Tag: Viktor Orban

Hungarian army prepares for border defence

The Hungarian army has started military drills to prepare its soldiers for service at the southern border amid the unfolding refugee crisis, Chief of Staff General Tibor Benko said, according to MTI news agency.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said legislation to deploy the army could not be passed before the end of September, although actions to increase the speed of a border fence should be expected.

“Everyone has to get ready to do intensive work in the coming weeks,” Orban told a Hungarian newspaper, reported AFP news agency.

Soldiers joined by police will be charged with to bringing the border, which is currently crossed daily by thousands of refugees and migrants from Serbia, under control.

The exercise comes amid record numbers of migrants and refugees crossing into the central European country in a bid to enter the EU and declare asylum. Many of them are fleeing war-torn countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, and heading for Germany via Austria.

Hundreds of migrants broke through police lines in Hungary near the Serbian border Wednesday for a third day running, as the army began mobilising.

The break-out involving at least 400 migrants took place near the flashpoint town of Roszke, where migrants have to wait at a collection point before being taken to a nearby centre for registration.

Shouting “No camp!” they scattered in all directions, some heading for a nearby motorway leading to Budapest, which police then temporarily closed down.

Meanwhile, Hungary’s response to the refugee crisis has been criticized by human rights watchdogs, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

‘Refugees threaten Europe’s Christian roots’

The influx of refugees into Europe threatens to undermine the continent’s Christian roots and governments must control their borders before they can decide how many asylum seekers they can take, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.

In an opinion piece for Germany’s Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung, Orban said the people of Europe were at odds with the majority of governments on the refugee crisis.

“The people want us to master the situation and protect our borders,” he wrote. “Only when we have protected our borders can questions be asked about the numbers of people we can take in, or whether there should be quotas.”

Hungary is building a 175 km (110-mile) long fence along its border with Serbia to keep out an accelerating flow of migrants entering from the south.

Orban said his country was being “overrun” with refugees, adding most were not Christians, but Muslims.

“That is an important question, because Europe and European culture have Christian roots. Or is it not already and in itself alarming that Europe’s Christian culture is barely in a position to uphold Europe’s own Christian values?” he asked.

Source: Reuters

Europe threatened by ‘depth of Africa’

“The question now is not merely what kind of Europe we, Hungarians would like to live in, but whether that which we call Europe today will at all survive”, Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán said in a speech to students.

“Our answer is clear: we would like Europe to be preserved for the Europeans”, he added. The Hungarian Prime Minister emphasized that modern-day mass migration is a consequence of political processes.

In his view, the real threat is not coming from war zones, but from the depths of Africa. The Hungarian Premier criticized harshly both the European and Hungarian left-wing elites, which, he said, do not perceive immigration as a source of danger but as an opportunity.

According to Viktor Orbán, the left believes that the escalation of migration may definitively debilitate, or even eliminate, national boundaries, and this would constitute the attainment of the long-term objective of the left in a historical perspective.

“While the Hungarian left incited against Hungarians beyond the borders in 2004, they would today readily embrace illegal migrants, and would await them with open arms. These people, these politicians quite simply do not like the Hungarian people”, Orbán concluded.

He added: if the left had been given the chance to form a government in 2014, “within a year or two, we would not recognise our country; we would be like a refugee camp”.

As for the fence on Hungary’s border with Serbia, it will be built by 31 August; any other dates are invalid, Viktor Orbán announced. “Based on experiences to date, the number of illegal border-crossers decreases to one-sixth to one-seventh immediately after the construction of such border fences. I am expecting a large-scale improvement as a result of this measure”, he said.

Viktor Orbán also informed his audience of the results of the national consultation on immigration and terrorism.

He pointed out that 1,000,254 questionnaires were completed and sent back, and according to the results, 95 per cent take the view that Hungarian families and the children to be born should be supported, instead of immigration.

More than two thirds of Hungarian people find the issue of the spread of terrorism relevant to their own lives.

