59 per cent of EU respondents would fight for their country within their own borders, while 27 per cent would not be willing to do so.
Speaking to the Hungarian media after the meeting, János Bóka evaluated that the past five-year institutional cycle has been fundamentally marked by failures in the European Union, which faced numerous historical challenges to which it failed to provide adequate responses.
Head Coach Marco Rossi has named his 26-player squad for Euro 2024, where his team Hungary will be facing hosts Germany, Switzerland, and Scotland in the group stage.
The North Carolina University’s board of trustees unanimously voted to dismantle their DEI programme, and instead use those funds for added campus police and security needed due to the pro-Palestine protests by students. Similar developments have come out of the state of Florida as well.
According to Slovak media, the assailant of Prime Minister Robert Fico is a 71-year-old man from Levice who kept a gun legally. PM Fico is currently undergoing life-saving surgery according to Slovak reports. Not long after the assassination attempt, Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán tweeted on X the following: ‘I was deeply shocked by the heinous attack against my friend, Prime Minister Robert Fico. We pray for his health and quick recovery! God bless him and his country!’
After months of negotiations, it appears that a right-wing government may soon be established in the Netherlands. Although Geert Wilders will not serve as the head of government, Viktor Orbán’s ally will still have a significant influence on the Dutch administration, given that he leads the largest party in parliament.
Russian President Vladimir Putin supports Beijing’s four-point peace plan for Ukraine, presented in April. However, peace seems further away than ever since the war’s outbreak, as Western leaders have adopted an increasingly aggressive stance ahead of the European elections.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni believes that the only viable path which takes everyone’s interests into account is to have a debate on how to stop illegal immigration into Europe. ‘The only serious approach involves cooperation with the origin and transit countries,’ she emphasized at a press event in Milan on Tuesday.