Hungarian Conservative

While talking to the Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet, Ákos Bence Gát of the Danube Institute criticized the hectic and unreliable way the withholding and release of funds is ruled on by the EU. He also talked about Ukraine’s potential accession to the Union, which is the main agenda point of the ongoing EU Council meeting.

Arriving for the two-day EU summit, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary’s position is very clear. ‘When we talk about enlargement, the Hungarian stance states that it is a merit-based, sophisticated, legal procedure,’ he explained.

Talks with Ukraine on possible EU membership ‘right now are absurd, ridiculous, and unserious’, and the government will not support them. Right now no one knows what Ukraine’s accession would entail or how much territory or population would be integrated into the bloc, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in the debate of the ruling Fidesz party’s draft resolution on Ukraine’s accession talks.

The Tucker Carlson Network launched this Monday on the former Fox News host’s website. Subscriptions cost $9 a month, and the paid content will feature interviews, documentaries, and analysis; or, ‘facts and honesty every day’, as Tucker Carlson put it.

Meloni emphasized her familiarity with the views of the Hungarian Prime Minister, which diverge from those she holds concerning Ukraine’s accession to the European Union. However, she noted that, in her opinion, the inflexibility and strictness of the European Commission have led to the Hungarian Prime Minister’s perspectives.

Approximately a thousand guests, including numerous conservative public figures, politicians, business leaders, and influencers, gathered in Manhattan at the gala of one of the oldest Republican clubs in the United States.

Photographs and television footage from the inauguration revealed a meeting and exchange of words between PM Orbán of Hungary and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. According to the Hungarian PM’s chief press secretary, the two statesmen were discussing the ongoing negotiations about Ukraine’s potential EU accession.

The Security Service of Ukraine has confirmed that one of the concerns regarding Poroshenko’s trip was his planned meeting with Viktor Orbán, alleging that such encounters are exploited by Russian intelligence services to disseminate pro-Russian narratives.

According to estimates, in November Russia suffered over 900 casualties a day; thousands of Ukrainian civilians and more than 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the start of the invasion. It is clear that the cost of the war is becoming unbearably high.

‘Many Jewish citizens from European nations like Sweden are enduring levels of hostility that are non-existent in Hungary. In contrast, Yacov Hadas-Handelsman, the current Israeli ambassador to Hungary, earlier this year named Hungary as one of the safest nations for Jews to live in. Furthermore, the Jewish community in Hungary is not only thriving, but also one of the largest in Europe.’

‘Washington and the EU need to take an entirely different approach, one that may actually work, and that is facilitate a ceasefire. Convincing Zelensky to consider this does not necessarily mean that Ukraine is to give up on restoring its 1991 borders or on holding Putin’s government responsible for the death and destruction he has caused since invading the country.’

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Friday said it was a mistake for the European Commission to be pushing for EU leaders to put Ukraine’s European Union accession on the agenda, opining that the bloc should first sign a five to ten-year strategic partnership agreement with the country.

‘Once the power transition issue subsides, revenge is likely to become a central issue in Polish politics. Among the presumed incoming government’s proposals are journalistic purges and political show-trials, precisely the sort of banana-republic behavior anti-PiS voices have long alleged on the part of the outgoing government.’

The Hungarian state acquired the former Ministry of Finance building for 10 million euros in 2021, below the appraised value according to the valuation. Due to its location and high prestige, the actual value of the property is practically priceless.

Earlier this year, the EU reached a preliminary agreement with Hungary regarding judicial reforms, outlining specific milestones that the Orbán government must fulfil to access funds.

In general, the negative image of Hungary currently prevailing in Germany and Europe provides a summary explanatory model for why German conservatives have such reservations about Hungarian politics…When supporting Hungarian positions, German conservatives not only have to make significant discursive efforts, but sometimes also see the foundations of their own political projects as thereby threatened. The risk thus often seems too great for many.

The new Polish government is quite likely to not be able to deliver on many of its crucial election promises, which may create legitimacy problems. And this is far from being the only difficulty: if the new government is unable to change the laws that led the EU to launch the Article 7 and the so-called rule of law proceedings against Poland, there may be serious economic consequences for the country.

The payment would come as part of the Union’s RepowerEU plan, aimed to help Member States transition to green energy, thus would not come from the €36 billion of COVID recovery and cohesion funds suspended over supposed rule of law concerns.

The populist right-wing PVV party, known for its anti-immigration and Eurosceptic stances, won by far the most seats in the Dutch House of Representatives, 37, and got the largest share of the popular vote, 23.5 per cent, as well in last night’s special election. Party leader Geert Wilders is a long-time ally of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary.

After Hamas brutally attacked Israel on 7 October, the refugee camp on the shore of Lake Balaton in Hungary was converted into a safe haven for Israeli Jews who wanted to escape with their families from the horrors of war. The camp now houses around 250 people, including 100 children, most of whom have fled from Israel since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.

Two major British publications have alleged that the Hungarian government’s new billboard campaign promoting its national consultation, which depicts EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen along with Alex Soros, is actually antisemitic. That is despite the fact the Hungary has been one of Israel’s staunchest supporters in the Palestinian conflict, while antisemitic demonstrations are on the rise in the West.

‘The indiscriminate attack on 7 October that killed approximately twelve-hundred innocent Israeli citizens cannot go unpunished. Yet there are rules of war that need to be respected.’

According to the Hungarian government, ‘preserving the ethnic foundations is our joint responsibility’, and as long as that exists, the politics based on ethnic groups also has a future, the Hungarian prime minister said.

The objective of the exercise is to test the military’s readiness for and response to an imagined situation threatening Hungary’s security. Another goal is to test the capabilities of the civilian public administration when it comes to troop movements and logistics, the Hungarian Defence Minister noted.

According to the PM, while ‘lost sovereignty was in the focus of the last century’, Hungary regained its sovereignty at the end of the 20th century, so ‘this decade is about retaining that sovereignty’. The lesson that can be learned from the dissolution of the Socialist bloc and of the Soviet Union, Viktor Orbán suggested, is that ‘it is worth being radical, recalling the activism and courage of the system-changing Fidesz politicians.

While Turkish–Hungarian relations are based on mutual interests, Ankara regards Hungary as a strong ally, and a country that is linked to Turkey by a sense of kinship, according to Turkish Ambassador to Hungary Gülşen Karanis Ekşioğlu.

In his regular Friday morning interview with public Kossuth radio, Viktor Orbán addressed issues such as migration, the economy and Ukraine’s EU accession.

As Kenneth M. Pollack phrased in his The Hill article, ‘a ceasefire now would only lead to more war and more killing in the future.’ Pollack added that ‘when you reward an aggressor and prevent the attacked from fighting back, you simply encourage that aggressor to attack again, and encourage other would-be aggressors to do the same.’

The Hungarian Prime Minister and his team are clearly in a creative mood: they have published a funnily irreverent Star Wars-themed TikTok video, built on some key sentences in Viktor Orbán’s 23 October speech.

In his speech at the Summit of the Organization of Turkic States, Viktor Orbán stated that Europe is facing difficult dilemmas, and the answers provided will have a strong impact on the relationship between the Turkic world and the continent. The PM emphasized that from a European perspective, global security is currently in the worst condition since the end of the Cold War.