Three quarters of them believe that illegal migrants are a threat to the jobs and livelihood of the Hungarian people.

Four fifths take the view that the policy of Brussels regarding immigration and terrorism has failed, he said.

Hungary joins Silk Road

Hungary has become the first European country to sign a memorandum of understanding with China on promoting the Silk Road Economic Belt and Maritime Silk Road, China media report. The MoU was signed on Sunday, during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Budapest, where he met with Prime Minister Viktor Orban. In a statement on the occasion, Wang said he hopes more European countries will join in.

Hungary may be the first country in Europe to officially sign an MoU relating to China’s “One Belt, One Road” strategy, but the subject has cropped up repeatedly during Chinese interactions with Europe. When Xi Jinping toured Europe in April 2014, with stops in The Netherlands, France, Germany, and Belgium, he urged the EU and China to work together to combine EU policies with China’s Belt and Road. When Li Keqiang attended the China-Central and Eastern European (CEE) Leaders’ Meeting in Serbia in December 2014, he also highlighted the role Europe has to play in the Belt and Road – and the role China can play in completing infrastructure and energy projects in Central and Eastern Europe under the aegis of that initiative.

More recently, during Xi’s visits to Russia and Belarus this May, both countries agreed to work with China on the Silk Road Economic Belt. Belarus agreed to the project hoping to win Chinese infrastructure investments, while Russia promised to link its new Eurasia Economic Union with China’s Belt and Road.

While the Belt and Road are often discussed primarily in the context of China’s near neighbors – particularly Southeast and Central Asia – Beijing has long been clear about the importance of Europe, particularly Central and Eastern Europe, to the project. A few months after Xi Jinping first unveiled the twin Belt and Road concepts in speeches in Kazakhstan (September 2013) and Indonesia (October 2013), Li extended the Belt and Road all the way to Europe during a November 2013 visit to Romania.

Likewise, the official action plan for the Belt and Road, issues by Chinese government agencies in March 2015, described the Silk Road as “a new Eurasian Land Bridge” that “focuses on bringing together China, Central Asia, Russia, and Europe.” That means the Belt and Road, by China’s own definition, will be incomplete without buy-in from European countries. And Central and Eastern European countries in particular have a special role to play. As Xinhua put it on Monday, “CEE nations will be essential links in the Belt and Road Initiative.”

European countries, like many of the Asian supporters of the Belt and Road, are primarily focused on the economics. “Chinese firms have invested more than 5 billion U.S. dollars in CEE countries in sectors such as energy, infrastructure and machinery,” Xinhua reports. In coming years, China will build a high-speed railway connecting Hungary and Serbia and construct two nuclear reactors at a Romanian nuclear power plant. According to U.S. law firm Baker and McKenzie, Chinese investment in Europe doubled from 2013 to 2014, reaching $18 billion.

In other words, the Silk Road in Europe was alive and well before Hungary signed the MoU – and it will only continue to grow as more government agreements officially tie existing investments and initiatives to China’s Belt and Road strategy.

Source: The Diplomat

EU reportedly moves to block Russia-Hungary nuclear deal

The European Union is opposing a multibillion deal under which Hungary is to buy nuclear fuel rods from Russia for its old Paks nuclear power plant. Some media claim the deal has been blocked, though Budapest denies the reports.

Russian nuclear engineers are to build two new reactors with combined capacity of 1,200 megawatts at Hungary’s only nuclear power plant, which currently has four reactors. The deal signed last year involves a €10-billion loan that Moscow offered to Budapest on condition that the money would pay for the equipment, RT reported.

The new reactors would have to be loaded with Russian-made fuel rods, which is a matter of safety for the new reactors. However EU’s nuclear fuel purchasing agency Euratom is opposing the exclusive deal. The Financial Times reported Thursday that the European Commission last week backed Euroatom’s decision to block the deal.

The blockage was not immediately confirmed by European or Russian officials. Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs rejected the FT report and said Budapest would demand that the newspaper publish a retraction.

