Hungarian Conservative

The reigning Hungarian champions Ferencváros beat out the Bosnian side FK Borac Banja Luka on penalties in the away leg, and thus qualified for the Europa League’s newly established league phase. Meanwhile, Puskás Akadémia also made it to the penalty shootout against the finalists of the last two Conference League campaigns, the Italian Fiorentina, but narrowly fell short this time.

Puskás Akadémia achieved an amazing 3–3 draw away to Fiorentina in the Conference League qualifying round on Thursday. The Hungarian side, relatively new to the European stage, is now in a promising position for next week’s return leg.

Paks are facing the Czech Mladá Boleslav, and Puskás Akadémia are facing the famous Italian team Fiorentina in the play-offs of the Conference League. Meanwhile, Ferencváros are the heavy favourites to beat the Bosnian side Borac Banja Luka and thus reach the newly established league phase of the Europa League.

The European Union will support arms shipments to Ukraine using a portion of the frozen Russian assets. The foreign ministers of the Member States decided on this issue on Monday, excluding Hungary from the decision-making process. Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó described the decision as a ‘shameless disregard of European rules’.

Conservatism is different in every nation, and so is approach to energy solutions. In this interview, Arvid Hallén, the founder of the only Swedish conservative think tank, Oikos, addresses these topics and also provides some background on Sweden’s NATO accession.

According to Csaba Lantos, over 28,000 people have already pre-registered for the Solar Energy Plus programme, with over 15,000 subsidy applications received so far for the installation of solar panels and accompanying green energy storage units.

Crucial milestones regarding the expansion of the nuclear plant in Paks are the construction of the containment structure and the reactor vessel, of which the former has been completed, while the manufacturing of the latter is set to commence shortly. It is expected to reach another milestone, the ‘first concrete’, by the end of this year.

State Secretary of the Ministry of Energy Gábor Czepek told former President János Áder in the latest episode of the Blue Planet podcast that the Hungarian government’s goal is to produce at least 50 per cent of electricity sustainably by the early 2030.

Allowing alternative sources of fuel to Paks is a step closer to diversifying Hungary’s energy resources. Meanwhile, the French company Framatome is the expected winner of the proposal to develop the control hardware of the power plant.

During a joint press conference with Alexey Likhachev, the head of the Russian nuclear energy company Rosatom, Péter Szijjártó welcomed the start of the construction of new reactors in Paks. He pointed out that the expansion is currently the largest nuclear project on the continent with a construction permit.

According to the ministry’s statement, Foreign Minister Szijjártó minister reported on the progress of the Paks project during a hearing of the Sustainable Development Committee of the National Assembly, welcoming the fact that the visible phase of the project is now underway.

US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman was quick to condemn PM Viktor Orbán’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing on the social media platform X., suggesting the Hungarian prime minister was ‘pleading for business deals’. In response, Balázs Orbán pointed out that the US has in fact doubled its import of enriched uranium from Russia since the start of the war.

‘Could Biden’s token [of shaking hands only with Orbán when arriving for the NATO group photo in Vilnius], as some experts suspect, have been an invitation to the Hungarian government to hop on board the US geopolitical bandwagon and forget the Chinese and Russian ones?’

‘Hungary has submitted the draft contract modifications to the European Commission, and we received the green light from them yesterday,’ Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó announced.

Gergely Gulyás spoke at a conference organised by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium and stated that Hungary’s dependence on the EU is not due to its 1.4 per cent contribution to the Hungarian GDP, but rather because Hungary is a part of a unified Europe and Schengen area, and the common market is essential for Hungary’s economy.

Energy Minister Csaba Lantos highlighted in a recent interview that the government would continue to subsidize gas prices for Hungarian households up to the level of average consumption.

With the expansion of the nuclear plant at Paks, the gas consumption of Hungary could be reduced to half.