Day 2 of the Rule of Law as Lawfare Conference featured speeches by István Stumpf, a former justice on the Constitutional Court of Hungary, Aleksander Stępkowski, Supreme Court of Poland justice, and Dr Reinhard Merkel, law professor at Universität Hamburg.
The strengthening of bilateral relations has led to increased participation of Hungarian companies in Uzbekistan. A notable instance of this involvement is the successful acquisition by OTP Bank of a majority share in Ipoteka Bank, the fifth largest bank in Uzbekistan, in December 2021. This year’s Business Forum in Tashkent further deepened the participation of Hungarian companies in the Uzbek market through 137 business-to-business (B2B) and government-to-business (G2B) meetings. These meetings spanned several sectors, including banking, finance, agriculture, transport and logistics, mechanical engineering, pharmaceuticals, and water management, among others.
‘That Britain chose to join the EEC in 1975 was a tragedy. That it left the EU with the utmost incompetence in 2016 was a farce caused entirely by the Conservative Party’s inability to resolve the psychological trauma of three decades. In both instances, it is the British people who have suffered and they whose trust in politics to be a force for good has, as a consequence, been destroyed.’
‘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…’
The regulations of the new pact include, for instance, faster processing of asylum applications, more efficient return of those who do not have the right to stay in the EU, and solidarity in the distribution of migrants between Member States.
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.
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.
‘Viktor Orbán showed us that an alternative to the leftist, open-border government is not only possible but can be highly successful and popular amongst the people. That’s inspiring. However, for it to be a true success, the seeds planted by Hungary in the rest of Europe have to sprout as well. And that is not the responsibility of Viktor Orbán or the Hungarians, but of right-wing politicians in other countries.’
The European Broadcasting Union has not invited the right-wing Identity and Democracy and the European Conservatives and Reformists to the EP election debate scheduled for 23 May. The decision, explained on ridiculous grounds, is yet another sign that what is at stake at the upcoming European elections is to defend freedom of speech against the left-wing progressive dictatorship of opinion.
‘As opposed to the European mainstream, which proclaims multiculturalism but in reality wraps itself up in cultural arrogance, Hungary’s openness and pragmatic stance towards the seven eighths of the world that is outside the Western realm already confer an advantage upon us. If the framework of the world as we know it crumbles against our will, this cultural openness of ours may well supply the footing for us from which to enter the next period with confidence. For navigare necesse est—Sail we must.’