Hungary is among EU members opposing Brussels’ drive to break ties with Russia over the ongoing Ukrainian crisis. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is a vocal opponent of EU sanctions against Moscow, which have led to a trade war between Russia and Europe.

Orbán maintains his maverick position towards EU anti-Russian policies, which he views as harmful for Europe and imposed under pressure from Washington. Critics accuse him of authoritarian trends, with hawkish US Senator John McCain going as far as calling him a “neo-fascist dictator.”

Amid the criticism both at home and abroad, the PM’s Fidesz party won last year’s general election with a landslide victory, receiving almost 45 percent of votes.

However, Andras Giro-Szasz, Hungary’s state secretary responsible for government communications, has firmly denied the report of the EU veto or other prohibitive fines on its nuclear projects with Russia, in a statement to Hungarian state news agency MTI.

“It is not true that the EU has blocked the Paks II construction,” Giro-Szasz told the news agency AFP.

On Thursday, the Financial Times reported that EU has blocked the Hungary-Russia nuclear deal and its EU nuclear body, Euratom, has refused Hungary’s plans to import nuclear fuel from Russia.

Putin heads for Hungary

Vladimir Putin has chosen Hungary for his first state visit to an EU state since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis a year ago. Energy issues are expected to top the agenda, yet the Russian leader usually has an ace up his sleeve.

The Russian president’s visit to Hungary is keeping EU officials in Brussels guessing about what sort of deals exactly are going to be signed in Budapest.

Putin is visiting Prime Minister Viktor Orban at a time of unprecedented confrontation between the western world and Russia over the bloody conflict in Ukraine.

The EU has broadened its anti-Russian sanctions on Monday, expanding the blacklist with 19 more people and nine new companies. The EU blacklist now includes 151 citizens of Russia and Ukraine’s self-proclaimed eastern republics, as well as 37 Russian companies.

The Kremlin press service said that talks of the Russian and Hungarian leaders will focus on bilateral economic and trade relations, and in particular the nuclear energy deal signed in December.

Under a deal worth up to €10 billion, Russia’s Rosatom will build a 2,000 megawatt addition to Hungary’s state-owned nuclear power plant MVM Paksi Atomeromu.

Orban is famous for his skeptical attitude towards many European Union’s policies, particularly Brussels’ siding with the US in the sanctions against Russia, a campaign that damages ailing European economies.

Despite all the accusations, Orban’s Fidesz party won last year’s general election with a landslide victory, receiving practically 45 percent of votes and securing Orban’s third term as the Hungarian prime minister.

Prime Minister’s supporters view his action as defending Hungary’s national interests against agendas of international corporations and foreign governments. Among the biggest successes of the Orban government was the law that forced conversion of mortgages denominated in Swiss francs, which saved Hungarian borrowers from suffering a debt cost hike after Switzerland unpegged their currency from the euro, which resulted in sharp 20 percent gain in value.

Hungary breaks ranks with EU

Hajra, magyarok! Hajra Magyarorszag! Hungary has broken ranks with the European Union and may it’s spirited defiance continue.

Not long ago Hungary was being toasted in the West for opening its border with Austria to East Germans. This bold move led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

But Western elites are not happy with the independently minded Budapest any longer. But bullying Hungary does not make many headlines because it’s so-called “democratic” Westerners doing the bullying.

The Hungarian parliament approved a law to build the South Stream gas pipeline from Russia without the approval of the European Union, and the ruling Fidesz Party largely ignoring enraged foreign owned banks and energy companies.

The refusal of Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Fidesz to join the new US and EU Cold War against Russia has been met with anger and rage in Washington and Brussels.

Hungarian officials have been banned from entering the US, while the European Commission is trying to pressure the authorities on South Stream with legal action against the Hungarian government for its law restricting the rights of foreigners to buy agricultural land.

Viktor Orban is a nationalist and a conservative but that doesn’t really matter. Only obsequious servility to Uncle Sam and the Euro-elites matter, all in the name of “freedom” and “democracy.”

