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.
It is important for Hungarians that China advocates for peace in the world, stated Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Monday in Beijing, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Budapest residents and tourists visiting the capital will enjoy the most spectacular fireworks display ever. More people will be able to enjoy the play of fire and light than before: instead of the previous 4.3 km, it will be visible for over five kilometres along the Danube, extending all the way to Margaret Island, and this time covering three central city bridges instead of two.
The integration of the countries of the region into the EU is a decades-long process, the positive outcome of which is still to be seen. Thus, the number of Eurosceptics in the region has multiplied in recent years. As a consequence of the protracted accession negotiations, which have not even started for several Western Balkan states, some countries in the region have forged closer economic, political, and cultural ties with non-EU actors.
‘The doubtful mind has been persuasive and embedded in modern Western culture. Therefore, it is important to understand the underlying psychological falsehood. Radical doubt only works as an abstract confusion which paralyses people into a void of distress. Additionally, doubt enhances the inability to make decisions and take responsibility for your actions. To be in a state of the doubtful mind, is to be in a state of looking back.’
‘The fate of American democracy—and democracy more broadly throughout the West—depends on social, cultural, demographic, and technological trends and changes that have been ongoing for quite some time now. It may perhaps be too late to reverse these trends, and the fixation on individual figures fails to address the real issues at hand. As history has shown, the unraveling of social cohesion, coupled with technological disruptions, erodes the very foundations of democratic systems.’
‘It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that same forces that saw the young turn out en masse for the far left Jeremy Corbyn in 2017 have begun to circle around Farage. Like Corbyn, he is an anti-politics figure for an anti-politics age. Like Corbyn, he scandalises the Westminster establishment.’
‘In 2014, then-Vice President Joe Biden opined that New York’s LaGuardia Airport ‘feels like it’s in some third-world country.’ Little has changed in the ensuing decade. If anything, the contrast between Europe and Asia’s airports and America’s has become starker. British airport consultancy Skytrax releases an annual ranking of global airports; in the 2024 edition, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (#24) is the only American representative in the top-25.’
‘The movie thus comes to a happy ending for the family involved (apart from the horrors experienced by the minors), but we are not relieved after watching it. Not only because we know that this is a true story, which makes it even more harrowing to follow. But also because by the end of the movie, we also learn (if we were not already aware before) that child sex trafficking is a huge global social issue, and one of the fastest growing businesses (comparable to drug trafficking) affecting millions of children, with millions of abusers and the U.S. authorities not seeming to be truly committed to eradicating it.’