Fidesz returned to power in 2010. The previous Socialist administration was hugely popular in the West because it played lapdog to Washington and Brussels and the international banks, even taking out an unnecessary IMF loan.

Fidesz and its coalition allies, the Christian Democratic People’s Party, (KDNP) rather introduced a $855m bank tax, the highest in Europe, leaving the financial elite foaming at the mouth.

Orban clashed with the IMF too, with his government rejecting new loan terms in 2012, and paying off early a loan taken out by the previous government, to reduce interest payments.

Russia is Hungary’s third biggest trading partner and ties between the two countries have strengthened in the last couple of years, to the consternation of western Russophobes. In April, a deal was struck for Moscow to loan Hungary €10 billion to help upgrade its nuclear plant at Paks.

Orban’s policy of improving trade and business links with Russia, while staying a member of the EU and NATO, has however been put under increasing strain by the new hostile policy towards Moscow from Washington and Brussels.

Orban also spoke up for rights of the 200,000 strong Hungarian community living in Ukraine.”Ukraine can neither be stable, nor democratic, if it does not give its minorities, including Hungarians, their due. That is dual citizenship, collective rights and autonomy.”

Hungary’s Ambassador was immediately summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Kiev. Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland – the US’s most obedient servant in Eastern Europe – quickly called Orban’s comments “unfortunate and disturbing” in order to impress his masters. Little did it matter that it was strictly none of Tusk’s business.

In August, Orban accurately described the sanctions policy of the West towards Russia as like “shooting oneself in the foot.”

In October, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto also questioned the sanctions on Russia, revealing that his country is losing 50 million forints a day due to the policy.

Hungary has made its position clear, but for daring to question EU and US policy, and for its rapprochement with Moscow, the country has been punished.

It’s democratically elected civilian government which enjoys high levels of public support, has ludicrously – and obscenely – been likened to military governments which have massacred their opponents. “From Hungary to Egypt, endless regulations and overt intimidation increasingly target civil society,” declared US President Barack Obama in September.

Last month there was another salvo fired at Hungary – it was announced that the US had banned six unnamed Hungarian government officials from entering America, citing concerns over corruption- without the US providing any proof of the corruption.

“At a certain point, the situation, if it continues this way, will deteriorate to the extent where it is impossible to work together as an ally,” warned the Charge D’Affaires of the US Embassy in Budapest, Andre Goodfriend.

The failure to provide any evidence, understandably caused outrage in Hungary. “The government of Hungary is somewhat baffled at the events that have unfolded because this is not the way friends deal with issues,” said Janos Lazar, Orban‘s chief of staff.

“I am inclined to think that it is a punishment for the fact that we talk to Russia,” said Gabor Stier, the head foreign policy editor of the leading Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet.

“America thinks that we are corrupt, but we are a sovereign state, and it is our business. Many people in the United States do not like that Viktor Orban is very independent…..Corruption is just an excuse.”

The 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by Transparency International, reveals that Latvia, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Bosnia-Herzegovina are all below Hungary, as indeed is Italy. Yet it’s Hungarian officials that the US is banning.

‘Is Hungary, the EU’s only dictatorship?’ asked Bloomberg View in April. The BBC ran a hostile piece on Orban and Fidesz in October entitled ‘Cracks Emerge in leading party’.

The piece looked forward to the end of Fidesz rule.

While earlier this week, the New York Times published an OpEd by Kati Marton, whose late husband Richard Holbrooke, was a leading US diplomat, entitled ‘Hungary’s Authoritarian Descent’.

You’d never guess that the Hungarian government wasn’t the flavor of the month in the West would you?

Will Hungary be the next country to be the target of a US/EU sponsored regime change?

Attacks on Orban and his government are sure to intensify but the more the West attacks, the more popular Orban becomes as the defender of Hungary’s national interests.

Hungary gave the West everything it wanted in 1989, and its “reformist” leadership was richly rewarded. But it seems that for the West it’s never enough.